The Score | Outdoor Overtures

It’s not just Lollapallooza. Big crowds have been turning out for orchestra concerts outdoors, which continues to be one of the safer environments for live music. On Independence Day weekend, the South Carolina Philharmonic drew a sellout crowd of 5,000 at Segra Park, usually home to the Columbia Fireflies minor-league baseball team. Music Director Morihiko Nakahara conducted music by John Williams, excerpts from West Side Story and Hamilton, plus Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever—with fireworks. Kentucky’s Owensboro Symphony performed a free concert before an estimated 3,000 listeners; the event was dedicated to first responders and medical personnel working throughout the pandemic. On Owensboro’s riverfront, Music Director Troy Quinn led the full orchestra as it performed together for the first time in 15 months, joined by country music singer/songwriter Lee Greenwood. At New York City’s “WE LOVE NYC: The Homecoming Concert” in Central Park in August, Marin Alsop led the New York Philharmonic in Bernstein’s Candide Overture, tenor Andrea Bocelli sang, and pop diva Jennifer Hudson sang Puccini’s “Nessun dorma”—before thunderstorms shut things down. Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival reported that the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park was filled to near capacity for most of its concerts this summer. The Boston Landmarks Orchestra celebrated its 20th summer season at the DCR Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade with a free concert led by Music Director Christopher Wilkins featuring music by Beethoven, Gershwin, James P. Johnson, Jules Massenet, Nkeiru Okoye, Florence Price, and William Grant Still. In September, crowds turned out to hear the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra give its annual concert on Art Hill in Forest Park, led by Music Director Stéphane Denève. At Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony’s summer home in Lenox, Massachusetts, events included a sold-out Boston Pops’ Independence Day concert at the Shed with Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste and singer Mavis Staples, led by Keith Lockhart. The Fourth of July concert, for a COVID-19-reduced capacity crowd of 9,000—normally 18,000—marked the Boston Pops’ first show for an in-person audience in over a year.