The LSU Symphony Orchestra performed its second concert of the school year Friday at the recently renovated and reopened Student Union Theater.
 
It made a lot of sense that the shiny new theater was re-inaugurated by the LSU Symphony, composed of University students. After all, the renovation was made possible through a budget composed of student fees.
 
The performance of that first concert of the season certainly justified the waiting — and the need — for a better, safer theater. The new facility is gorgeous and has wonderful acoustics to boot. That’s all an orchestra wants, especially one that has been playing in tight-spaced stages for the last couple of years.
 
Maestro Carlos Riazuelo celebrated his first anniversary as the LSU Symphony Orchestra’s director and associate professor of conducting at LSU. He conducted, among other pieces, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, lifting the audience members from their seats and reminding them that a bunch of college students are indeed capable of marvelous things. 
It was worthy of a standing ovation, no doubt.
 
Unfortunately, there’s something missing for the LSU Symphony. It’s hard for this major ensemble to get the attention and recognition the Tiger Band or the Wind Ensemble have, for example.
 
I can understand why, though. The LSU Symphony has no connection with the Athletic Department or any relationship with sports in the University. Not that it doesn’t want to — it just doesn’t.
 
I’m sure if the orchestra’s name were “Tiger Orchestra” or something similar, the recognition would be instantaneous. The LSU Symphony could surely play in a major sport event, eventually.
 
But that’s not the point.
 
Because of some great mystery of the LSU academic universe, it is hard for the LSU Symphony to get the publicity that would fairly reflect the grandiose mastery of the last several concerts.
 
The LSU Symphony, like LSU’s sports teams, also represents the soul of the University — but in a different aspect, of course.
 
It does this by perfectly exemplifying what Chancellor Michael Martin means when he uses phrases like “standards of excellence” for the purple and gold academic
environment.
 
The LSU Symphony provides an enticing portrayal of the diversity of the University’s student community.
 
Its strength resides in the fact that many of the Symphony members come from countries where, even at the peak of universities’ budgets, the structure and support for studying music is laughable (or even “cryable”), even without budget cuts.
 
So, considering these points, why it is so difficult to make the LSU Symphony noticed outside the island called the School of Music?
Many students in the School of Music wouldn’t miss a good day of tailgating and cheering for the Tigers in Death Valley — even knowing the day after they will have an orchestral piece to practice.
Don’t let them down.
 
You have plenty of opportunities to be reminded of how great the Tiger Band is. But the LSU
Symphony’s concerts, full of
greatness and beauty, lack the people that matter most to its musicians — you, the students.
 
Marcelo Vieira is a 32-year-old jazz cello graduate student from Brazil. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Mvieira.
 
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Contact Marcelo Vieira at
[email protected]