CLASSICALLY UNTRAINED:
Exploring New Orlean’s THRIVING symphonic music scene.
AN INTERVIEW WITH luke fleming, crescent city chamber music festival
Luke Fleming of the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival, New Orleans
By David S. Lewis
New Orleans may be best known for its cutting edge jazz and vibrant funk or twerk-tastic bounce music, but for centuries, New Orleans has also been home to some of the most innovative symphonic/art music in the country.
New Orleans may be best known for its cutting edge jazz and vibrant funk or twerk-tastic bounce music, but for centuries, New Orleans has also been home to some of the most innovative symphonic/art music in the country.
A MORE DETAILED INTRODUCTION TO THIS NEW COLUMN
Art music is any composed, structured music, typically expressed within an artistic system or theory. Unsurprisingly, it often overlaps with its cousins, folk and popular music (after all, Brahms, Beethoven, and many other famous symphonic composers drew heavily from folk music, real or imagined, and opera was directed squarely at the masses, so its “popular” appeal is difficult to deny).
New Orleans was home to the first opera performed in the New World, in 1796. Our contributions to the world of art music extends from Joseph Arquier to Edmund Dede all the way through now, with artists like Courtney Bryan and Malcolm Parsons debuting significant works with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to Terrence Blanchard’s operas performed by the New York Metropolitan Opera.
The season for art music begins in the fall, with multiple chamber music festivals, three full symphony orchestras (including the Grammy-winning LPO, which is the only professional symphony between Houston and Tampa Bay.) The city is also home to a ballet troupe and two opera companies (one of which is the amazing Opera Creole, which debuted the earliest opera written by a Black composer only last year, to international plaudits), numerous composers of film and television, and have dozens of smaller ensembles playing in a variety of venues, musicians of all kinds, a ballet and an opera.
This column seeks to contextualize the city’s booming art music scene, and to introduce readers to the music, and perhaps to dispel longstanding misunderstandings about it. Some perhaps think they don’t like “classical music”...but that’s a weird term used to describe music that has existed in countless forms for hundreds of years. Also, you’ve been listening to it your entire life as the soundtrack to countless film and television productions. A recent study by the Royal Philharmonic suggests that classical music of all kinds is, in fact, very much on the rise with listeners of all ages, as listeners use the power of social media and the internet to search for music that feels authentic.
Symphonic music is also protest music: Beethoven’s thundering denunciation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s appointment as Emperor in his 3rd Symphony (“Eroica”) is a great example, or Shostakovich’s satirical 9th Symphony, mocking the militarism of Stalinist Soviet government. Often it’s politically subversive less because of the intention of the composer and more the setting in which it’s played…and we’re living in a moment where censorship is on the rise. We’ll explore 'forbidden composers' and artistic revolutionaries and their contexts in many of these columns.
And symphonic art music offers an alternative to the commercialism of much of the manufactured music that you hear on streaming platforms or the radio: algorithmically tailored to be popular, it is often so much of so many things that it becomes nearly nothing at all. Another song about how nice it is to sit in a field in a truckful of beer, or the difficulties of finding love while relatively rich and safe – these are the musical equivalent of a pneumatic bolt to your forehead. But experiencing art music in a performance space, whether a small bar or an enormous art-deco theater, involves coming together in community and sitting without the glowing screen telling you what to think. You can sit and listen, just as hard as you care to, for an hour and a half, and experience art for your ears, provided by real musicians playing instruments made of wood and brass and hair.
New Orleans was home to the first opera performed in the New World, in 1796. Our contributions to the world of art music extends from Joseph Arquier to Edmund Dede all the way through now, with artists like Courtney Bryan and Malcolm Parsons debuting significant works with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to Terrence Blanchard’s operas performed by the New York Metropolitan Opera.
The season for art music begins in the fall, with multiple chamber music festivals, three full symphony orchestras (including the Grammy-winning LPO, which is the only professional symphony between Houston and Tampa Bay.) The city is also home to a ballet troupe and two opera companies (one of which is the amazing Opera Creole, which debuted the earliest opera written by a Black composer only last year, to international plaudits), numerous composers of film and television, and have dozens of smaller ensembles playing in a variety of venues, musicians of all kinds, a ballet and an opera.
