A video crew captures multiple angles as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra performs at the Meyerson Symphony Center in September. Photo: Jason Janik
“On the Meyerson Symphony Center’s stage, German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra are playing film-score legend John Williams’ Second Violin Concerto, completed earlier this year,” write Tim Diovanni and Jerome Weeks in Monday’s (10/18) Dallas Morning News. “Out of sight from the musicians and audience members, a video recording is underway…. Director Andrew Alden follows the performance with a printed score. Now and then … he calls out camera changes…. Stationed near Alden, executive producer Denise McGovern reads out instructions for the camera operator…. None of this existed before the summer of 2020, when the pandemic moved up the DSO’s plans to produce concert videos…. DSO’s president and CEO Kim Noltemy said, ‘Audiences who were very reticent or uninterested in digital content became interested. I believe we cannot turn back from that whole process.’ At the Sept. 25 gala concert, which also included Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Alden, McGovern and their co-workers were watching feeds from 10 robotic cameras installed throughout the Meyerson…. According to data supplied by the orchestra, the DSO’s 33 concert videos brought in close to 100,000 views in the 2020-21 season, with viewers from 101 countries.”
