Having already done two amazingly rewarding live concerts as part of our Virtually Live series, we knew that our third and final concert had to be the cherry on top of the cake! The original live concert, Virtually Live: Live!, was our first entirely self-curated event (with the help of funding from the RPS Enterprise Fund and Harriet’s Trust), and it was a major learning experience for all of us as we found out how much work goes on behind the scenes to create a smooth running concert performance. As mentioned by Sarah, our second concert Sound and Space gave us the opportunity to experiment with movement and choreography, and we also faced some unforeseen challenges which definitely taught us how to make important decisions quickly! How were we going to make our third concert a new experience for both us and the audience? Well the idea came to us as we were having an all-important snack-break in a rehearsal at Sarah’s flat…
A menu!
What does a menu have to do with a concert? For us to explain, it would be useful to wind back to 2020 where we originally came up with our idea of ‘Virtually Live’. Sat on a video call from our lockdown homes, we knew that we needed to find a way to continue sharing music and spreading positivity with our audience, reaching as many people as we could. We’ve also never really liked the idea of classical music having barriers and we know that it’s easy to feel excluded when you can’t sing along to a familiar song, or you don’t quite know when you’re supposed to clap in a performance. Why does our genre of music have to feel that way? It turns out that it doesn’t, and the goals we set in our very first planning meeting were what guided us to our idea of having the audience feel as much in control of our concert as we were.
We set to work on creating a menu for our audience which included choices for an Appetiser, Main, Dessert and Aperitif, all of which would be voted on to create our final programme. Sandwiched (pun intended) between a predetermined setlist, the middle section of our performance would be decided entirely by our listeners and we wouldn’t know what the pieces were until we were about to play them!
As you can imagine, this was all terribly exciting (and quite nerve wracking) as we channelled our inner Dermot O’Leary, opening up our envelopes to announce which piece would be next in the programme. Keeping in line with the Virtually Live atmosphere, we also opened up a voting link online for our followers to engage with too. It was exciting to see our social media polls going up and down in the build up to the concert!
Musically, the preparation for this concert was definitely the most challenging. In order to be ready for whatever the audience chose, we had to learn quadruple the amount of repertoire in the build up to the performance (which was only a month after our second Virtually Live concert). The extra preparation was worth it for the end result though, and it meant we had a string of extremely productive rehearsals in the run up to the concert day!
In keeping with the rest of the series, we each took on our own roles to help the organisation run smoothly. Eleanor was our poster-making, video-editing extraordinaire. Sarah organised all the logistics regarding the venue and Jess took charge of the social media advertising (which is far trickier than it looks!). I was excited to use my writing skills to find a way to give the audience an essence of each piece in the space of one sentence, so everything would fit on the menu nicely too.
A special thanks had to go to Adam and Gabe who have been our sound and video helpers throughout the whole series, we couldn’t have done it without them. On the night, we ran like a well-oiled machine and it felt like we had really come a long way since our initial planning meeting and even the first VL Live concert.
On a personal note, I felt that this concert was the most comfortable and expressive we have ever been on stage as a group. It came during the busiest month ever for Chameleon, with lots of travelling and multi-tasking going on! It was also exciting to feel prepared and energised to go on stage and do something we have never done before, trusting that our wonderful audience would go along with our crazy ideas and make them work. It felt like a true collaboration and we were pleased that everyone we spoke to loved the idea of the programming being interactive. It also left me wondering why we hadn’t done it already!
As for Virtually Live, I don’t think any of us expected to develop so many skills over the past two years and we have a lot to thank for this series for opening up our minds and learning that we had the ability to create our own opportunities to achieve our goals. Whatever our next venture is, we have a huge learning experience under our belt and I am sure that it will propel us towards another new, bonkers idea! Removing boundaries, creative choreography and audience-inspired programming, What’s next? Who knows…
by Cara
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