This column seeks to contextualize the city’s booming art music scene, and to introduce readers to the music, and perhaps to dispel longstanding misunderstandings about it. Some perhaps think they don’t like “classical music”...but that’s a weird term used to describe music that has existed in countless forms for hundreds of years. Also, you’ve been listening to it your entire life as the soundtrack to countless film and television productions. A recent study by the Royal Philharmonic suggests that classical music of all kinds is, in fact, very much on the rise with listeners of all ages, as listeners use the power of social media and the internet to search for music that feels authentic.
Symphonic music is also protest music: Beethoven’s thundering denunciation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s appointment as Emperor in his 3rd Symphony (“Eroica”) is a great example, or Shostakovich’s satirical 9th Symphony, mocking the militarism of Stalinist Soviet government. Often it’s politically subversive less because of the intention of the composer and more the setting in which it’s played…and we’re living in a moment where censorship is on the rise. We’ll explore 'forbidden composers' and artistic revolutionaries and their contexts in many of these columns.
And symphonic art music offers an alternative to the commercialism of much of the manufactured music that you hear on streaming platforms or the radio: algorithmically tailored to be popular, it is often so much of so many things that it becomes nearly nothing at all. Another song about how nice it is to sit in a field in a truckful of beer, or the difficulties of finding love while relatively rich and safe – these are the musical equivalent of a pneumatic bolt to your forehead. But experiencing art music in a performance space, whether a small bar or an enormous art-deco theater, involves coming together in community and sitting without the glowing screen telling you what to think. You can sit and listen, just as hard as you care to, for an hour and a half, and experience art for your ears, provided by real musicians playing instruments made of wood and brass and hair.
Leading from the Middle
Crescent City Chamber Music Festival’s Luke Fleming chats with OAD’s art music editor David S. Lewis on chamber size, “new music”, and how playing a supporting role in music can help shape a different kind of artistic leader
The last time I saw Dr. Luke Fleming, I could barely hear his viola…which wasn’t surprising, since he was standing within a few feet of the incredibly talented mezzo soprano, New Orleans’ Claire Shackleton, as they and a small orchestra of around 20 singers and musicians gave Vivaldi’s intricate powerhouse Gloria in D major at Trinity Episcopal. Vivaldi, himself a priest (although with a complicated relationship to the divine) writes with such drive and urgency; it’s no wonder that his music is sampled in hip-hop, used in car commercials, and is endlessly backgrounding TikTok videos for users who probably don’t realize he died penniless and was entirely forgotten about until his fellow priests sold his works in bulk at a kind of a yard sale, allowing this genius to be rediscovered for 'modern' listeners in 1928.
But there’s another reason it was kind of hard to hear Fleming: his instrument is the viola. Sandwiched in timbre and range between the high clarity of the violin and the thrumming low tones of the cellos and basses, viola can feel like an afterthought, an instrument that’s always there, but given too little time to shine. Its mellow tones are often providing the harmonic depth to the midrange tones: not immediately audible, but it’s usually very noticeable when not present, filling in the sonic gaps. Perhaps it’s the very nature of the instrument he plays that empowers Fleming as an artistic director. He helped found the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival ten years ago. Not your run-of-the-mill fest, the CCCMF does many shows and events that aren’t even open to the public, outreach events like playing in hospitals and nursing homes, bringing powerful music to venues even more poignant and intimate than the smaller venues typically associated with chamber music.
This is a busy week for you. I know you're not supposed to say, but which specific piece are you most excited to hear performed, and why?
That's a really tough call. But I guess I would say that the final piece of the season, Brahms's Second String Quintet, is pretty exciting for me. First of all, it was how we closed out the very first season of CCCMF, so closing out the tenth anniversary season with that same piece kind of brings us full circle. It's also just an insanely brilliant piece of chamber music. Finally, the Escher Quartet is my favorite string quartet performing in the world right now, so playing it with them will be quite a thrill.
