Most people will at one point in their life have visited a theatre or outdoor palladium to listen to an orchestra play classical music.
There is something overly beautiful about listening to a well-choreographed piece of music being played in front of you, and it can make for a sophisticated night out if you are somebody who enjoys the arts. Interestingly, even in 2022, tickets to performances by the London Symphony Orchestra are still selling strong, even outcompeting in sheer numbers with the most popular pop stars.
Yet, despite how popular orchestras are in society, very little is known about them in the general populous. So, if you would like to learn a little bit more about these groups of highly skilled performers, read on for five interesting facts about orchestras that you probably didn’t know
Donations
The first thing to note is that most people who perform in orchestras are incredibly generous when it comes to donating money. For example, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra donated over $10 million to charities since they began touring, which, when you reach the next fact, will blow your mind even more.
And if you want to see these incredibly generous performers in person, they are still touring, and you can purchase Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets online.
Non-Profit?
There is no such thing as a Symphony Orchestra that can make a profit, even though they tend to tour and sell out hundreds of thousands of seats in doing so.
This is because a standard orchestra performing has 40-200 fully paid performers, who will only perform a single piece 2 or 3 times, and being a member of a professional orchestra is a heavy pay packet. So, interestingly, the majority of orchestras rely on donators to be profitable and not ticket sales.
Auditions
Many people have stated that when it comes to visiting the orchestra in the past that there has been a gender bias towards males making up the majority of those performing. So, nowadays, across the world, the majority of orchestras use what is known as blind auditions. This means that the person plays their instrument from behind a screen and is judged solely on their technique rather than their gender, which is extremely fair, to be frank!
Vegetables?
It’s an interesting consideration that most people will have at one point, or another played a drum set in their kitchen made-up of pots and pans and carrots. However, in Vienna, there is an orchestra that takes this one step further and uses vegetables to perform music. They are known as the unimaginatively named Vegetable Orchestra, and when they have finished performing their concerts, they make soup from the instruments.
Mozart- great composer, bad audience member?
Most people are familiar with Mozart, but interestingly, there was an incident where he conducted an orchestra almost ad lib at the demands of the audience that he was initially a part of. This is because he stood during the performance. He stood and began shouting that the orchestra had played the wrong note. So, while he may have been a great composer, you probably wouldn’t want him in your audience!