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With Kat Wright show, Vermont Symphony Orchestra moves forward on winning strategy
Brent Hallenbeck
Kat Wright couldn't believe her eyes. The Burlington soul singer had just received an email asking if she'd like to perform with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.
"I was like, 'Whoa, this is incredible,'" she said. "It's a total dream come true. Playing with an orchestra is such a rare and special thing." The dream comes true Saturday when Wright sings with the VSO at the Higher Ground nightclub.
The concert is also a dream come true for Ben Cadwallader. When he became the VSO's executive director four years ago, Cadwallader vowed to bring new and different programming to the organization that typically presents full-orchestra concerts in a traditional theater setting such as the Flynn Center.
The VSO has done a couple of concerts since then with popular musicians. In 2016 the VSO embarked on a series of chamber concerts called Jukebox at the Burlington music venue ArtsRiot that sell out regularly and have increased the orchestra's coolness factor.
So far, attendance figures show that the changes seem to be working in attracting new audiences. Cadwallader sees the concert with Wright as the next step establishing the VSO as an organization transcending the staid reputation of an orchestra dating to 1934.
"Our fervent hope is that we will bring a bunch of new people to Kat," Cadwallader said, "and a bunch of new people to the VSO."
Kat Wright sings 17th-century Henry Purcell
Wright has been working with Matt LaRocca, who leads the VSO's creative projects, to assemble a program for Saturday's sold-out show. Jane Lindholm of Vermont Public Radio will introduce the night and lead question-and-answer sessions during breaks in the performance.
The concert with more than 20 VSO musicians will feature roughly 40% Wright songs and 60% classical works. "I hate to say 'classical' because it spans 400 years," Cadwallader said.
The concerts Cadwallader envisions the VSO doing with popular musicians will be not to just "orchestrate Twiddle," he said, name-dropping another popular Vermont act, but to show the overlap between genres. Wright, for instance, will sing to compositions by Henry Purcell, who Cadwallader said wrote soulful music more than 300 years ago.
"We're all limbs on the same exact tree," Cadwallader said.
Wright is already incorporating strings into her next album, which she expects to release in 2020. Wright said she's inspired by contemporary musicians such as Emily King who build strings into their songs.
"It's just another shade of me," she said. All of her songs Saturday will be from her forthcoming album.
Can the VSO's new strategy be a model for other orchestras?
Cadwallader told the Free Press after he was hired in 2015 that he wanted to bring VSO performances into alternative venues such as ArtsRiot and wasn't afraid to lose money at it.
"Failure is not the opposite of success," he said then. "Giving up is the opposite of success."
Four years later, it turns out, those alternative performances are making money. New VSO initiatives including Jukebox and shows in conjunction with Higher Ground bring in more than 4,300 people a year, Cadwallader said, which is about a quarter of the 17,000 total attendees of VSO events. That total-attendance figure climbed from 15,595 the previous year.
"The bottom line," Cadwallader said, "is more people are experiencing our music in new ways, and it is not costing the VSO money."
Cadwallader said the new initiatives gross more than $150,000, a tenth of the VSO's annual budget of $1.5 million. Meanwhile, attendance for the VSO's traditional Classical Series concerts, formerly known as the Masterworks series, declined from an average of 875 tickets sold per concert in 2017-18 to 782 in 2018-19. The VSO has cut its Classical Series concerts from five to four a year.
Orchestras around the country are experiencing similar declines in attendance for full concerts. Many are struggling to move forward.
"The ones that will survive," Cadwallader said, "are the ones that are innovative like us."
How Kat Wright and the VSO give each other a boost
Cadwallader said events such as Saturday's build an "elastic competency" showing the VSO as a flexible company that does more than repeat the same type of programming. "Opportunities like this can let us be led by creativity," he said.
Wright said many of her fans will come from other New England states to Saturday's concert. She's happy to show off Vermont's musical range.
"I'm really excited for my fans to experience the orchestra," Wright said. "It's just another check of boxes for how much I love Vermont."
Cadwallader hopes the success of Saturday's concert — half of the 550 tickets sold out within a week of the performance being announced — leads to similar concerts with non-classical musicians and possibly even statewide tours. If the VSO decides to do a statewide tour that includes the Purcell piece, the organization could call upon Wright to help out. Conversely, if she chooses to tour in support of her next album with a string section, she can tap into the VSO's roster to join her.
"Now we have a relationship with Kat Wright," Cadwallader said. "Now we're in each other's orbit. Once we create new things, there's gravity there."
WHAT: Vermont Symphony Orchestra featuring Kat Wright
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26
WHERE: Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington
TICKETS: Sold out. 652-0777, www.highergroundmusic.com
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Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.