“At the Reading Symphony Orchestra’s Oct. 11 season-opening concert, music director and conductor Andrew Constantine waved a smartphone at the audience,” writes Steve Siegel in Thursday’s (1/11) Morning Call (Allentown, PA). “Constantine encouraged the large audience … to download a free app called EnCue on their mobile devices … and to use the app for the orchestra’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, during which they could get real-time program notes and images…. Constantine … who also conducts the Fort Wayne Philharmonic … used EnCue for the first time with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic [on] Oct. 7,” and EnCue has also been used by the National Orchestral Institute in Maryland and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston. “In 2014, the Philadelphia Orchestra started trials of LiveNote, an interactive concert guide for mobile devices [and] will launch … LiveNote2 early this year…. Allentown Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor Diane Wittry [says], … ‘I’m looking into using either EnCue or LiveNote in the very near future.’ … Constantine says, … ‘A survey we conducted after the Fort Wayne concert indicated that about 13 percent of the audience used EnCue … and the largest demographic was the 64- to 75-year-old age group.’ ”
Posted January 16, 2018
