Miller’s Pop-Up series takes audience to the stage

Miller Theatre is hoping to put a fresh spin on the concert experience with its new series of Pop-Up Concerts.

Unlike traditional concerts, the Pop-Up Concerts are designed to be intimate and informal by creating a “living room atmosphere” between the audience and musicians, according to Melissa Smey, the executive director of Miller Theatre. Scheduled for four Tuesday evenings this spring, the concerts are particularly geared toward students who want to gain more exposure to music.

“The Pop-Up format really encourages people to sample something new,” Smey said. “Why do classical concerts have to be on a Saturday night at 8 p.m., in a traditional theater, with an intermission and a program that lasts two hours or more?”

The program brings the audience onstage with the performers at Miller Theatre and encourages attendees to mingle before the performances begin. The artists introduce the music they’re about to play during the show, and stay after the performance to answer questions from the audience.

“The interaction between the performers and the audience is really intrinsic to these concerts,” Smey said. “It’s a very participatory format.”
Smey said that this format is new to Miller.

“For a proscenium theater, Miller is a wonderfully intimate space, and it’s a great place to present performances for larger audiences. But we were looking for a way to create an even more personal and informal setting, a smaller space where we could test out some new ideas and continue our commitment to free community programming.”

The concerts this spring will focus on classical music.

“JACK is an incredible string quartet,” Smey said, referring to the first installment, “Musical Experiments,” a program featuring cellist Lauren Radnofsky, violinist Ari Streisfeld, the JACK Quartet and Ensemble Signal, a large, New York-based collective which prides itself on musical innovation. “They and the cellist, Lauren Radnofsky, from Ensemble Signal approached me with the idea of combining forces and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun.”

Rather than featuring a couple of solo pieces and a combined sextet, the program that resulted is “really different from what either group would typically do on their own.”

Plans for the other concerts in the series evolved similarly. “Pianist Jacob Greenberg is someone we’ve worked with ... and this new series was the perfect opportunity to feature him as a soloist,” Smey said.

Greenberg is scheduled to perform György Kurtág’s “Játékok” (“Games”) on March 6. The remaining concerts will feature Jean-Baptiste Barrière, a renowned electronic composer, and the Curtis Institute of Music’s Ensemble 39 on April 10 and May 1, respectively.

If this current season goes well, it’s possible that the Pop-Up series will extend beyond this season.

“We want to see how it goes these first few times—what it’s like for the audience, what it’s like for the performers—and leave ourselves room to make changes and improvements,” Smey said.

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