A Symphonic Return to Hogwarts

Symphony Silicon Valley is making another trip to Hogwarts this weekend, as they accompany a complete screening of the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in four performances at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts. General Director Andrew Bales says  aside from just being a crowd-pleaser, it suits their long-term mission of audience building, and having people who might otherwise not go to the concert hall hear symphonic music.

There’s more information about the performances at the Symphony Silicon Valley website.

“Films for us has been an interesting bag,” Bales explains. “We did a couple of traditional ones like Fantasia, and we did Bugs Bunny, which is wonderful, we love doing them, audiences enjoyed them, they were fine. It didn’t fundamentally change who we were selling to, though. And when we went to Lord of the Rings, we saw a completely different audience mix.” The demographic reason to return to this as a format, he says, is convincing. “From an audience point of view, it appeals to an audience that we otherwise don’t see. It’s a younger audience, it’s families, it’s just a different kind of audience.” Since it’s not part of the regular subscription series, it also gives the Symphony an opportunity to hire its musicians more. “Every added service adds to the ensemble feel, it makes these players play better together,” Bales says, and adds that they always have a great deal of fun doing it.