In Thursday’s (1/26) Charlotte Observer, Steven Brown writes, “Charlotte’s cultural groups, like those everywhere, want to pull more people through their doors. The Charlotte Symphony has a concert series aimed at classical-music newcomers. The symphony, opera and N.C. Dance Theatre will join forces in a Tchaikovsky festival in March, hoping to cross-fertilize audiences. … Outreach like this is a growing movement across the United States. The Chicago Symphony created a format it called Beyond the Score: A ‘live documentary’ about a great musical work, including video and comments by the conductor, before a performance. … The [Charlotte] opera, symphony and NCDT hope their joint Tchaikovsky festival in March will entice people who are familiar with one of the groups to sample the others. … All three groups will share the stage in a Tchaikovsky program on the orchestra’s KnightSounds series. That series, in its third year, is the orchestra’s biggest outreach effort. The concerts are shorter, the conductor chats from the podium about the music and the concerts often include multimedia. The KnightSounds concerts have generally been sellouts or close to it. And around 30 percent of the people turning up have been new to the orchestra, leaders say.”
Posted January 27, 2012
