The Wichita Symphony Orchestra’s ongoing WSO Connect series continues Friday, August 28 at Oddfellow Hall with a performance from Neon Strings, featuring Tim Jones and Hannah Cartwright (violin), Ricardo Cavalcante (viola), and Quinn Lake (cello). The group will present a program titled “Philip Glass & The 1980s New Wave,” featuring Philip Glass’s “String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima)” and selections from groups such as The Cure, Talking Heads, Kate Bush and Tears For Fears.
That Friday’s event has sold out may not come as a surprise to some, including Wichita Symphony Orchestra's Creative Marketing and Brand Manager Alex Freund, who sees the WSO Connect series as one critical facet in engaging music listeners with the symphony.
Freund recently spoke with KMUW about the series and the Friday performance, which will include visual effects from light artist Mason Talbott.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
One of the many interesting things about Philip Glass is that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, his music is intersecting with popular music and having an influence on bands that were coming out of New York City at that time.
The minimalism that Glass was known for was an overlap with New Wave and synthesizer music took up that same kind of vocabulary. There’s definitely a conversation going on between Glass and New Wave. What I really like about this particular lane that the symphony is going into, the WSO Connect, is that it’s getting to be a little more experimental, a little more art-forward, and a little bit more modern [with] the ability to take things that are not classical and bring them into a classical space while also reaching out into the community.
While everybody is there of course for the music there are these very strong visual components that will accompany the compositions.
The idea was to make the event more of a surround sound, immersive experience. Instead of having our quartet on one side of the room, on a stage with people all facing one way, we’re going to have them in the round, more or less. They’re each going to be on a pedestal, kind of raised up, and then we’ll have lighting angled up where [the performer’s] shadows will be making amazing visuals up on top of the ceiling at Oddfellow.
We’re working on seeing as to how we can do some different lighting for the windows, just make it a full experience. So not only are you going to be able to hear the music really intimately but you’re also going to be able to feel it in a way that you’re not going to get in a traditional orchestra event or really any other sort of event in town.
What do you think the best part of performances like this is?
The experience of listening to live music and being able to see these incredibly top tiered individuals coming together, making something cohesively beautiful. You get that at our main stage events but you almost get to see it a little bit better when you’re in these smaller Connect events. You’re inches away instead of feet away. It’s just a whole different kind of vibe that you get with it. The audiences definitely gravitate toward that. It’s been amazing to see the response.
