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Time to bring back WSO outdoor pops?
Next Thursday brings the second free movie screening to downtown’s Heritage Square and, if audiences respond to Madagascar as they did to Shrek, another crowd of more than 1,000.
Here’s my idea to the (funding) powers that be for next year: How about an outdoor pops concert by the Waco Symphony Orchestra? The WSO used to have them on a regular basis at Indian Spring Park until rainouts two consecutive years caused a major underwriter (the Trib, I think) to back out.
The pluses? It’s family-friendly, good music and a good excuse to break out the blankets and picnic baskets (and bottles of wine, if you’re so inclined). I remember some concerts drew double last month’s Shrek crowd (at least) and it seems like a fun addition to the cultural scene that downtown developers are trying to create for young professionals and loft-dwellers they’re wanting to attract.
Or, a variation on the theme, have the WSO accompany live a movie projected on the Alamo Drafthouse’s inflatable outdoor screen. I’m not sure what film scores are out there and securing two sets of rights (to show the film and play the soundtrack) might price it out of anyone’s budget. However, I once heard the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra play Carmine Coppola’s score to Abel Gance’s silent film Napoleon (here’s a poster from a 1981 New York City/American Symphony Orchestra performance) and it was a truly thrilling experience.
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By Scott Baker
June 13, 2008 12:31 PM | Link to this
I’d be there! I would love to see a Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf. It was always one of my favorites. You could either show the cartoon if you could get the rights or do a live staging of some kind. I’d also love to see what digital animators would do with a given composition. That might make for a cool visual accompaniment to a symphony concert outdoors.