Charlotte Symphony Roadshow Takes Music to the Masses
May 1, 2024
By Lawrence Toppman
Administrators and conductors like to remind concertgoers to enjoy “your Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (CSO).” But what does “your” really mean?
The mostly white, prosperous, educated people who attend performances at Belk and Knight theaters? (This includes me.) The donors, corporate or individual, whose gifts pay the largest part of the bills? Or does “your” orchestra mean “everybody’s?”
The city’s busiest performing arts group cast a vote for the latter Sunday, when the CSO Roadshow made its debut.
This new mobile stage, bedecked with sprightly paintings by Charlotte artist Rosalia Torres-Weiner, opened in the parking lot behind the Latin American Coalition building.
You’d have expected Latino music lovers, especially when the concert built to a performance by Ultima Nota, a septet whose twin percussionists set bodies shaking. But the music on this sunny afternoon reached the most ethnically diverse classical music audience here in recent memory.
The bilingual presentation gave everyone a chance to learn about the coalition’s building fund drive, the reason that many tots toted macaroni boxes (more about that in a minute) and the wide range of music on the bill. Only symphony CEO and president David Fisk spoke entirely in rapid-fire Spanish, leaving non-speakers wondering what he’d said.
Fisk, who came to this job after 18 years at the same post in Richmond, was repeating a success he’d enjoyed in Virginia. He masterminded the launch of the Richmond Symphony’s “Big Tent,” a $250,000 mobile stage that premiered in 2015. (He has declined to quote the cost of the Charlotte version, except to say it was under $500,000.)
Our orchestra now has a concert platform that can reportedly hold 30 musicians, though roughly half that number appeared Sunday, and can be erected in 90 minutes. It travels with a sound system and, on Sunday, had a screen provided by the coalition that hung alongside the stage, providing closeups of players.
The CSO has long performed in relaxed outdoor settings, notably Summer Pops concerts at Symphony Park. (It will open that series June 9 with “Sonidos Latinos: Latin Sounds.”) But the Roadshow will more likely visit under-invested sections the city calls corridors of opportunity, one of them the Central-Albemarle district. That provided the impetus for “Musica con Amigos” this weekend.
And friends they were, even before a note sounded. They snacked on pupusas, empanadas and burritos from food trucks. They took selfies with enormous multihued cloth butterflies, symbols of the coalition’s fund-raising campaign. Children and a dog or two frolicked around the edges of the parking lot.
In fact, kids were as much the focus of the day as adults. First up were youngsters from Charlotte Bilingual Preschool. They carried paper bows and “violins” made of macaroni boxes, demonstrating what they’d learned in classes: rhythm exercises, proper postures, bowing technique.
Then came a mini-orchestra from Winterfield Elementary School, one of four schools in the CSO’s long-running Project Harmony. That tuition-free after-school program gives instruments and instruction to kids who might not otherwise afford them. The Winterfield contingent, some of whom picked up instruments for the first time last November, slithered happily through “Salamander Samba,” supported by a string trio from the orchestra.
CSO resident conductor Christopher James Lees took over for the more serious part of the program. Not too serious, as the musicians immediately broke into the bolero-mambo “¿Quién será?” by Mexican composers Luis Demetrio and Pablo Beltrán Ruiz. (Anglos know it better as the Dean Martin hit “Sway With Me.”)
Lees skipped music by U.S. composers, such as Aaron Copland’s “Latin American Sketches” and George Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture.” Nor did he program classical composers from Spain, Mexico and South America, such as Manuel de Falla, Carlos Chávez or Alberto Ginastera.
Instead, he gave us Peruvian songs adapted by Gabriela Lena Frank (whom the CSO has played in its main classical season) and a sinuous dance number by Afro-Cuban composer José White. These suited the mood better, prompting me to wonder how programming will change as addresses do: The Roadshow appears next at Mayfield Memorial Missionary Baptist Church on May 5 and Ophelia Garmon-Brown Community Center on June 21.
The CSO will have to find out if the Roadshow can be a money-making venture taken to festivals and even sporting events, as in Richmond. For now, it’s enough to know the orchestra belongs not only to those of us in concert halls but the people who look for music where they play, worship and hang out. For once, “your” Charlotte Symphony was no exaggeration.