OU TDOORS
droves for the drive -in IT SEEMS INEVITABLE that one solution to performing live classical music during the pandemic shutdown would come out of Southern California—the drive-in. After all, we have good weather nearly yearround, car culture always, and big parking lots that had been sitting empty when San Diego Opera and Mainly Mozart began filling them. “As soon as we canceled our concerts last spring, I knew that we wanted to commit to returning to live performance, whatever that meant,” says Nancy Laturno, founder and CEO of San Diego’s
Mainly Mozart. “At no point did we consider creating product to livestream. The only question was how.” In June 2020, Mainly Mozart advisory board member Jerry Kohl suggested a drive-in concert. “He pushed us to put it together by July,” Laturno recalls. “It was important to get back up and running in some capacity as quickly as we could.” On July 11, Mainly Mozart became the first classical music organization in the country to return to live performances, offering 10 free concerts for 60 cars each
26 PERFORMANCES SPRING 2021
in the overflow parking lot at Del Mar Fairgrounds. The response was enthusiastic; Mainly Mozart slowly increased capacity to 350 cars. The sellout concerts are now held in the fairgrounds’ main parking lot with a large stage and shell and a giant LED screen. “If you had told me in February 2020 that Mainly Mozart would bring top musicians and their best instruments to perform outdoors on a dirt lot with heaters and hand warmers—it was crazy,” Laturno recalls. In February 2021, more than half of the 950 cars at three Festival of Orchestras concerts rep-
resented first-time, and generally younger, ticket buyers. “The people in the back have just as great an experience as those in the front,” Laturno says. “We see lots of children in their PJs with snacks.” Producing drive-in concerts is expensive, but while other performing arts groups slashed their budgets in 2020, Mainly Mozart’s increased 30%. Plans are to remain outdoors through summer. Four more drive-in Festivals of Orchestras were planned, one featuring members of New York’s Met Orchestra and D.C.’s National Symphony last month. The 32nd
