Who are our Fans -- The
Audience
Our fans come from all walks of life,
all areas of the Research Triangle (North Carolina, USA), including
Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh. The audience includes all levels
of musical sophistication, but certainly is filled with people who
like to have a fun night on the town.
We have a special group of fans known as the "Really Terrible
Listeners" who will be seated in a special reserved area up front
at concerts so as to be exposed closely to our really terrible
music.
At the beginning of every concert, our audience is requested to
turn cell phones ON, to help cover up any terrible misteaks that
may be made during the performance. In fact, we have comissioned a
new piece for Terrible Orchestra and Audience Cell Phone Ensemble,
which is being developed by Sr. Enrique Varela, our
Composter-in-Residence, and will be performed during our next
season. Members of the audience will be given "scores" indicating
when to call other members of the assembled multitudes on your cell
phone.
Concerts are performed in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill during
the season, underscoring our commitment to be a really terrible
cultural resource of the entire triangle area. In addition, the
Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle (RTOOT) is available for
weddings and corporate events at [great] cost.
The question has been asked, and is a reasonable one -- do we play
to the best of our ability, which is just limited and thus produces
the "really terrible" effect -- especially when playing music that
is too hard for us. Or do we play music that may be somewhat in our
realm and intentionally play it poorly. The real answer is probably
both, depending on the individual player, but in general we try to
play music that is challenging for us and therefore not entirely
perfect in performance. Our rule of thumb is that if the audience
can identify the tune, then we have succeeded.
Our repertoire includes the standard classics of Beethoven, Mozart,
Bach, and Telemann, although Brahms and Shostakovitch are somewhat
out of our technical and artistic realm. We will play simplified
arrangements of certain classics if it nevertheless produces a
reasonably terrible sound. For example, in our premier concert, to
be held on 21 November 2008 at University United Methodist Church
in beautiful downtown Chapel Hill, Mr. Hobgood will direct the slow
movement of the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 from the keyboard,
though the slow movement may be much slower than normal.
And of course our bread-and-butter in this latter day of musical
erudition is the pops genre.
