by Kevin McLaughlin
Unfinished works seem to be held in higher esteem for their being incomplete — the remaining music feeling more precious, conscious as we are of what else might have been lost. How to explain then, the impact of Mozart’s Mass in c, K. 427, lacking an Agnus Dei and missing half of its Credo, and yet seeming gloriously whole in its current state?
On Saturday, May 11 at EJ Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Wilkins ended its 2023-24 season at an apex with Mozart’s “Great” Mass and works by French composers Lili Boulanger and Maurice Ravel.
The Akron Symphony fully embraced tradition with its opening-night concert this season. In an all-out performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on September 29 at E.J. Thomas Hall, the Orchestra was recreating a major moment from its history. And at the end of the evening, as the finale of the “Ode to Joy” resounded throughout the hall, the program transformed into a complete celebration.
There was an unspoken tension between the composers on the Akron Symphony’s January 18 concert. Gustav Mahler’s hour-plus Fifth Symphony dominated the one-night-only program at E.J. Thomas Hall, which also featured an uncharacteristically short work by Richard Wagner — no slouch when it comes to profundity and grand gestures in his own music. Yet Wagner’s somewhat humble place on the program provided a conceptual key to Mahler’s self-contained, sometimes overwhelming symphony.
Programming a concert is like working out a puzzle. And if one of the pieces is Mahler’s 
It’s a rare treat to hear two excellent orchestra members out front as soloists in a single concert. In a program titled “The Four Seasons” on November 16 at E.J. Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony and music director Christopher Wilkins featured concertmaster Tallie Brunfelt and principal horn Meghan Guegold in well-loved concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and Richard Strauss alongside works by Joseph Haydn and Gabriela Lena Frank.
This weekend, the Akron Symphony will spotlight two of its own. Concertmaster Tallie Brunfelt will take on the quadruple challenge of Vivaldi’s 
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in August of 1920, and leading up to the 100th anniversary of that event, the Akron Symphony is highlighting six women composers through a project called “Stand Beside Her.”
Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins has long had an interest in theater. “I’ve kept my eye out for theater-related projects for years and years and years,” he said during an interview.
When inclement weather forced the cancellation of the Akron Symphony’s January 2019 concert, the solution was simple: reschedule the all-Russian program as the opening concert for the following season. On Saturday, September 21 in E.J. Thomas Hall, guest conductor Benjamin Zander and the ASO presented that program, and the results were worth waiting for. Throughout the evening the strings were supple and full-bodied. The winds sparkled. The brass were majestic.