CLARKE BUSTARD
MUSIC Sep 28, 2003
Contact Clarke Bustard at (804) 649-6362 or cbustard@timesdispatch.com

The new home of the Richmond Symphony's Monday night Masterworks concerts, St. Michael Catholic Church in Glen Allen, is likely to be the most popular venue for symphony performances since the Tredegar Iron Works Foundry Building played host to the Kicked Back Classics series - and for the same reason: presence.

As it did at Tredegar, the orchestra plays in the round at St. Michael, surrounded by an audience seated in chairs at floor level and on ascending rows of pews.

No listener sits more than 30 feet from some musician. Orchestral music can pack quite a punch at such proximity.

The orchestra will rotate 90 degrees from one concert to the next, so a patron occupying the same seat all season will see and hear the music-making from four different perspectives.

Obviously, the sound is better-blended with strings in the foreground, but it's not as unbalanced as might be expected when you're seated behind the orchestra, looking over the shoulders of brass and percussion players.

During a tryout rehearsal last winter, when the symphony played in a largely empty sanctuary, the acoustics tended toward boomy resonance with some glare in high-pitched tones.

Last week, with an audience filling about two-thirds of the seats, the sound was more focused and warmer, especially favoring the alto and baritone registers of violas, cellos, clarinets and French horns.

Bass sound can be pretty spectacular, too. The risers on which the pews sit are hollow and act like resonating chambers. You don't just hear a thwack on the bass drum; you feel it in the soles of your feet.

While the space sounds most suited to the burnished romantic tone of a work such as Bruch's "Scottish Rhapsody," the sonic blend also proved satisfying on opening night in the busier and more brightly colored "Tzigane" of Ravel and Gershwin's "An American in Paris."

Several symphony musicians have complained that they can't hear one another clearly in the church sanctuary, a complaint also voiced about the Carpenter Center stage. The orchestra will continue to rehearse Masterworks programs in the Carpenter Center, so the musicians will have to do on-the-spot sound-tweaking during performances at the church.

For the audience, adjusting to the new space should be a snap.

The church has a large parking lot. Its valet parking and coat-check services are singular amenities for Richmond concertgoers. Its interior is spacious. Wheelchair seating is plentiful and up front. The sanctuary's chairs are straight-backed, and while its pews aren't padded, they aren't back-breakers.

Don't be surprised if Monday nights at St. Michael begin to sell out in advance.