The Phoenix Symphony World Premiere Approaches
While the entire Phoenix metropolitan area is focused on the Superbowl taking place this weekend in our backyard, The Phoenix Symphony is diligently preparing for the much anticipated world premiere of Mark Grey’s Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio just days after the big game. Months of preparations will culminate with a unique work for orchestra, chorus, and baritone soloist Scott Hendricks celebrating the heritage of Arizona. Much has to be done before next Thursday. (Although in the mean time, we do hope to catch the big game.)Rehearsal begins next week and Associate Principal Horn Barbara Bingham Deutscher remarked that “it is an exhilarating experience and quite a responsibility to undertake a world premiere. In exploring my part and having listened to the MIDI recording available for our study, I can tell you that this is an interesting and emotional piece. Hope to see you there!” We hope you will join Barb and the rest of us here at The Phoenix Symphony as we witness the thrilling premiere of Enemy Slayer.
6 Comments:
Speaking for most of the chorus (hopefully) we are extremely excited and proud to be part of this event. The words and message are incredibly poignant and timeless. The music is awesome. It has and continues to be a wonderful challenge to us and we can't wait to hear both the soloist and the orchestra. I want ot personally thank Maestro Christie for providing us this opportunity. I think I'm driving my family crazy with talk of Enemy Slayer! If the audience gets half as much pleasure from this as I know I will then they are in for a rare treat. Enjoy!
Sonny the Cat Said...."Why don't we follow the Baltimore Symphony's example? "For just $15 you'll get the BEST AVAILABLE seat on the day of the concert-it could be anywhere, but there's really not a bad seat in the house."
There are many symphony orchestras who provide special pricing night of performance except the Phoenix Symphony.
Even the Metropolitan opera offers 100 orchestra seats for 20 dollars on a first come first served basis.
But not the Phoenix Symphony. They keep talking about building an audience, and playing modern day music; how about modern day marketing.
i am much looking forward to this, probably because it is new and without any expectations. it must be marvelous to experience new music this way.
An example of modern day marketing....
http://www.myspace.com/lyricoperaofchicago
While we do not have the Baltimore plan we do have numerous packages that offer similar best available seating for a dramatically discounted price on the day of the show. Additionally we offer $10 tickets for students and 25% discount for seniors for any seat the night of the show and of course there are numerous group rates and special offers. A dizzying array I might add and I like the simplicity of the Baltimore plan. You should know that Baltimore had a corporate underwriter for the $15 dollar program which was intended to reverse I believe what was a downward trend in total seats subscribed and mirrored another program by their zoo or a museum in Baltimore. Kudos to Baltimore on their success!
As I write this evening I am happy to report that here in Phoenix we just achieved an all time high in total seats subscribed passing the 1999 of 13,129 record at today 13,200 or something close to that and we have a few more weeks of selling left. This season we have at least come to parity on subscription seats sold in our best year and reversed a negative nine year decline. We are also reaching a new high in earned subscription revenue which is slightly up from last year. I attribute this positive reversal to the great music making of Michael with the orchestra plus our product marketing strategy, a great marketing team and our telemarketing program.
Of course we still have capacity utilization problems as well as capacity utilization successes. Our weakest day is Thursday classics and we are working to reposition this day as "opening night" next season so stay tuned there. We could always do better in Marketing so thanks for the suggestion.
This weekend we should have a good showing for Navajo on Thursday and Saturday. Based on the seats sold so far I would say our Phoenix audience is voting yes to new music and yes to adventure with Michael and the orchestra. I'm looking forward to your feedback after the concert. The live recording experience will be a new one for everyone so stay tuned as well for audience instructions.
Maryellen Gleason
President & CEO
Please also credit the outstanding work by Dr. Gregory Gentry and the PHOENIX SYMPHONY CHORUS in the current rise in subscription sales. Where Ms. Gleason of the Phoenix Symphony said "I attribute this positive reversal to the great music making of Michael with the orchestra plus our product marketing strategy", I would add that there would be a major void in performance quality without the excellence and preparedness of the volunteer singers of this new Phoenix Symphony Chorus.
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