Community Arts

We achieved our artistic goals of performing music that allowed our player-members to grow artistically, and also attracted diverse audiences from the area. We did this by programming music that was familiar (Tchaikovsky's Italian Capriccio) and music that had not been heard in this area before (Guilmant's Organ Symphony No. 2 and Nazaykinskaya's Trombone Concerto). We reached out to the community by promoting this concert in local schools, through social media, and through our host venue, Saint Andrew's Lutheran Church, as well as care facilities in the area. This resulted in increased attendance (450 people vs. 420 the year before), many of whom had not seen us perform before. One long time audience member commented afterwards that this was one of the strongest performances he had heard of ours. People were particularly delighted with the new trombone concerto, and the pre-performance talk given by the composer, Polina Nazaykinskaya. What worked was the additional outreach and the participation of the composer. The venue was also excellent. Saint Andrew's is a wonderful performance space, with one of the best organs in the area, which really helped the Guilmant piece. Since we had some success reaching out to care facilities, in the future, we would do even more outreach to similar organizations in that area, as well as increasing the number of schools we contact. We did reach the communities we set out to serve. Our musicians really enjoyed practicing and performing the pieces we played, and greatly appreciated having the opportunity to work on new music. Our audience also appreciated the connections between the new and old music, and the opportunity to hear from composer Nazaykinskaya about how she came to write her piece, and what it means to her. Our outreach to local care facilities and schools resulted in greater diversity in ages who attended, and our outreach to communities associated with our host venue, such as their homeless shelter, led to attendance by some who were seeing their first orchestral concert. We were delighted at how well our outreach resulted in more diverse audiences. Also, the selection of music, including a trombone concerto and an organ symphony, led to our reaching audience members associated with those instruments who had not heard us perform before. By not charging admission, we removed that economic barrier. By helping to arrange transportation from the care facilities, we removed that barrier. By working with the host venue and their partners, we were able to convince people to attend who might otherwise have been intimidated by a classical music performance. The main quantitative outcome was that 450 audience members got to hear this great music, and the 80 musicians of the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra got to rehearse and perform this music, two pieces of which were played locally for the first time, so it was new music. Both groups reported, through discussions and surveys, that this concert enhanced their appreciation for new and old music.