The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is welcoming audiences back to its concert hall for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.

Conductor Xian Zhang and the more than 60 musicians of the New Jersey Symphony gave their first performance inside a concert hall at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in 19 months.

“The whole concert is about victory. Victory over anything that’s holding us back,” says Zhang.

To be on stage together with a live audience is a victory that came with sacrifice. Musicians and staff of the nonprofit orchestra took pay cuts during the pandemic. Now, as they return to open this season of performances, there is also new focus on works by a more diverse range of composers - including the orchestra's Daniel Bernard Roumain, a composer whose Voodoo Violin Concerto is part of the opening weekend repertoire.

Zhang says that rehearsals feel different since the pandemic. “Everybody had a sense of how precious this is, and how grateful we should be to be able to do this together."

The symphony will also perform the world premiere of “Emerge” by Michael Abels. They performed on Friday night and will perform again on Sunday.