The Jacksonville Symphony is trying to attract its next generation of concert goers by meeting them where they congregate. The initiative kicked off Wednesday night with a young professionals' cocktail hour at Art Walk downtown.
It was a rainy evening for Jacksonville's monthly Art Walk. People were folding up umbrellas as they stepped into the warmly lit foyer of Sweet Pete's Candy Apple Café near Hemming Park.
Upstairs a bartender was pouring house specialties. Most of the people mingling there were in their 20s and 30s.
"We wanted to create a group that would be for my peers, so people who are 21 to 40," said Jacksonville Symphony Music Director Courtney Lewis. He's 30. Since coming on board less than a year ago, he says he's made it a top priority to fight the graying of the symphony's audience.
"We don't need to apologize for what we're offering. The product that we offer, which is great music, is fantastic," Lewis said. "We just want to find a way of packaging it and introducing it to younger people that they'll find exciting."
To do that, the symphony is launching a members-only program called UpTempo. $99 gets admission to five concerts, including three digestible hour-long shows, and other events like after-parties and cocktail hours like this one at Sweet Pete's.
"We have a great orchestra, we have a world-class symphony orchestra right around the corner, and I don't think everybody in Jacksonville, particularly people our age, realize that it's there," Lewis said.
UpTempo registration for the upcoming season runs through mid-May.