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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[55,3666,3662,62,3656],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-orchestra","tag-oregon","tag-portland","tag-symphony","tag-the-orchestra-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-6R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13889,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/09\/04\/waterfront-concert-thanks-for-turning-out-portland\/","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":0},"title":"waterfront concert – thanks for turning out, portland!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"click image to view gallery full size","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/IMG_5030.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/IMG_5030.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/IMG_5030.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/IMG_5030.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/08\/26\/first-concert-of-2nd-decade-is-done\/","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":1},"title":"First concert of 2nd decade is done…","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight we played a mixed-bag sort of program as part of the symphony-in-the-parks concerts at Harrison Park in S.E. Portland. We had a pretty good crowd, and the weather was warm (high 80's) though the sun was largely down by the time we got to the 7 p.m. start time.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13544,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/08\/29\/waterfront-concert-was-awesome\/","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":2},"title":"waterfront concert was awesome!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, after a one year hiatus, the Oregon Symphony returned to Tom McCall Waterfront Park, at the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge, to play a wide selection of music for well over 10,000 area music lovers. It was so good to be back! The mood of the orchestra\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"click to enlarge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/IMG_9026-500x180.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3056,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/03\/on-the-waterfront-a-m-edition\/","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":3},"title":"on the waterfront (a.m. edition)","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This morning we had our dress rehearsal for tonight's FREE waterfront concert at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland.\u00a0 Usually we have more than two rehearsals for this concert, but we were dealt half the usual four, and with lots of pieces on the program it made for quite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "oregon"","block_context":{"text":"oregon","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/oregon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_2675","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/IMG_2675-200x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3067,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/04\/on-the-waterfront-p-m-edition\/","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":4},"title":"on the waterfront (p.m. edition)","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again we were graced with absolutely perfect weather for our opening concert of the 2009-2010 season.\u00a0 And thousands of classical music fans as well.\u00a0 Not much to say about it other than it went very well, and was a lot of fun to play.\u00a0 Hope you had a great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13857,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/27\/season-21upon-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":5},"title":"season 21upon me","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, if my tenure with the Oregon Symphony were a physical person, they would be able to buy alcohol this year. Twenty-one years. Sheesh. \u00a0 The season, as usual, begins with our annual waterfront concert extravaganza on Thursday, September 3rd at 7:00 pm. The concert will also be simulcast on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_4944","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/IMG_4944-300x375.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}