With 'Casual Fridays,' L.A. Phil lets down its hair
For decades, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's marketing strategy relied heavily on images of the orchestra's "artistic"looking maestros. There was the offspring Zubin Mehta, his exotic features on the face of it about to explode in a passionate fury; the blue blood Carlo Maria Giulini, a black person scarf flung poetically about his neck, a soft Fellini-esque hat atop his elegant question; and, more of late, Esa-Pekka Salonen, his sweet perfect grimace tilted skyward like an archangel's, a baton in his raised hand. But altogether that has changed.
In today's advertising arena, we find out notice artistry of a percussionist proclivity toward us all over his kettleful drum, and, yes, he's wearing a tartan shirt and jeans. "I'm like you," the impression is expression. "Not more or less rarefied 'other.' " Across the area, in fact, philharmonic orchestras ar on an outreach kick -- searching for a signified of community with a wider public, hoping to come-on into the concert residence hall a new contemporaries to supplant the graying heads world Health Organization often take as a sociable rite, trying to de-emphasize the feeling of the classical audience as an upper crust buck private club. Enrol "Casual Fridays," a Symphony concert serial publication that began in 2003 when Walt Walter Elias Disney Concert Hall opened. Like similar initiatives undertaken by other U.S. orchestras that throw discovered the benefits of popularizing their good, the series' stock in swop includes programs shorter than regular subscription concerts; musicians dressed not in eveningwear just in mufti; personal remarks delivered from the level by conductors and players; and post-concert meet-and-greet receptions. Says Deborah Borda, the Symphony Assn.'s president: "The key idea is to scrape away totally these layers of tradition. That's how we convince people to take the risk of attention. We must lay down our music events accessible. Is it OK to wear off flip-flops? Of course of study. And you won't even search different from the orchestra players. Once an audience is comfortable, it toilet begin to discover the music." Michael Tilson Thomas, the onetime L.A. Phil dealer node conductor today at the helm of the San Francisco Symphony, concurs. "What we've been needing to do," says Tilson Saint Thomas, whose orchestra first cast its players as ordinary mortals 13 years ago, "is to break in knock down that sense of iconic remoteness associated with classical music in every possible fashion." In other actor's line, "adjudicate to do something that's exclusive -- the medicine -- inclusive." Across the card, orchestra administrators and conductors appear to agree that no matter how transporting Van Beethoven and Gustav Mahler whitethorn be, in that respect is a certain bullying factor that many would-be music lovers sense in the kingdom of concert formality. After altogether, concertgoers supposedly must dress according to a certain code and clap only at specified times.By contrast, says Henry Russell Robert Tyre Jones, marketing vice president at the League of American Orchestras, "these 'cocktail concerts' ar real popular, really attractive events." He adds that in urban centers, "their appeal is to the after-work business district population that crataegus laevigata want to listen a little medicine and have a drink before header place." San Francisco, for example, calls its series "6.5" -- non after a reading on the Richter graduated table simply after the concerts' 6:30 p.m. start time. The Los Angeles Symphony spreads its meshwork beyond downtowners, so -- come out of respect to the freeway crawl -- it begins "Casual Fridays" at its concerts' regular start time, 8 p.m. And, says the orchestra, the six-spot "Casual Fridays" so far this
