MICHELLE WINTERS

AUDIENCE INTERVIEW MICHELLE WINTERS

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA

The Louisville Orchestra is changing the very idea of what a 21st century orchestra can be. Its mission is to promote innovation, creativity, and excellence. With everything that has happened over the past nine months, the way the company has adjusted T and inspired our community has been amazing. By being innovative and doing new things virtually, LO has pushed boundaries and realigned the way the group meets its goals.

We caught up with with Director of Marketing, Michelle Winters, to hear how the Louisville Orchestra team has navigated through the past year, and what lies ahead as the group clears new paths for a bright future.

This is an excerpt from the full interview. To read it in its entirety, visit Audience502.com.

G. Douglas Dreisbach: When stages went dark, what were some of your initial thoughts, and looking back, were they accurate? How have they changed?

Michelle Winters: The first thing we faced was making the decision to close down the concerts last March 13 and 14, which was heartbreaking. Obviously, everyone was excited about the prospect of those performances of our Festival of American Music that featured Norah Jones and Jacob Duncan. But, it was important to consider the health and safety of the community first, and the organization second; and the first thing to do was to join in with the immediate battle of trying to shut down the influence of COVID-19. Looking at it now, it was well beyond anything we could have ever imagined.

As more and more concerts went by the wayside, and things became clearer as to what we were facing, we went ahead and formed an innovation committee. The key members of the organization, under the leadership of Teddy Abrams, got together and started looking at options. From this, a massive list of ideas came together from the initiative of musicians, Teddy and the organization as a whole.

Looking back, some of those things were a little wild. There was Teddy riding around in the back of a box truck, driving from parking lot to parking lot at senior homes. He also immediately got involved in the Lift Up Lou initiative, which was a song created for Louisville about Louisville during the height of the pandemic and quarantine. The song was written, produced, and distributed. It is now gaining traction across the country with the city song movement that is going on.

GDD: The innovation of digital streaming the performances has been really exciting, but even more exciting is some of the exploration of pairing musicians like Sam Bush with the orchestra. How did those come about, and will we see more collaborations with other artists?

MW: Absolutely, and I think that’s one of the great triumphs of the Louisville Orchestra. We didn’t let all of these challenges get in the way of the creativity of the programming. Orchestras across the country went online with concerts and most performed carefully selected traditional music. Teddy Abrams saw the opportunity to explore, collaborate and create in brand new ways.

The pairing of Sam Bush, Newgrass/Bluegrass, Kentucky-based music is what we’ve been doing live in the theater for quite some time. Deeply exploring all kinds of music, and how orchestra is another instrument in the stream of making music. The concert with Sam Bush and Steve Mougin was extraordinary and had so much energy. Performing under the current circumstances as an online streaming concert was even more extraordinary. It was so amazing and I hope we can have Sam Bush return when we can perform with an audience. We really miss the energy of the audience, and I know audiences miss not being in the space with the performers.

GDD: The streaming options help attract new audiences and patrons by giving them more accessibility and exposure for the performers. Somebody that was a big fan of Sam Bush may have watched that performance, never seen the Louisville Orchestra, but afterwards said, “You know, that’s pretty awesome. I want to go see a live orchestra show now.”

MW: You are absolutely right, and it’s gone even farther than we anticipated, because we’ve had viewership from Japan and all over Europe and South America, Australia, all over the United States. The fact that we can stay in front of our local audiences is really important. Going out to these new audiences, outside of our market area, is quite an exciting innovation. But really, we are still the hometown orchestra, because everything we

 Michelle Winters. Photo courtesy of Louisville Orchestra.

L.O.V.E. stands for Louisville Orchestra Virtual Edition, it is a series of four livestreamed concerts and small ensembles available on-demand.

do still reflects the music scene in Louisville, especially that American Soul concert with Jason Clayborn and Daria Raymore. Both are local, extraordinary artists, renowned in Louisville for their musicianship and their talents were really put on display in this concert. It was simply amazing.

