Halloween is almost equally popular among kids and adults. And nothing underlines its cross-generational appeal like musicians young and old playing some of the spookiest scores ever composed—all while scenes from horror classics are projected in the background as dry ice swirls across the stage.
That’s what’s in store at Music for the Macabre: Halloween in Concert, an inaugural offering from the LCO Chamber Pops Orchestra that will assemble instrumentalists of all ages to get the scary season started off early at the Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater at Dr. Phillips Center.
The haunted happening, which will get underway at 3 p.m., was a labor of love for Rick Kissinger, artistic director and conductor of LCO. “Halloween is my favorite holiday, and the music associated with Halloween is just absolutely amazing,” he says. “So why not put the two together?”
And so it is that some of the region’s most promising student musicians will collaborate with their more seasoned counterparts to perform a repertoire of spine-tingling staples against a collection of creepy clips from season-appropriate cartoons and movies.
Offerings will include, for example, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor—perhaps the most famous (and certainly the most frightening) piece of organ music ever written—as well as themes from such latter-day fright flicks as The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The idea of making the concert a youth-outreach effort stemmed from Kissinger’s work as a vendor adjunct for the State of Florida with Orange County Public Schools and a judge and adjudicator with the Florida Bandmasters Association.
“Because I’m a music educator, I thought ‘Hey, let’s involve all the kids,’” he says. “Because the kids don’t have opportunities to play alongside professionals in professional venues.”
Music for the Macabre will inaugurate what Kissinger and the LCO call the Junior Maestro Mentorship Program—an initiative that will team advanced students with professional musicians and teachers for ongoing live performances.
“This is all very cosplay, very steampunk,” says Kissinger. “We’re encouraging people to come dressed as their favorite characters.” And while the inaugural booking is for one matinee, the hope is that its success will spawn future editions at more venues. Once you’ve let the bat out of the belfry, it seems, there’s little incentive to try to force him back.
Dr. Phillips Center is located at 445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando. For more information, call or visit the website.
