After first hearing about the project nearly two years ago, on Thursday I finally made it out to my first Multi-Story Orchestra concert. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the group, they are best known for performing symphonic repertoire in car parks (ie: parking garages), most regularly in a space in Peckham, London run by the art organization Bold Tendencies. There, in the dark of the garage, surrounded by site-specific sculptures by professionals and school kids alike, accompanied by the screeches and growls of passing trains, the orchestra plays.
The weather was rainy and chilly, so I arrived a few minutes late after being caught on my bike in a downpour. The first half of the program involved what the group calls Living Program Notes, which were split into four installation areas spread throughout the space. After racing in and grabbing my ticket, I joined with a group that was making its way to the Green zone.
Each of the installation areas was dedicated to one movement of Schumann’s second symphony, which was performed in full in the second half of the program. The attendees were divided into four groups and guided to each presentation in turn, where a group of musicians from the orchestra led activities to help guide our listening within that movement. For example, they taught us lyrics and created sing-alongs for various melodies and countermelodies. Sometimes we were taught dance moves or clapping rhythms to match the musical material. The concertmistress even performed a juggling routine (yes, juggling!) to poke fun at an acrobatic violin passage.
The complete performance, in the second half of the evening, was quite casual. The audience was seated on the same level as the orchestra and directly in front of the performers. Most of the musicians looked relaxed and like they were enjoying themselves (imagine that!), even though the weather had turned chilly. Everyone’s dress was casual – the musicians were not wearing matching uniforms – and the background noise from the surrounding streets meant that it was not noticeable when audience members turned and whispered to one another during the music like they might at an indie gig. There was applause between movements, which felt completely comfortable and normal, other than after the slow movement, when I felt it broke the mood.
In general, it was a nice evening out, though I found the repertoire itself a bit lackluster – there’s a good reason the symphony isn’t performed often, and it’s because there’s nothing that special about it (in my opinion). The orchestra took an educational rather than an emotional approach to appeal to new listeners (presumably the target audience is those who don’t have much background with classical music). Though I have read research that describes how new listeners often feel more engaged and included when they are guided to listen for particular sounds and melodies, I wonder whether there is any way to prevent implementations of this from perpetuating harmful discourses about classical music being something that requires knowledge and study – as well as promoting/encouraging structuralist arguments within musicology that prioritize musical form and analysis over social and emotional experience. I commonly point out this hierarchy as being an example of patriarchy’s relative valuation of the intellectual over the emotional.
Theory aside, the program did seem successful in bringing different audiences than the concert hall: most attendees were between their 20s and 40s, which mirrored the ages of the performers (20s-30s), and they appeared to have more diverse class backgrounds, though they almost exclusively white. It was nice to engage with the music in a different way, though, and it seems like it would be a genuinely positive and fun ensemble to play with. Plus, the view of the London skyline from the car park roof is one not to miss!
