Classical music gets sexier and younger

Friday, Sept. 21, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

After earning a bachelor's degree from Duke University and a law degree at UC Berkeley, Alisa Nave returned to Las Vegas to start a career and delve into the cultural community she knew so well growing up.

One night, settling into a seat at a Las Vegas Philharmonic concert, she looked around and noticed that nobody in the audience looked like her.

Of course they didn't. The average Las Vegas Philharmonic concert-goer is older than 60 and retired or semi-retired. It's a common demographic in concert halls through North America.

Nave and her cohorts devised a plan to introduce their peers, who were looking for more depth to their nightlife, to the Las Vegas classical music scene.

How? Make it sexy. Throw a cocktail party, invite a few like-minded friends, serve hors d'oeuvres and give the effort a catchy name.

Something like Muse, the name of the Las Vegas Philharmonic's new Young Professional Society designed to connect "socially active professionals" with the orchestra.

On Saturday , when other concert-goers are finishing dinner and dressing for the Philharmonic's opening night, Musers will be hobnobbing in a campus art gallery with music director David Itkin and concert master Dee Ann Letourneau.

After an evening of Berlioz, Mendelssohn and Brahms, they'll head to the Sterling Club and nibble on hors d'oeuvres by Charlie Palmer at an after-party.

The formula works, says Muse co-founder Kristen Routh Silberman, who was part of Bravo! Club when living in San Francisco. A community group tied to the San Francisco Opera, Bravo! Club started in 1991 as a way to involve young adults. It now has more than 500 members, ages 21 to 40. Similar programs are found throughout the country.

Muse's Trilogy Series includes three concerts, six cocktail parties and two educational events. Tickets are discounted and blocked together so Musers can sit together in the concert hall. Organizers say more than 50 locals have signed up.

"It's just nice to see some movement on something that doesn't involve slot machines and stripper poles," Silberman said. "I don't know how many times you can go to a nightclub. Las Vegas is screaming, 'Please give me a place for young people,' and by that I mean people under 60."

Muse doesn't have an age limit, but expects to draw people in their 20s to 40s.

For the Philharmonic, new faces could translate into new board members and future donors. The program also will educate newcomers and help create an emotional connection to the orchestra.

"We'd like to get them into the concert hall," said Philip Koslow, executive director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

"We think they'd like to be there. It's not just the concert. It's an entire social event. One of the great challenges for symphonies across the country is how to engage younger generations."

Nave, 28, is a litigation associate for a law firm and the Philharmonic's youngest board member. She said her peers want to be more culturally active, but don't know how to get involved.

"When you move here, it's really hard to break into and become part of the community," she said. "This is an opportunity for all of us to get to know our community better."

Nave also notes: "Our generation was not raised in a classical environment. Symphonic music can be extraordinarily intimidating."

Knowing that, Muse founders picked the most accessible concert programs: "Mozart over Wagner," Silberman said. "It's lighter. It's easier."

That may not always be the case. Renato Estacio, the philharmonic's director of marketing, is in charge of growing the orchestra's patron base and targets potential patrons as young as 18 through a college association program that introduces young listeners to the orchestra and grooms them for Muse.

"People are looking for culture and a sense of community," Estacio said. "It's important to give them that."

Details: Information about Muse can be found at www.lvphil.com.

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