waterfront concert

Sorry to be late with this posting, but life intervened and it wasn’t possible to get time to do an entry on this right after the fact. Last Thursday night we had our “coming out” party of the new season – the annual concert at Tom McCall Waterfront Park downtown. The turnout was quite phenomenal, with the crowd stretching all the way from the front of the stage by the Hawthorne Bridge back to the Avalon Hotel at the southern terminus of the lawn. The weather was sultry, by Portland standards, at about 83 degrees at the start of the concert, with humidity around 60 percent. On the subject of weather and performing, the Portland Youth Philharmonic performed a prelude concert at 5:00 p.m., and much of the string section was in direct sun, which is not only much more uncomfortable, but direct sunlight is very harsh on the varnish of the stringed instruments. Surely these fine young musicians should not be forced to perform under such slavish conditions – why not have a screen to shade the front of the stage from the sun?

When we came on to perform, the men of the Oregon Symphony were allowed to doff their jackets after we got the thumbs-up from the personnel manager, and that made it a bit more comfortable. This brings up a subject near and dear to my heart: clothing for outdoor concerts. I wish we could ditch the ugly, stain-attracting and hot white dinner jackets that we wear. It seems much to formal for the type of concerts that we do outdoors. We’re playing in a tent, there are food stands all around, and all sorts of community groups (from jugglers to fire-eaters) perform before we do. I’d argue for something either whimsical (aloha shirts and khaki pants, a la Honolulu Symphony), or dress casual (short-sleeved white shirts over khaki pants like they used to do in the San Diego Symphony) rather than the monkey suits. I think it’s a better image to project to our audiences that come to these events, who are not likely to come to our concerts at the Schnitz, according to market research.

Anyway, it was a great turnout, and the pleasant weather for enjoying a concert undoubtedly contributed to that fact. I wonder about how serious these concerts should be. We do a lot of heavy repertoire (either in content or difficulty, or both) and I think we’re trying to bring the concert hall outdoors. Might it be time better spent if we’re making a special outdoor experience of which the orchestra is the central figure? I could have seen more of Patrick Lamb and Linda Hornbuckle doing some more of their tribute to Ray Charles, for example, and we could have done some big movie scores in place of the Wagner overture. Just random thoughts, but since we’re not going to lure a lot of people in to the hall from the outdoor concerts, why not cater to what they might want?