After Hours: Thursday Edition
Your turn, Thursday audience! Chime in down in the comments to tell us what you thought of tonight's performance, and what you'd like to hear more or less of at future concerts. As always, your feedback helps us shape future seasons of the series - in fact, these Debussy concerts were designed and written to address comments we'd gotten from past shows requesting more music and information that places the featured work(s) in context, and fewer first-half examples that would be repeated on the second half. Let us know if we hit the mark on that one.
As always, thanks so much for your attendance, and your enthusiasm. It's truly a pleasure to be on stage in front of a crowd that's really engaged and excited about what you're doing, and y'all never disappoint. I hope we'll see you all again six weeks from now, when we wind up our ItC season with a mix-'n-match program of music all about the seasons...
(P.S. If you'd like more information on some of the side topics we covered during the first half of the show, check out our Cutting Room Floor post just below Wednesday's After Hours post...)
As always, thanks so much for your attendance, and your enthusiasm. It's truly a pleasure to be on stage in front of a crowd that's really engaged and excited about what you're doing, and y'all never disappoint. I hope we'll see you all again six weeks from now, when we wind up our ItC season with a mix-'n-match program of music all about the seasons...
(P.S. If you'd like more information on some of the side topics we covered during the first half of the show, check out our Cutting Room Floor post just below Wednesday's After Hours post...)
Labels: after hours, audience feedback
posted by Sam at
9:15 PM
10 Comments:
May I suggest in the future you include some concert etiquette instruction on the convention of holding applause until the completion of a multi-movement work.
Outstanding evening! Great performance and loved the screen, zooming in on the musicians.
This concert seemed more engaging to me than the Beethoven Pastoral concert. It was interesting and fun the whole way tonight.
Brought my budding violinist 14 yr. old daughter and she enjoyed the performance as well. She says she likes the DeBussy style better than traditional classical music. Easy to like it with such a wonderful performance. By the way she had quadratic equations on her math test today - imagine that! She got a kick out of that coincidence.
Keep up the great work and we will see you for Vivaldi in a couple of months.
Britt, we'll take applause whenever people feel like offering it. Sorry if you were offended, but no applause between movements is actually a relatively recent convention, and we'd rather people applaud whenever they're moved to do so...
Outstanding show! I have become an "Inside the Classics" regular, and I welcome addition of the video screen. At first, I scolded myself for watching the screen (I think I felt like I was just watching TV instead of being at a performance). That feeling faded as I continued to be mesmerized by the close-ups of the musicians. It's easier to focus on what an instrument is playing if you can see it up close -- and this allows the listener to pay closer attention, looking for the elements that have been explained by Sam and Sarah. The video director was very well prepared, showing sections or individual musicians at appropriate times. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to the next concert of the series!
I have been attending orchestra concerts for years, and this was my first experience with a gigantic screen obscuring the stage. I must admit it was thoroughly distracting and extremely unpleasant. Had I wanted to view an orchestra on a screen, rather than experiencing a performance firsthand, I would have stayed at home and watched PBS. We spend our days in front of computer screens, etc., and it seems unfair to be subjected to screen-time when we go to the orchestra. Additionally, I doubt the musicians are happy to be filmed in this way.
Sam & Sarah and the ENTIRE Orchestra Team.(including the video team). THANK YOU for the very enjoyable evening. My wife and I with our three children enjoyed everything from Start to Finish! We enjoyed the concert from the 2nd row, which made the video screen a HUGE PLUS. Keep the Great Work! My only suggestion would be to have a cordless microphone for the questions during the Q & A. Five Standing O's from all of us.
Greg Milliren (I think he was the flute soloist) seemed to be communicating with his eye brows. Was he giving Sarah queues in this way, or was he simply into his part and expressing it in that way. How much does a soloist communicate with the conductor like I am asking about?
Sam & Sarah, Great concert, once again. I wanted to comment on the use of the video screen. I think it was great for the first half, but should not be used during the performance part of the concert during the 2nd half (too distracting from the music). During the informal part of the concert it was great to see the musicians up close, have slides and photos that enhance Sam & Sarah's explainations. In order to keep costs and set up to a minimum it might be possible to use one or two portable cameras roaming on stage to help highlight specific musicians. That would also allow you to use less production crew (no fancy camera fades needed) and keep costs down. Glad you guys tried something new and you should keep it for the first half. Second half put up artwork or photo stills, or just power the screen down. Sincerely, Hal (long time Casual Classics subscriber).
I agree with Hal: I felt the screen was helpful during the first half of the evening for use as a teaching tool, but I found it distracting during the second half, esp. given the connection between Debussy and Seurat. During the actual performance I found myself unable to "step back" and listen to the music as a whole, rather I only got "dabs" of music based on which instrument was shown onscreen. Thanks.
Great concert! We appreciated the fact that the first half focused on putting the composer and the featured pieces in both musical and historical context, and I agree with another commenter that it would have been less effective if there had been lengthy excerpts of the featured pieces played during the first half.
The video screen was helpful not just to get a better view of musicians who weren't in the front row, but to appreciate how section members reacted to one another, which is much harder to pick out when listening to the entire ensemble and not having that visual aide.
As for the clapping at the end of the first movement of La Mer, I'm convinced that was EXACTLY what Debussy was going for. The crescendo and tempo at the end of that movement screams for applause. (And in his time, the audience would not have been sitting on their hands after that movement.) The second movement does not end in a similar fashion and calls for a more measured response. (And of course we're all in agreement about the propriety of applause after the third!)
Finally, I was a little surprised that the role of L'Apres Midi du Faun in the development of dance choreography (and dance superstars, like Nureyev!) was not mentioned. I don't know whether a video clip would have been appropriate or available, and the piece is short, so I can understand not wanting to "spoil" it during the first half. But it might have added something to the experience if people had been prompted to think of the physicality of that piece, not just the musicality. But of course, there is only so much time in the program, and you can't cover every aspect of every piece and every composer.
Great job and an enjoyable evening!
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