Ask any member of the Naples Community Orchestra what they did this summer and the answer is likely: Practice.  

The orchestra and its music director, Alvin Ho, have announced its most musically rigorous season yet, with Wagner warhorses, a heavyweight choral Requiem by Gabriel Faure and Mendelssohn’s double-espresso Symphony No. 4, the “Italian.” 

Ho acknowledges the challenges of the Requiem. But it checked off every box for him, including as a subtle teaching mechanism for the orchestra. 

“I think it’s very important for orchestras to play with voices, because, after all, what we do is imitate the human voice,” Ho said. “What better way than to accompany chorus, and also singers? They are to help us build more vocality in our playing — character, narrative, all those things. It’s going to be helpful.” 

Another contributing factor is that the orchestra’s concerts are in one of the most acoustically sensitive spaces in town, Moorings Presbyterian Church, which will make the Requiem an audial delight for the audience.  

“And it’s at the time of Easter,” he concluded, “so we have something for everybody to reflect on, also. So it’s a bit of everything.” 

And not at the bottom of this list: It’s a sublime masterpiece of music, so anticipated that it premiered, not in church, but at the Trocadero in Paris.  

Music director Alvin Ho

Shoutout to the brass 

 The Feb. 21 concert contains a segment of arias, as well, along with Richard Wagner’s Overture to Tannhäuser. The latter doesn’t contain vocals, but it does promise a featured spot for the orchestra’s brass, which Ho said has “really made significant improvement. With a piece like Tannhäuser you need a fantastic brass.” 

Ho likes bringing a work or two that isn’t getting the attention he feels it warrants, such as Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. which is on the March 21 program. 

 “We’re actually playing less and less Schumann, for some strange reason, in the symphonic canon repertoire,” he said. “I’m talking not just Naples, but many places somehow.  

 “Schumann is such a wonderful genius composer with all these fantasies, so I thought we really should try it.” 

 The uninitiated won’t hear this symphony without some enlightenment. Ho gives the audience history, even some humor, behind the work they’re about to hear.  

 “We make it like an experience. It’s not just you go and sit in a hall and listen to a concert. There is some kind of introduction, and we try to do it beforehand so people know what to expect … and afterwards we have an event, a gathering, so we can discuss it.” 

Naples Community Orchestra, under Ho, has enriched its sound with compensated musicians proficient in the hard-to-find double-reed instruments like the oboe and bassoon. There are also some professional music teachers in that group, and estimates have the orchestra at 45% compensated. Still, even some section principals are there simply for their love of music. 

 “We have a good base now,” Ho declared. The audiences apparently agree. The orchestra played to capacity houses in 2025, with subscriptions up 186% over the previous year. With just an email notice, it is already working toward 20% of the house sold for the 2026 season. 

 In fairness, these aren’t just emails. Board member and NCO clarinetist Joe Duffy handles communications and times bulletins in a chatty style, occasionally creating a confluence of prominent events in composer history and newsworthy events elsewhere. This gives the reader an entertaining mashup, for instance, of Gustav Mahler and Jesse James.  

Naples Community Orchestra violinist Natalia Rosales

Democracy in programming 

Programming also comes from open discussion among the orchestra’s board and Ho. 

 “We call it sometimes the war room, where we debate a little bit,” he said with chuckle. But he feels the entire group is dedicated to high standards: “We think about, ‘Really, what are we giving?’  

 “It’s not just that we’re making four concerts and let’s do the legwork and put everything together. But it’s to think about themes — why we make this theme for a certain concert, what the people are looking for, what would be very interesting to them to see and hear.” 

 Duffy called his analysis too modest. 

 “Alvin is a large part of our success. He’s driving the bus,” he observed. “He has the artistic vision, has driven improvements on quality, [and] not only to personnel.  

 “I practice religiously with a metronome now. The man’s a walking metronome,” Duffy conceded. “But what you get with that is precision. That goes throughout: phrasing, intonation, everything. He’s incredibly demanding. But his demeanor is so nice. Everybody loves Alvin — not only the audiences but the musicians.” 

 NCO is offering both season ($145) and single 2026 ($45) tickets at its website, naplescommunityorchestra.org. All concerts are at 3 p.m. at Moorings Presbyterian Church, 791 Harbour Drive, Naples, and are followed by a reception.

Clarinetist Joe Duffy knots the bowtie for cellist Gabriel Hernandez, a student scholarship musician from the Music Foundation of Greater Naples.

The season is as follows: 

Jan. 24 – Méditerranéan Mezze 

• Hector Berlioz: Le carnaval romain ouverture (Roman Carnival Overture), Op. 9 

• Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, Italian 

• Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Guitar Concerto No. 1, Op. 99 

• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Cappricio Espanol, Op. 34 

 Feb. 21 – Opera à la carte 

• Giuseppi Verdi: Overture to La Forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) 

• Ludwig van Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72b 

• Pietro Mascagni: Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana 

• Richard Wagner: Prelude to Act I of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) 

• Select arias to be announced 

March 21 – Germanfest 

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Overture to Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K.620 

• Richard Wagner: Overture to Tannhäuser 

• Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 

April 11 – French Suites 

• Claude Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) 

• Maurice Ravel: Suite from Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) 

• Gabriel Fauré: Requiem Mass, Op. 48