ASO tries less-is-more approach in First Fridays concerts

WOODRUFF ALSO INTRODUCING SOUNDSTAGE VENUE

Woodruff Arts Center leaders have long longed to make it a happening place, an oasis in the city where people linger a while rather than get their cultural fix and then zoom out of the underground parking lot.

The Midtown institution, which has staged numerous events in recent years on the plaza outside the High Museum of Art and inside the Memorial Arts Building’s expansive Galleria, takes another step toward creating a scene with the opening Friday of Soundstage.

This “pop-up” space in the Memorial Arts Building, looking out over busy Peachtree Street, will be a cabaret-style venue offering a full-service bar and tapas on the first Friday evening of every month.

It will also boast a menu of live entertainment, including music, improv comedy and spoken-word performances programmed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Alliance Theatre.

Not limited to ticket-holders, Soundstage also is open to the general public. The bar will pour from 5 p.m. until midnight, with entertainment from 8 p.m. to midnight.

On its opening night, guests can choose among three ticketed options: the ASO presenting its debut First Fridays one-hour concert at 6:30 p.m.; and stagings of “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” on the Alliance Stage and “Warrior Class” on the Hertz Stage, both at 8 p.m.

Soundstage guests can get $5 off tickets for either Alliance performance by using promo code SOUNDSTAGE5 online or at the box office. Information: 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org.

In classical music, can less be more?

That is a question looming behind a new Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert series, First Fridays, launching this week.

The five concerts, to be offered on the first Fridays of November, February, March, April and May, will start at 6:30 p.m. and last only an hour, with no intermission. General admission tickets go for $25, as opposed to the price range for other concerts this weekend, $24 to $75.

Especially targeting younger music lovers curious about classical but with commitment issues that make a 2 1/2-hour program a turnoff, the ASO is billing this as a “happy-hour concert series.”

To encourage that notion, the orchestra and the Alliance Theatre are also using the First Fridays debut to roll out Soundstage, a monthly pop-up venue at the Woodruff Arts Center offering drinks, food and live entertainment from 5 p.m. to midnight.

ASO President Stanley Romanstein believes that an alternative to Friday gridlock for Midtown’s estimated daytime workforce of 81,000 is in itself something to be happy about.

“Atlantans, particularly on Fridays in Midtown, really are plagued by the vagaries of traffic,” he said. “We thought, there’s a market there. What if we said, ‘Don’t fight the traffic, come over to Woodruff Arts Center, have a drink, a little something to eat. Listen to an hour of really great music made by world-class musicians. We’ll have you out and on your way by 7:30, after traffic has dissipated, and you will have had a wonderful experience.’ ”

The ASO did a test run in mid-June, promoting the concert directly with some of Midtown’s law firms, offices with associates and other young employees inclined to try something new on a Friday night. More than 1,400 people of various ages attended in 1,700-seat Symphony Hall.

Taking his usual seats with his wife, Shannon, Romanstein said they were immediately struck by all the new faces.

“We looked around and we didn’t know a soul, which just delighted us,” he said. “Frankly, a one-hour concert has a lot of appeal to audiences that may not be that familiar with classical music. It’s only an hour.”

Romanstein said that unfamiliar audience, in turn, had a lot of appeal to Music Director Robert Spano and the ASO musicians, who even took a quick bow when the crowd enthusiastically applauded, incorrectly, at the end of a movement of Holst’s “The Planets.” Then the musicians sat back down and continued performing the piece.

Spano, in fact, insisted on also conducting the First Fridays debut concert, even though he was not scheduled to be in town this weekend.

Liszt’s “Piano Concert No. 1” and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony are on Friday’s program. Featured on Friday, pianist Stephen Hough also will play the Liszt in classical series concerts on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Those will be led by guest conductor James Gaffigan.

“If you can offer them a reasonably full house of people who are enthusiastic about the experience, they’re all in,” Romanstein said of Spano and the orchestra. “So there really was no arm-twisting required.”

The ASO president hopes to make some classical converts with First Fridays, but he sounds as if he’s trying to set realistic expectations at the same time.

If first-time attendees don’t immediately buy tickets to full-length concerts, “that’s OK, too,” Romanstein said.

“We’d still consider it a success if people say, ‘I’ll come next First Friday and try this again.’ Or ‘I’ll try a chamber music concert next,’ ” he said. “Or maybe they’ll see something advertised at the Alliance Theatre, and say, ‘Hmmm, I didn’t know the Alliance was right here.’ ”