Concertgoers interested in hearing the music of Tina Turner, Dolly Parton or Simon and Garfunkel have a new place to go — Powell Hall, home of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
A spate of newly announced soul, country and pop concerts is part of the SLSO’s effort to attract new audiences after investing $140 million in the renovation and expansion of Powell Hall. The shows complement other programming that emphasizes the accessibility of European classical music.
“You will experience many different audiences in the hall, depending on what's onstage. And I think that's very exciting,” said Unitey Kull, the SLSO’s chief marketing and communications officer.
Efforts to expand the audience are paying off.
Fully 40% of single-ticket buyers this season, across all concerts, are first-time patrons. Many new audience members return for multiple shows: 32% of this season’s subscribers are new to the SLSO. Including season subscribers, more than half of the overall patron base is composed of Gen Xers, millennials and members of Gen Z, Krull said.
“We’ve been successful at lowering the average age. Not that there’s anything wrong with who’s already coming,” she added, “but we certainly see a lot of young audiences getting excited about classical music as well.”
Outreach efforts include a busy social media strategy. When Atlanta-based influencer Tani Lior told her followers earlier this year that she’d never been to a classical concert, Krull’s team invited her to the reopening of Powell Hall in September.
One of Lior’s resulting posts — a video of her vocalizing along to SLSO violist Michael Casimir’s backstage performance of a Mozart piece — has garnered 3.6 million views on Instagram and 6.8 million views on TikTok, according to the SLSO. Short videos featuring an informal performance by guest cellist Kian Soltani at the top of the Gateway Arch and principal horn Roger Kaza playing a taste of Stravinsky’s “Firebird” have been online hits.
The SLSO also launched its Noted podcast this season. Episodes offer 10-minute breakdowns of upcoming programs.
Some audience-building programs are designed to convert the classically curious into regular concertgoers. The Playlist series offers one-hour happy hour concerts where the drinks flow and audience members mingle with musicians afterward. Building on its existing concerts for kids ages 2 to 12, the SLSO added a concert for teens this season.
Concerts exploring other parts of the musical world are not new to the SLSO but are growing in frequency.
One reason is that the recent renovations and expansion of Powell Hall increased the venue’s technical capacity. A larger backstage area and loading dock, better facilities for guest artists, new lights and a robotic camera system with backstage studio offer more production options.
“When we did not have the expanded back-of-house, it would have been a challenge to have some of these shows come to Powell Hall,” said Chief Operating Officer Paul Pietrowski. “All of this technology makes it very desirable for artists to come perform and also to talk about how they can use our digital and technology suite to promote their music or to expand their audience.”
The SLSO created a classical/hip-hop crossover program last season, including new arrangements of rap classics, featuring the Sugarhill Gang and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run-DMC. The show is now available to tour elsewhere. Many cross-genre programs originate with other orchestras — the Dolly Parton tribute at Powell Hall on Jan. 17-18 was developed by the Nashville Symphony — or come from pop, rock and jazz artists who tend to book events on a quicker timeline than the two-year turnaround common with classical performers.
David Bowie collaborator Donny McCaslin brought his orchestral adaptation of Bowie’s album “Black Star” to Powell Hall last season, a few months before R.E.M.'s Mike Mills performed his Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra with the SLSO. Mashups of music by classical and contemporary artists arranged by conductor Steve Hackman have also proven popular.
Jazz luminaries Terence Blanchard and Ravi Coltrane will perform a tribute to the collaboration between Miles Davis and Coltrane’s legendary father in June, complementing a Feb. 28 show dedicated to orchestrations of John Coltrane’s music by composer Carlos Simon.
Other hybrid shows this season include a doo-wop remembrance of Route 66 and a collaboration with Tower of Power.
“We need to keep building audiences to have a sustainable future,” Kull said, “but as a core part of the cultural community in St. Louis, we want to find ways to bring people in so they can experience this art form, experience our venue, and enjoy what we have to offer as a part of their lives.”
