The Score | Beer and Orchestras

Beer has never exactly gone out of style, but with all the local breweries sprouting up, many orchestras have been holding music-and-beer-themed events. This season featured at least five: Minnesota’s Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra partnered with Duluth-based Bent Paddle Brewing Company to create DüsselDirk Altbier, a German-style beer named after Music Director Dirk Meyer, a native of Germany. Plans for the beer had been in the works since Meyer’s arrival six years ago, when the DSSO held its first “Beerthoven” event (Beer and Beethoven) event. In Kansas, the Wichita Symphony teamed with Central Standard Brewing to create a pale ale named Peace & Jollity, commissioned to coincide with its April performances of Holst’s The Planets featuring film from NASA and the European Space Agency. The ale is inspired by two movements from the Holst: Venus, the Bringer of Peace, and Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. The Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s three-concert HSO: Intermix Series this season at multiple venues featured a program at Hog River Brewing Co., with beer included in the ticket price and featuring music by Connecticut resident Thomas Schuttenhelm plus Jennifer Higdon, Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. The ­Chicago ­Sinfonietta’s “Tap Takeover” at Lagunitas Brewing Company this winter was a music-food-brews event benefiting the orchestra’s education and community engagement programs. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra regularly hosts events at the Icehouse in Minneapolis, where the price of a concert ticket includes a drink—tap beer, wine, cocktail, or non-alcoholic beverages. This winter a quartet from the orchestra performed Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin’s Raisins and Almonds and Budget Bulgar for Violin and Viola; Kodály’s Serenade for Two Violins and Viola; and Beethoven’s Serenade in D Major, Op. 8.