I think the phrase 'chamber music' has an oddly formal connotation for a lot of people who are new or newer to symphonic art music. You've been running this festival for years; how do YOU think of chamber music? The opening night had a pretty good-sized orchestra for the Vivaldi piece; was that approaching the upper limit?
That's an interesting question. Chamber music is rather loosely defined, and because chamber orchestras have become more and more common as opposed to full symphony orchestras (due to dwindling funding for the arts and a variety of other reasons), I certainly consider a chamber orchestra to be a form of chamber music. But I tend to think of chamber music as being unconducted at the very least, and because the Vivaldi Gloria for our opening night concert was conducted by the choirmaster, I suppose it wasn't truly a chamber music performance. But Paul was conducting from the harpsichord, so it didn't feel as though he was really formally conducting us even then, so it still felt like chamber music in a lot of ways. The Mozart that comprised the first half of the program was unconducted, of course.
We covered a 'new music' or contemporary classical festival here in town a couple weeks ago. I see that you have a piece from 2024 that will debut on Thursday, and two from this year on Sunday; how do you personally interact with the world of new music? How does contemporary classical enhance or expand your appreciation of the repertory canon?
New music comprises such a wide spectrum of styles, degree of difficulty, and function on a program with regard to length, mood, etc. In my own experience with it I often remind myself of the Juilliard String Quartet's mantra – that standard repertoire should be played as though it were new music and new music should be played as though it were standard repertoire. Personally, I always try to operate with that in mind so that new music is done justice and that repertoire from the standard canon is approached with freshness, not just "going through the motions."
You play viola, the 'middle voice' in a lot of chamber music. Do you feel like the viola enjoys a more prominent role in chamber music than orchestral works? Does your role in the music have any parallels to your role in the rest of your life, perhaps even informing the hows and whys of running this festival?
I certainly do feel that the greatest viola repertoire is found in the chamber literature – particularly from late Mozart on. You don't really start getting much solo viola repertoire by composers of exceptional quality until the 20th century, and before that, you are (mostly) playing transcriptions. But all of the great composers from the Classical period on wrote great melodies and parts in general for the Viola, and for many – Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Dvořák – it was often their favorite instrument, or even an instrument they personally played, so the quality of the writing is particularly exceptional, even when compared to viola parts in orchestral music. I certainly feel that spending my life as a career chamber musician has informed the way I interact with my colleagues and run an organization or festival – it has, by necessity, put me in a mindset of collaboration and partnership, rather than always necessarily needing to be the one who is featured or in the limelight. I don't think it's any accident that the people in my business that start their own festivals or organizations overwhelmingly tend to be violists or performers on instruments that play more of a 'supporting' role.
The Crescent City Chamber Music Festival runs through Oct 19th, click here for program and ticketing information
For more about Dr. Luke Fleming, follow the link to his bio here
Art Music Calendar: October 2025
More Classically Untrained features
Crescent City Chamber Music Festival’s Luke Fleming chats with OAD’s art music editor David S. Lewis on chamber size, “new music”, and how playing a supporting role in music can help shape a different kind of artistic leader
The last time I saw Dr. Luke Fleming, I could barely hear his viola…which wasn’t surprising, since he was standing within a few feet of the incredibly talented mezzo soprano, New Orleans’ Claire Shackleton, as they and a small orchestra of around 20 singers and musicians gave Vivaldi’s intricate powerhouse Gloria in D major at Trinity Episcopal. Vivaldi, himself a priest (although with a complicated relationship to the divine) writes with such drive and urgency; it’s no wonder that his music is sampled in hip-hop, used in car commercials, and is endlessly backgrounding TikTok videos for users who probably don’t realize he died penniless and was entirely forgotten about until his fellow priests sold his works in bulk at a kind of a yard sale, allowing this genius to be rediscovered for 'modern' listeners in 1928.
