Community Arts

Our artistic goals were to provide the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, its collaborating artists, and audience members with a satisfying and musically challenging performance opportunity and to give the featured Saint Paul Piano Teachers Association concerto contest winner, Nita Qiu, the valuable experience of performing with a live orchestra; we feel that both goals were not only met, but exceeded. Ms. Qiu was the youngest contest winner that has ever performed with the Mississippi Valley Orchestra at 13 years old, and the music she performed was very challenging both for her and for the orchestra. Mr. Straka’s patient guidance and the musical insight of Maestro Smith and Ms. Qiu's teacher, Dr. Zins, helped both orchestra and soloist to deliver a moving and rewarding performance. Musicians and audience members alike expressed their praise verbally and in the survey responses. 93% of survey respondents said they were very satisfied with the performance, with comments such as “Have heard the orchestra before and enjoyed it tremendously” and “I love their music - sweet, beautiful, nostalgic. Thank you so much.” Other responses were “Wonderful concert!” “Love the Mississippi Valley Orchestra!” and “First rate!” Many of the challenges we encountered throughout this project had to do with the amount of time the orchestra had to rehearse with the soloists and the limitations of the rehearsal and performance venues. There were unforeseen scheduling challenges with the school district that caused the orchestra to alternate between different rehearsal venues each week. Neither location had a piano available, which meant that the first rehearsal the orchestra had with Ms. Qiu was the week of the concert. That is a very limited amount of time for the orchestra and soloist to get to know the music and become comfortable with the nuances of performing in collaboration with one another. The other challenge was that the rehearsal spaces were acoustically opposite of the church in which the orchestra performed. The orchestra could only rehearse so much with vocalist Maria Jette in the rehearsal spaces, because once they started rehearsing in the church everything had to be re-evaluated and adjusted for balance concerns. One survey respondent stated “Could not hear the soprano during much of her performance. Needs more space between her and the orchestra, which is not available in this setting and I lost interest. Pianist was wonderful. Thoroughly enjoyed the second half of the program.” Given the opportunity to repeat this project we would try to schedule at least one more rehearsal in the church in order to work through balance and spatial concerns such as those that the respondent noted. We would also look into alternative rehearsal spaces that are more acoustically similar to the church so the orchestra can have more time to adjust to the performance acoustics. Additionally, we would make an effort to have the orchestra rehearse in a space that has a piano so that they and the competition winner can have more time to put the music together. More than 300 people attended the concert, ranging from local community and church members, to devoted patrons from all across the Twin Cities metro area, to friends and family from out of town that drove as much as 3 or 4 hours to attend this concert. The musicians felt a strong sense of pride and achievement in their performance that was reinforced by the positive response of the audience members noted in the evaluation above. The survey results indicated that 48% of our audience ranged from 18 - 65 years of age, and 52% were 65 years or older. Both West St. Paul and Columbia Heights have a rapidly growing population of senior citizens, low-income families, and those with physical disabilities, so these results are not atypical. The central location of First Lutheran church in the community of Columbia Heights presented an opportunity for many patrons to attend who may not otherwise be able to hear an orchestra of the caliber of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra; in fact, 32% of the survey respondents indicated that the location of the concert was one of the reasons that they came. One person wrote in the survey comments “I greatly appreciate being able to experience such a wonderful performance so close to my home in New Brighton.” Another 32% said that they came because it was free of charge, and 11% specifically stated that the ADA-compliant, easy access venue was what attracted them. Survey results also showed that many of our audience members are repeat attendees, which points to the success of our outreach and the strength of the community that we’ve built over the last 40 years. Given the opportunity to repeat this project we would continue marketing towards our current audience members, but we would also strive to reach the younger generations and minority populations to build relationships that will sustain both the community and the Mississippi Valley Orchestra for years to come. We would do this by programming pieces that appeal to a more diverse audience base, such as our local Hispanic, Hmong, and Somali communities. We would also program music with younger children in mind, possibly incorporating props or costumes, dancers, or actors to add a visual aspect to the performance. We would develop our marketing strategy further to increase our social media presence to reach and appeal to the technology generation. We would also reach out to music educators in the local school systems for help in promoting the concert; this would be mutually beneficial, as it would both strengthen the Mississippi Valley Orchestra community and increase audience attendance and expand their students' musical knowledge and experiences. There were 2 soloists, 3 conductors, 14 members of the Minneapolis Brass Ensemble, 53 musicians of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, and over 300 attendees that were able to share in this unique musical experience. We received 56 surveys back with an overwhelmingly positive response; 16% of respondents said that this was their first Mississippi Valley Orchestra concert experience, while 19% said that they’ve attended more than 10 Mississippi Valley Orchestra concerts.