The New York City-based chamber orchestra Parlando aims to bridge the gap between audience and performer.
That may sound a bit self-evident — doesn’t every artist and ensemble want to connect with listeners?
But for Parlando and its founder and music director Ian Niederhoffer, “bridging the gap” means something special: truly direct communication, and engagement in creative and fun ways.
Niederhoffer engages with the audience before each concert, explicating the theme of the program. The selections vary widely, but each concert’s theme connects standard works with new or underrepresented music. The upcoming “Odysseys” concert, October 4 at Merkin Hall, brings together two contemporary pieces, Jimmy Lopez’s Guardian of the Horizon and Joey Roukens’s Visions at Sea, with Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence.
Just as he does with audiences, Niederhoffer was happy to speak with us about Parlando and how he pursues the orchestra’s goal “to make all classical music feel familiar to the audience, no matter the composer, era, or style.”