It’s not just Jack O’Lanterns lighting up Lansing this Halloween season. A new series of concerts by candlelight arrives this week.
On Friday night, in the dim light of hundreds of candles, the spooky sounds of Halloween will be invoked by a string quartet playing music like the infamous screeching strings from the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho.
These concerts won’t include only haunting movie music. Fever Candlelight Concerts is a production company that stages programs ranging from well-known composers like Vivaldi and Mozart, to more modern compositions. For example, the second Lansing concert will feature the music of Taylor Swift.
Concert organizers hope to democratize classical music with the series.
“We really wanted to bring classical music to a wider audience, to a new demographic of people who maybe aren’t as familiar with classical music,” said associate producer Becca Malech. “By bringing in the candles to a unique venue that has some history, has a role in a city’s heritage, we’re able to create a really unique listening experience.”
For the holiday season, naturally, the program will focus on carols like Deck the Halls and O Holy Night, along with Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
If successful in Lansing, Fever may return with other programs they’ve done around the world, including music from rock bands.
“One of my favorites is our tribute to Queen. We have a tribute to ABBA,” said Malech. "We really are just mixing it up and trying to have a little bit of everything so that people who like all sorts of genres of music can find something they’re interested in.”
The string quartets will include local musicians hired for the occasion.
The venue chosen in Lansing is Central United Methodist Church. Malech thinks it’s a great setting for these concerts.
Mostly because they’re some of the oldest buildings we have here in the U.S. They also have really unique architecture," she said. "We like to do our string quartets acoustic if we can. A church, between the history, the architecture, it really lends itself well to these types of concerts.”
Each program will run about 60 minutes and there will be two shows each night. Tickets are available online and will not be sold at the door.
The Taylor Swift program will be November 3rd, the holiday show will be December 15th and the Halloween program begins the series this Friday.
Fever Candlelight Concerts hopes it’s a killer, thriller night.