Symphony caps free summer concert series
The audience of the Butler County Symphony Orchestra’s final Taste of the Symphony concert on Saturday, Aug. 30, traveled to the beach and to one of the moons of Jupiter, all without leaving the association’s office on Main Street in Butler.
The series, which took place every Saturday through the summer, allowed musicians to perform for an audience that is smaller than what attends the orchestra’s main season concerts, but more connected with the performers. Saturday’s concert featured Cassandra Eisenreich, the orchestra’s principal flutist, and bassoonist Amy Baker, who performed a few duets as well as solo pieces on their respective instruments.
Although the significance of the summer concert series is that it is broadcast from the Main Street office through speakers in Diamond Park, there was more to the performance than sound. The interactions between the two musicians was one aspect of the performance that audiences may not see from an auditorium seat, but some pieces also involved visual elements, like photos of one of Jupiter’s moons, Ganymede.
Baker said the mixed media performance not only helps reel audiences in, but can help a person realize what a musical movement is trying to convey.
“To be able to put actual pictures of Galileo’s moons, that really made the piece come alive,” Baker said. “It’s a different way for us to perform and engage with the audience and share music with them.”
The orchestra regularly filled its office with people with its summer concert series this year. Other people sat outside as the sounds were broadcast over speakers, and some others watched from home, viewing a live stream of a concert online.
Patricia Stagno, president of the Butler County Symphony Orchestra Association board of directors, said the summer series is a way for people to check out the symphony orchestra’s music without having to pay a cent.
“We attempt to provide a taste, so that people who can get familiar with the instruments and the different styles of music that’s played by the symphony,” Stagno said.
She added that the series’ accessibility helps attract people to the orchestra’s full-scale concerts, which begin this year on Oct. 4.
“We seem to pick up more concert-goers as a result,” Stagno said. “Those are free concerts, so if you enjoy those kind of performances, then you’re more likely to attend the full orchestra.”
Each of the orchestra’s regular concerts has a theme — like classical composers or movie soundtracks — but the summer concert series shows were a little more loose with their concepts. Eisenreich and Baker introduced each piece by explaining what they are meant to be about or how they were composed, before letting their instruments do the talking.
The duo played pieces where they depicted a bear and a nightingale, a boa constrictor and a bobolink and even a moon of Jupiter. Eisenreich played movements on her flute in between reading stanzas of a poem, and mixed her flute-playing with a recorded sound of waves crashing onto a beach.
Eisenreich said getting to communicate these messages to an audience before a performance is one of her favorite aspects of playing chamber music.
“Typically in a concert setting, the audience doesn’t have input, and I’m interested in navigating that space a bit,” Eisenreich said. “It’s nice for them to have input, ‘Where do you want to go?’ We went to the ocean and we went to the moon.”
And these are not pieces audiences will typically hear played by a symphony orchestra — they are meant to be performed by one or two instruments only. Baker said the type of pieces she and Eisenreich played Saturday are good ways for people to enjoy orchestra music, because they can see how music is built upon from one or two instruments to an orchestra’s-worth.
“People may think, ‘I don’t really like classical music,’” Baker said, “But when they come to an event like this and think, ‘Wow, that was really amazing,’ they get to experience it and they might come to more of our concerts.”
Baker also commented that everyone she looked at in the room was smiling as she was playing her bassoon.
Eisenreich said the same, and added that she can’t help but smile when performing the music she was playing Saturday.
“I really love chamber music, especially when you get to make music with a friend,” Eisenreich said. “I really enjoy playing in intimate spaces. It’s just a different vibe, a different kind of energy, I feel more connected to the audience.”
