“Live audiences can’t crowd into the Orpheum Theater right now, due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra is doing the next best thing … prerecording its main stage concerts in the empty theater and making them available … on the orchestra’s website via a special pass code,” writes Dean Shapiro in Monday’s (9/28) Times-Picayune (New Orleans). Friday’s season-opening concert, guest conducted by Lina Gonzalez-Granados, will feature eight works, five of them “written by contemporary American composers, including one by [LPO Creative Partner] Courtney Bryan…. Music director Carlos Miguel Prieto is in his native Mexico, unable to be present … because of coronavirus travel restrictions…. The viewing concept … is not new to the orchestra’s newly appointed interim executive director, Scott Harrison … a pioneer in the use of digital technology to present classical concerts during his five-year tenure (2010-15) with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra…. The spring 2021 concert lineup will be announced later.” This fall, LPO musicians are also performing chamber concerts that can be viewed at the LPO website, and a live outdoor series at several gardens and historic sites.
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