![]() ![]() “I’ve spoken with a few parents who have been bringing their children over the years since we started WALLCASTing,” says Herring. But it has also helped create new musicians. WALLCASTs creates new fans of the genre, to be sure. That is incredibly important if you think about growing the audience for classical music – new people coming to this experience and enjoying it and being transformed by it and having it affect their lives.” ![]() “A statistic that says a lot: 75 percent of the people who come to the wall have never purchased a ticket to the New World Symphony,” says Herring. But for the New World Symphony, success is not just about the bottom line. Obviously, no money is made from passersby who stop to watch the big screen. So we were already moving in these directions when we sat with Frank Gehry and told him that we wanted to engage the larger public.” And then we went out and erected a screen from time to time and put a good speaker system out there, and we began to simulcast in the middle of the pedestrian mall, and that was a success. “And people are walking down Lincoln Road, and begin to realize that there’s a live performance going on inside. “Ted Arison, who was the philanthropic founder of the New World Symphony, suggested that New World put a flat-screen and speakers above the door of the Lincoln Theater, which was the building we were in back then,” says Herring. That philosophy directly led to the concept of the WALLCAST, years before it came to fruition in 2011. “In our vision statement, we say that we see a strong and secure future for classical music,” says Herring, who is a pianist himself, “and that we will reimagine, reaffirm, express and share its traditions – and here’s the kicker – with as many people as possible.” And if it might seem counterintuitive to project for free on the wall outdoors what’s happening inside the concert hall, it’s entirely consistent with the mission of the New World Symphony. The program includes works by Beethoven and Berlioz, plus Russian pianist Alexander Scriabin’s only Concerto. “He’s worked with Michael a couple of times, and Michael thought it would be the right thing to have him with us on opening night, so we are very much looking forward to having him.” “ has made an enormous impression on audiences here and in Europe, and he is very much the pianist of his generation, young as he is,” says Herring. The performance – featuring artistic director and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, as usual – is also the NWS debut of Grammy-winning Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, who is Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year and was called by The Times as “without question the most astounding pianist of our age.” ![]()
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