On a recent mild evening under clear skies, the dinner-jacketed members of the Pacific Symphony settled into their seats on the stage of Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, for decades the orchestra’s summer home. A happy crowd was in attendance out front, food and drink on hand. The program promised Spanish and Latin music, both classical and pops.

It was a typical summer crowd at the symphony, casually dressed, friendly and talkative, kids, adults, seniors. They liked everything they heard, from salsa to show tunes to opera – they weren’t picky – but the music could, at times, seem secondary to the occasion.

As Carl St.Clair gave the downbeat to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol” to begin the concert, the man behind me began eating his store-bought sandwich, wrapped in paper. He didn’t so much unwrap the sandwich as pick at it little by little, rustling the paper all the while. He was still at it by the time “Capriccio Espagnol” ended and the next piece began and despite my dirty looks.

I gave him a name, known only to me until now: Mr. Subway. A classical-music connoisseur he was not.

Orchestras are looking at listeners in a different way these days. They see their various audiences in segmented terms, discrete units defined by tastes, demographics, income and education. Like the folks at Amazon who recommend a book based on your previous reading preferences, orchestras know what you like. As an audience member, you are what you hear.

It’s summertime and the listening is easy. Symphony orchestras across the nation move outdoors to play for large audiences under the stars. Typically, the repertoire – Broadway medleys, film and video game music, orchestral backing for tribute bands, light classical standards, of course, and more – wouldn’t challenge a 7-year-old.

Typically, the amplification is really bad, distorting one of a symphony orchestra’s prime attractions, its beautiful, varietal tone color. Typically, rehearsal time is minimal, resulting in performances that are often little more than run-throughs.

It’s all for a worthy cause, though, right? To introduce the classics to the unwashed masses. To get them interested enough to buy a subscription to the orchestra’s indoor concerts in the fall. To elevate the musical aesthetics of the community at large.

Well, not really. Not anymore.

Pacific Symphony President John Forsyte looks at the orchestra’s performances at Irvine Meadows as an “opportunity to reach a completely different audience.” He’s not convinced that many of those who attend ever end up going to a classical concert in Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, and he’s fine with it.

“Certainly our data has not supported the argument that there’s a classical music crossover,” he says. “I think that people choose summer as a way to celebrate social occasions, family outings. But fundamentally with an orchestra being a major motivator.”

Summer audiences, Forsyte says, aren’t as picky as an indoor audience can be about what’s on the program. They are at the concert to be entertained.

“Their tastes are less and less focused on what classical music they’re going to hear, how they’re going to hear it, and in juxtaposition to what else,” he says. “I mean, we’re building audiences for orchestral music, not solely the classical traditions as we know it. So I think the summer audience has its own wonderful value to the orchestra.”

Frank Terraglio, the Pacific Symphony’s vice president of marketing and public relations, says his first goal with Irvine Meadows audiences is to entice them to renew their summer subscriptions, of which there are about 3,000, for all or a part of the five-concert series.

“We put offers out there to encourage folks to check us out at the concert hall, but it’s not a hard sell; it’s not a huge part of the marketing plan,” he says.

With each Irvine Meadows concert usually skewing either more toward pops or classical, Terraglio will look at what a particular listener has purchased tickets for in the past before making an offer to him or her for a season indoors, either a small, three-concert classical series, or a similar pops series.

His success rate isn’t especially high, he says, but it’s about what he expects.

The audiences in summer and fall are “not inherently the same people,” he says.

“I think the experience is very different. At Irvine Meadows, it’s about being outside, it’s about the music certainly, but it’s not about the music in the way that our really core audience is about the music, in pristine acoustics and all of that. They don’t care about the outside, in fact they hate it, some of them.

“It’s about serving different segments of the market, and there are probably five or six different segments and we try and address some program, some product, some pitch to each of them in a different way.”

Then how do orchestras in general, and the Pacific Symphony in particular, go about finding new audiences for classical music?

“There’s not actually as much of a new audience issue as one would think,” Forsyte says. The problem isn’t getting people to come, he explains – “We have thousands of new people sampling the orchestra every year” – it’s getting them to stay and buy a subscription, to keep them coming back.

“The framing issue is how do you make the relationship more long-lasting and how do you create a sense of a loyal relationship, and frankly that’s a problem for a lot of businesses.” This is an even a bigger problem for businesses these days, Forsyte says, because “the reality is that we’re vastly busier as a society than we were 20 years ago.”

Meanwhile, Irvine Meadows is due to shut down sometime after the orchestra’s 2016 summer season to make way for new housing. The orchestra is already looking into its options.

A proposed amphitheater at Irvine’s Great Park won’t be built in time, if at all. The orchestra might expand its Symphony in the Cities series, in which the group performs in parks throughout the county. There have been talks with the Pacific Amphitheatre, located at the OC Fair & Event Center. The orchestra may even build its own stage from time to time, or play a few indoor concerts during the summer as well.

Whatever happens, Forsyte is determined not to lose the orchestra’s longstanding relationship with its summertime patrons.

“Because many of them have been with us since the beginning of Irvine Meadows’ history and they love it. And I think the combination of friendship and food and great music is very, very powerful in Southern California and we’ll continue to do that.”

Mr. Subway, at least, will be very happy to hear it.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/music-677822-orchestra-classical.html