In Tuesday’s (9/18) Gazettes (Long Beach, California), Ashleigh Ruhl writes, “With hopes to attract a younger crowd to Classics concerts, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra is debuting a Balcony Club with a more social, relaxed and affordable ambiance. The Balcony Club at the Terrace Theater will open for the first time this season on Oct. 6—where concert goers will hear Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring Haochen Zhang, plus Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. This is the beginning of LBSO’s 78th season, and Music Director Enrique Arturo Diemecke again will lead LBSO this year. LBSO will be working with SMG-Savor to create a ‘club atmosphere’ in the upstairs lounge at the Terrace, where there will be couches and a bar (with drink specials) and a television playing the Classics live. … [Rick Berry, LBSO’s director of marketing] explained that LBSO is bending the rules upstairs, where audience members will be able to walk in and out of their seats more freely during the two-hour concerts. Also, the use of cell phones—for texting or taking non-flash photos—will be allowed. … ‘The Balcony Club is a great way for people to check out our orchestra without some of the barriers that people may have perceived in the past,’ Berry emphasized.”
Posted September 18, 2012
