Rusty musicians partake in ‘logistical marvel’ at Strathmore

Here’s a novel, “up close and personal” way to celebrate the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s fifth anniversary at the Music Center at Strathmore: Invite 600 amateur musicians to take the stage alongside the orchestra members for two nights of side-by-side music making both tonight and tomorrow night.

Sound like an orchestra on steroids?

“Well, in a way it is”, Jeff Counts, artistic administrator of the BSO explained. He put out the call for musicians from the community to join forces with the orchestra as a way of thanking them for their five years of support. “We had such a positive response from the public we had to re-think the whole idea.”

What they came up with was two performance nights of four sessions each. Each session, approximately 40 minutes long, will feature 60 to 80 musicians, each seated beside an orchestra member in their particular section — strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. Each session will perform the same two pieces, Elgar’s “Nimrod” from “Enigma Variations” and the fourth movement from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

“The audience will see a little bit of rehearsing, a run-through and then the performance,” Counts continued. “We built everything into these tightly packed sessions. It will be a logistical marvel if it comes off the way we want it to.”

While he has not spoken directly to the BSO musicians, he said he has heard from other staff members that they are very excited about this chance to reach out to their audiences and connect with them in this way.

“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity [the BSO] is giving us,” said clarinet player, Laura Stailey, one of the community performers.

With a degree in music education from Ohio State in 1971, Stailey performed with many orchestras over her years of marriage to a career Air Force officer. She even founded a concert band during her husband’s tenure in Brussels, Belgium.

In what she calls, “[keeping] my lip going,” she currently performs solo and chamber music at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Montgomery County, and is both proud and amazed to be under the baton of Maestra Marin Alsop, the BSO’s musical director.

The sentiment is mutual.

“What better way to thank the greater Washington, D.C., community for their support than to invite them onstage to collaborate in an intimate, meaningful way,” Alsop said. “By engaging patrons in this directly participatory experience, we are tearing down the walls that separate us from our audiences.”