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The biggest cultural news in our region broke a short while ago with the announcement that DIANE WITTRY will be retiring as Music Director of The Allentown Symphony in May 2028. She will conduct all of 2026-27 and the opening concert of 2027-28, allowing the rest of that season to be conducted by potential successors. Maestra Wittry assumed the podium over three decades ago, and she has led the ASO in an extraordinary period of musical and popular growth for the ensemble.

Full disclosure: Diane and I have been good friends for years. So I really want to speak in a personal way about her achievements. It was a single performance which started our friendship about a decade ago. That concert featured a performance of the Bruch Violin Concerto #1 with former L’ARCHET Artist Timothy Chooi who had won the ASO’s Schadt Competition that year. I was impressed with how beautifully the ASO accompanied Timmy, but it was the following Beethoven Seventh Symphony that, as the kids say, blew me away.

Some of you may know that I grew up in Allentown and graduated from high school there in 1962—and left, effectively never to return, except for family visits. And I remember vividly the purely amateur status and performance level of the ASO which I first heard in 1961. Never did I dream that the ensemble could amount to much, even though it had distinguished professional conductors over the years. Forgive me for saying this, but the ASO was just awful in those days.

But what an extraordinary transformation under Diane! She had had two decades before I heard today’s ASO. And for someone like me who has walked out of many classical concerts in New York and elsewhere by highly touted professional performers because there was NO REAL MUSIC in what I heard, Diane’s Beethoven gave me a new life in musical art.

Through her leadership, the ASO has achieved its own original sound and a place among the most honored ensembles of the U.S. It is an orchestra with a deep spiritual dignity and is dedicated to the highest values of its art. This is all thanks to Diane, whose inexhaustible energy has also renewed the audience base of Miller Hall, established invaluable music education for young students, created musical outreach to previous unengaged ethnic groups in our region, sponsored performance and commissions of a new generation of serious performers—I could go on for pages.

And so, again speaking personally, I want to congratulate and thank Diane for her extraordinary tenure. She will continue her many activities as guest conductor, composer, and teacher of conducting. Needless to say, countless numbers of us will be listening.

Donald Dal Maso