But there’s another reason it was kind of hard to hear Fleming: his instrument is the viola. Sandwiched in timbre and range between the high clarity of the violin and the thrumming low tones of the cellos and basses, viola can feel like an afterthought, an instrument that’s always there, but given too little time to shine. Its mellow tones are often providing the harmonic depth to the midrange tones: not immediately audible, but it’s usually very noticeable when not present, filling in the sonic gaps. Perhaps it’s the very nature of the instrument he plays that empowers Fleming as an artistic director. He helped found the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival ten years ago. Not your run-of-the-mill fest, the CCCMF does many shows and events that aren’t even open to the public, outreach events like playing in hospitals and nursing homes, bringing powerful music to venues even more poignant and intimate than the smaller venues typically associated with chamber music.
This is a busy week for you. I know you're not supposed to say, but which specific piece are you most excited to hear performed, and why?
That's a really tough call. But I guess I would say that the final piece of the season, Brahms's Second String Quintet, is pretty exciting for me. First of all, it was how we closed out the very first season of CCCMF, so closing out the tenth anniversary season with that same piece kind of brings us full circle. It's also just an insanely brilliant piece of chamber music. Finally, the Escher Quartet is my favorite string quartet performing in the world right now, so playing it with them will be quite a thrill.
I think the phrase 'chamber music' has an oddly formal connotation for a lot of people who are new or newer to symphonic art music. You've been running this festival for years; how do YOU think of chamber music? The opening night had a pretty good-sized orchestra for the Vivaldi piece; was that approaching the upper limit?
That's an interesting question. Chamber music is rather loosely defined, and because chamber orchestras have become more and more common as opposed to full symphony orchestras (due to dwindling funding for the arts and a variety of other reasons), I certainly consider a chamber orchestra to be a form of chamber music. But I tend to think of chamber music as being unconducted at the very least, and because the Vivaldi Gloria for our opening night concert was conducted by the choirmaster, I suppose it wasn't truly a chamber music performance. But Paul was conducting from the harpsichord, so it didn't feel as though he was really formally conducting us even then, so it still felt like chamber music in a lot of ways. The Mozart that comprised the first half of the program was unconducted, of course.
We covered a 'new music' or contemporary classical festival here in town a couple weeks ago. I see that you have a piece from 2024 that will debut on Thursday, and two from this year on Sunday; how do you personally interact with the world of new music? How does contemporary classical enhance or expand your appreciation of the repertory canon?
New music comprises such a wide spectrum of styles, degree of difficulty, and function on a program with regard to length, mood, etc. In my own experience with it I often remind myself of the Juilliard String Quartet's mantra – that standard repertoire should be played as though it were new music and new music should be played as though it were standard repertoire. Personally, I always try to operate with that in mind so that new music is done justice and that repertoire from the standard canon is approached with freshness, not just "going through the motions."
You play viola, the 'middle voice' in a lot of chamber music. Do you feel like the viola enjoys a more prominent role in chamber music than orchestral works? Does your role in the music have any parallels to your role in the rest of your life, perhaps even informing the hows and whys of running this festival?
I certainly do feel that the greatest viola repertoire is found in the chamber literature – particularly from late Mozart on. You don't really start getting much solo viola repertoire by composers of exceptional quality until the 20th century, and before that, you are (mostly) playing transcriptions. But all of the great composers from the Classical period on wrote great melodies and parts in general for the Viola, and for many – Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Dvořák – it was often their favorite instrument, or even an instrument they personally played, so the quality of the writing is particularly exceptional, even when compared to viola parts in orchestral music. I certainly feel that spending my life as a career chamber musician has informed the way I interact with my colleagues and run an organization or festival – it has, by necessity, put me in a mindset of collaboration and partnership, rather than always necessarily needing to be the one who is featured or in the limelight. I don't think it's any accident that the people in my business that start their own festivals or organizations overwhelmingly tend to be violists or performers on instruments that play more of a 'supporting' role.
The Crescent City Chamber Music Festival runs through Oct 19th, click here for program and ticketing information
For more about Dr. Luke Fleming, follow the link to his bio here
Art Music Calendar: October 2025
More Classically Untrained features