Summer is nearly year-round in southeast Texas so it should be no surprise that the free stuff to see and do in the sprawling metropolitan area of the nation’s fourth-biggest city focuses on the outdoors.Many of the good ideas about bettering Fort Wayne through music have had Matt Kelley behind them.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the local musician and owner of the design firm One Lucky Guitar had a hand in Fortissimo as well.
Fortissimo is a collaboration involving the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, two of Fort Wayne’s more popular local bands and one major indie act.
Classical accompaniment for the songs of Orange Opera, Metavari and Clem Snide was composed by Bradley Thachuk, the orchestra’s former associate conductor who accepted a position as music director of the Niagara Symphony of Ontario in May 2010.
Now Thachuk has returned to serve as maestro for this alliance of a symphony and some hipsters.
It happens tonight at IPFW’s Auer Performance Hall.
Kelley said he suggested the concept of mostly local rock music with wholly local orchestral accompaniment to the Philharmonic’s leaders a year and a half ago when he was serving on the board.
He thought it would get a lukewarm response, but Philharmonic CEO J.L. Nave and music director Andrew Constantine were enthusiastic.
Of course, an organization as vast as the Philharmonic can’t exactly throw a show like that together in a fortnight.
Kelley said he was told that it would take at least 18 months to get something like Fortissimo on stage.
“If there is one thing I know about rock bands,” Kelley said, “is that most of them could have broken up by the end of 18 months.”
But the bands did not break up.
They persevered and faced some unique challenges like sight-reading or the lack thereof.
“It has been fascinating to watch the collaboration,” Kelley says. “Bradley says, ‘Send me the charts. You guys sight read music, right?’ and Nate (Utesch of Metavari) responds, ‘Sight read? We have to take photos so we remember the chord changes.’”
Kelley said he thinks Fortissimo represents “the best of so many worlds.”
“I don’t know,” he said, “I am the kind of guy who is always rooting for the community to do culturally challenging and artistically challenging things.”
