This weekend I was asked to participate in one of the Concert Conversations before each evening’s concert. My co-host for the half-hour talks was John Pitman of KBPS 89.9 FM. He’s such a consummate professional in the broadcast realm – I always marvel at how broadcasters can so deftly avoid verbal pauses (ah, um, etc) and maintain a train of thought – that the 30 minutes flew by. The last time I did a pre-concert talk I had to do it myself, and it was many times more nerve-wracking doing it that way. There were also many more people at the talk than I’d remembered from years ago, and that was great as well. It’s good to know that there are so many concertgoers who are curious to learn as much as they can about what they’re enjoying during the concert.
Today I was thinking of ways that the whole experience could be even more interesting for those in attendance. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a short video presentation with various members of the orchestra sharing their impressions of a piece, or what their most difficult licks in the piece might be, or what was their favorite moment in the piece. I could envision a 15 minute video which would include either commercially pre-recorded excerpts of audio, or possibly video footage from a rehearsal. Things like this are always hard to navigate through the minefield of work rules and other contractual considerations, not to mention finding the money to ensure that it doesn’t look like a typical YouTube home video, but it might be worth trying, as it could be featured on the orchestra’s website to promote the concert as well.
That aside, I had a great experience doing the Concert Conversation this past weekend, and I encourage you to attend future conversations one half-hour prior to each Classical series concert throughout the season!
One reply on “the present and future of pre-concert talks”
I did several of the Concert Conversations before the symphony instituted the current set up with KBPS at the start of last season, and I continue to give all of the pre-performance talks for the Portland Opera. I’ve found that modern audiences are quite interested in finding out more about what it was like to attend a concert in, say, late 18th-century Vienna, or what someone would have expected to hear if they purchased a ticket for the premiere of “Rigoletto†at La Fenice in 1851. I think it’s helpful to point out that we experience music in vastly different ways than audiences did even 100 years ago, and that most of the things we take for granted—rapt silence in the auditorium, for example, or a repertoire made up almost entirely of works from the past—are fairly of fairly recent vintage. If nothing else, it may just bring us all a little bit closer to our musical forebears.
Is this approach for everyone? Probably not. There are certainly those for whom this kind of thing smacks too much of a music history class. But if it’s done with enthusiasm and conviction, it’s not hard to bring it off, and from what I’ve been able to tell, audiences genuinely like it.