Video screen to enhance season opener
Niagara Symphony Orchestra takes to the stage Sunday
Niagara Symphony music director Bradley Thachuk notices a trend whenever a pianist performs: People tend to buy tickets on one side of the stage.
Because they want to see the performer’s hands.
“It doesn’t matter what orchestra, you take a look at the seat maps when they have a piano, more people are sitting on that side of the house,” he says. “We have patrons who love to sit very close, like in the first or second row. It’s great when there’s a violinist or guitar player. When it’s a piano, it’s really hard.”
Solution? Install a video screen so everyone in the audience can see the hands.
Two piano players, like the symphony has for its season opener Sunday? Two cameras.
For the first time ever, the symphony will have split-screen, live video projection focussed on the hands of its two guest pianists, James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton. It won’t be for the entire show – just their 25-minute performance of Mozart’s Concerto for 2 Pianos No. 10 K.365 – but it will offer the audience a chance to see up close what they’re hearing.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do forever,” says Thachuk. “We’ve always talked about doing it, and it came together this time.”
But while it solves one problem, it can cause another, he adds. The symphony is still working out the “technical aspects” for Sunday’s show at Partridge Hall inside the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.
“When you drop the screen, it cuts off some of the lighting. So we’ve got to figure out the balance.”
It’s a feature that’ll likely be part of other symphony shows this season, Thachuk says – showing translations for the May 19 opera show A Wild Ride, for instance – but he doesn’t foresee a scenario where people are watching the screen all night instead of the stage.
“I think, honestly, our audience is there for that holistic experience of being at the orchestra.”
With the title A River Runs Through It, the season opener features Anagnoson and Kinton performing two water-themed pieces bookending the Mozart: Smetana’s The Moldau from Ma Vlast and Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune La Mer.
“There’s very few pieces in classical, or rock, that changed the genre,” says Thachuk. “La Mer is one of them.”
The Symphony’s 2018/19 season continues to May with three separate series: Masterworks, Pops! And Classical Family. Visit www.niagarasymphony.com for the full line-up.
WHAT: Niagara Symphony Orchestra – A River Runs Through It
WHO: James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton
WHERE: FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre; 250 St. Paul Street; St. Catharines
WHEN: Sept. 23, 2:30 p.m.
TICKETS: $72 adult, $67 senior, $36 30 & under www.firstontariopac.ca