SYMPHONY

Circus performers + Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra = thrills, chills, hopefully no spills in Cirque Musica

 

Rope trick master AJ Silver will other Cirque Musica acts performing with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra at Miller Auditorium March 9.
from:  mlive.com
By Mark Wedel | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette
March 05, 2013
KALAMAZOO, MI-- Maybe there's a reason why circus acts don't often perform with live symphony orchestras.
 Picture Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra musicians playing complex music "with people standing a few feet in front of them doing stuff that could potentially kill that person and maybe destroy an instrument," Matt Roben, master of ceremonies for Cirque Musica said.

The group of circus performers will be with the KSO at Miller Auditorium March 9. They have acts like the "rolla-bolla," where an acrobat is balanced unstably on a stack of rolling metal cylinders, that could result in the type of catastrophe that KSO musicians usually don't have to worry about.
The closest to disaster they've come was when cowboy rope trick master AJ Silver whipped out a rope "and it stopped a foot away from one of the musicians, and another one looked at him with a 'watch it, buddy!' look on his face," Roben said.

The group has only been doing symphony concerts for two years, but they are professionals, Roben said, speaking from a Chicago training center for circus performers.
read more:
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2013/03/circus_symphony_thrills_chills.html