By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
You have not been able to go to the St. Joseph Symphony, so the St. Joseph Symphony is coming to you.
St. Joseph Symphony Managing Director Lori McAlister says the symphony is beginning what it calls its “cozy concerts”.
“As the name implies, it’s an intimate opportunity to experience some of our symphony players in smaller ensembles,” McAlister tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline.
The St. Joseph Symphony has recorded these intimate concerts at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art and will offer them to the public on a streaming basis for $25, providing the symphony with needed revenue and the music lover with a recorded live performance.
McAlister says the venture borne out of necessity could spawn creative ventures for the symphony in the future.
“We will see how people respond, how supportive they are, how interested people are in purchasing a ticket in a pay-per-view platform,” McAlister says. “It does, as I said, give us the opportunity to continue to provide music in a really up-close and personal sort of way.”
Concert cancellations have hit hard the bottom line at the St. Joseph Symphony. McAlister says the symphony hopes the cozy concerts might help offset the losses.
McAlister, who just celebrated her first anniversary with the symphony, admits it’s been a tumultuous year.
“Having the announcement that we were losing our music director of 11 seasons and beginning that search process, search process number one in conjunction with Missouri Western and then, of course, search process number two that began in the spring on our own and then, oh by the way, there’s a pandemic,” McAlister says. “So, yeah, it has been an interesting year.”
Longtime music director Rico McNeela has left the symphony, which learned during the search for his replacement that Missouri Western State University decided to no longer offer the symphony director a position at the university. McNeela taught classes at Missouri Western, allowing the symphony to share the cost of his salary with the university.
Find out more about the cozy concerts by clicking here for the link to the St. Joseph Symphony website.