The lights go down, and 1,500 LED candles go up. The mood is set for a concert where four musicians and 75 spectators sit just feet apart. Patrons look on with rapt attention, losing themselves in a program of pop and classical genres deftly performed by a handful of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra’s top musicians.
The event is part of the BRSO’s candlelight concert series, held in the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center, the multipurpose boutique arts facility that opened in downtown Baton Rouge in January 2022. The center’s black box space hosts a variety of performances, including the BRSO’s candlelight concerts, which take place roughly once a month and are intended to draw new audiences to the symphony.
“When you go in and they close those doors, it’s so intimate,” says regular attendee Debbie Daniel. “You feel like you’ve been transported to some magical place.”
|
|
|
Daniel, a longtime BRSO patron and recent addition to its board of directors, says the candlelight concerts give spectators a chance to sample the symphony in a relaxed contemporary setting.
With their fusion of classical and pop pieces, the concerts are lighter in tone than those held at the BRSO’s home concert hall, the River Center Performing Arts Theatre. They’re also shorter, lasting just an hour and slotted deliberately at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. to give patrons a chance to grab dinner before or after. They’re a good fit for young professionals who need a break from the stress of life and work, Daniel says.
“I tell people, ‘It’s a great place to turn off your cell phone, enjoy some music and just breathe,’” she says. “The ambiance is incredible, and you get a real appreciation for the musicians because you can practically reach out and touch them.”
BRSO Executive Director Eric Marshall, 39, creates attention-grabbing themes for the concerts. One of the most popular has been Bach to Beatles, which includes some of J.S. Bach’s most familiar pieces combined with Beatles’ songs like “Here Comes the Sun,” “Penny Lane” and “Eleanor Rigby.” On May 18-19, the series features an all-Taylor Swift program performed by local vocalist Rebecca Smith accompanied by a guitar quartet.
One past show featured an ’80s theme—meaning the 1980s, the 1880s and 1780s. Another combined Beyonce and Beethoven. Last month, the series was themed Girls Night Out, and showcased works by women, including female composers Fanny Mendelssohn and Florence Price, as well as contemporary songwriters and performers Adele, Stevie Nicks, Carole King, Aretha Franklin and Dolly Parton.
The shows have been a recent game changer for the BRSO, which navigated interruptions from both the COVID-19 lockdown and the extended renovation of the River Center Theatre. The latter’s four-year closure forced the symphony to play in a number of different community spaces. Now, back in the River Center for its main series, and armed with popular candlelight concerts, the BRSO is poised to fulfill a longstanding goal of attracting new patrons.
“We have had a symphony in Baton Rouge for 76 years, and there are still some members of the community who don’t know about it,” Marshall says. “It’s such an asset—we have world-class musicians—and things like the candlelight concerts and our education programs are a way to make it approachable and remind people that we’re here for everyone.”
Candlelight concerts have become more popular around the country as symphonies attempt to onboard younger listeners. The opportunity for the BRSO to create such a series came with the much anticipated opening of the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center last year.
Along with the John and Virginia Noland Black Box Studio, the downtown arts facility is home to an art gallery, studio space for working artists, a recording studio, a rooftop terrace where attendees can mingle and sip wine before events and the administrative offices of both the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge and the BRSO.
“The Community Arts Center is the perfect place for something like this,” Marshall says. “The acoustics are fantastic, and with the candles, you can have this really unique experience.”
The candlelight concerts are one example of how the arts center is fulfilling its mission as an arts accelerator, says Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge President and CEO Renee Chatelain.
“It is so great to be in the same building and collaborate, and kick around ideas and then see these ideas put on in the building’s spaces,” Chatelain says. “It’s our hope that artists continue to come in and use the center to create new programs.”
Marshall says the candlelight concerts regularly sell out and have begun to attract new patrons who might never have attended a symphony performance.
“What’s really exciting is we’re seeing audience members whose first experience is the candlelight concerts start to go across the street and attend performances at the River Center,” Marshall says.
The musicians also enjoy the intimacy of the candlelight concerts, says BRSO Concertmaster Borislava Iltcheva. “When Eric approached us about this series, we were absolutely ecstatic, because we’d been working on ways to bridge the gap between the classic musicgoer and people who wanted something lighter,” she says.
The specific musicians who play are chosen based on the pieces performed, but the lineup usually includes two to four of the symphony’s principal musicians, drawn from the top three chairs in each section, Iltcheva says. The small group rehearses several times before each show to perfect the nuances of playing popular and classic pieces, which vary widely in their musical transitions.
Small concerts like this take place without a conductor, so musicians rely on each other for cues and timing, Iltcheva says. The relaxed vibe also has the musicians take turns introducing each piece, often providing interesting anecdotes.
|
|
|
Iltcheva says the candlelight concerts have been a lot of fun.
“We as classical musicians love jamming to pop music,” she says. “We like to say that our inner hidden rocker comes out.”
This article was originally published in the May 2023 issue of 225 magazine.