But again, to shout out to the members of the Louisville Orchestra, on that Sam Bush concert, after Sam’s set, they performed an Appalachian Spring that was absolutely

SPRING L.O.V.E. CONCERTS 2021

Classical Pairing: John Adams + W.A. Mozart Live online: Saturday, Feb. 13, 7:30PM On demand: Friday, Feb. 26-Sunday, April 11

Homecomings: Musical Journeys of Uncommon Folk

Live online: Saturday, March 6, 7:30PM On demand: Friday, March 19-Sunday, May 2

Abrams Plays Ravel

Live online: Saturday, March 27, 7:30PM On demand: Friday, April 9-Sunday, May 23

Wailing Trumpets: with Bob Bernhardt and Byron Stripling

Live online: Saturday, April 10, 7:30PM On demand: Friday, April 23-Sunday, June 6

For more information about the Spring: Louisville Orchestra Virtual Edition 2021 and to purchase your subscription, click here. radiant. It just glowed. We also released a Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a very classic performance, which is one of the first times recently that Teddy has done an all-classic performance. Most of his concerts lately have been a kaleidoscope of musical innovation. This one was a really strictly classical performance with soloists from the Louisville Orchestra, and it’s just a breathtaking performance.

GDD: We just heard a little bit of a tease into the new season with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. What else can we look forward to in the spring season?

MW: We have really developed a format here with our online releases. We’re calling it the L.O.V.E. season, meaning Louisville Orchestra Virtual Edition, and we want to show our love going out to the community. The spring season will be the same as it was last fall with four livestreaming concerts. We then take those four streaming concerts, convert them to on-demand video that can be watched for 45 days after the release date. Then, we asked the orchestra musicians to do volunteer recordings of additional music. Then the creativity of the LO musicians brings us music for small ensembles, a Beethoven string quartet, Stravinsky octet for winds, and pieces like that. We have a flute trio that’s jazz-oriented. We have a string ensemble that’s doing some Motown. All of this will be included in the spring Virtual Edition package for one price, and videos just pop up every few days.

So, in the spring, we’re doing the same, and we have lowered the price to $75 to try to make it more accessible. There will be dozens of videos popped in there, in addition to the four main livestreamed concerts. And if you miss the livestream, then the on-demand concert will come up for you to watch at your own time, and however many times you want to view it.

If someone only wants one of the concerts, they can be purchased for a one-time view for $20 in either the livestream or on-demand format.

Gabe Lefkowitz Four Seasons Finale. Photo courtesy of the Louisville Orchestra.

So, that’s the structure of it, but the content is going to be fantastic. We are starting up on February 13th for our first livestream of the new season with a marvelous lineup of four concerts with a mix of classics and contemporary, living composers. We are going to feature Sarah Jarosz, a Grammy Award-winning young woman artist who toured with Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion. She’s a singer-songwriter who will have a new orchestration of some of her music. She is a big guest artist for the spring season, and a lot more wonderful music in those four concerts, coming to a device near you.

GDD: Other than purchasing the stream of the events, of each performance, what are some other ways the community can help the Louisville Orchestra over these next few months, as we move forward into the unknown?

MW: So many people have been tremendously generous already, and we are grateful for that. Patrons donated their tickets back to us in that initial flush of cancellations. We’ve had all kinds of people hold their ticket money on their account with a pledge that they’ll be using it when we get back to in-person performances. All of those indications of public support are so important to us. However, it is the dedicated and overwhelming support of our donors that has made all of this activity possible.

Now, more than any time in our history, we are depending on the love people have for the Louisville Orchestra. We were one of the first to shut down live gatherings and will be one of the last to get back to our usual performing opportunities. We are thrilled that people enjoy our online concerts but they do not replace lost ticket sales. The challenges of gathering the musicians safely, creating the online performances, and keeping the organization operating have been unprecedented. Everyone at the LO is very grateful for the commitment made by generous donors in our community to keep the music playing.

Check out some exclusive content and sneak previews of performances to be featured in LO’s upcoming spring season!

 Watch Teddy Abrams’s special recording of the Happy Birthday song in honor of Beethoven’s birthday in December.  Sarah Jarosz’s Hometown Music Video. She will be a guest artist with LO on March 6.

 Byron Stripling performing at the Jazz Trumpet Festival 2015. Stripling will perform with LO April 10.  Yuja Wang plays Ravel Piano Concerto in G major, which will be played by Teddy Abrams March 27.