DeKalb Symphony Gets a Venue Upgrade and Shines with Newfound Cohesion

The DeKalb Symphony Orchestra’s November 4 concert was, first and foremost, a triumph of architecture. It’s doing the majority of its current season at First Baptist Church of Decatur, and the acoustics are a far cry from orchestra’s usual haunt at Georgia State University’s Marvin Cole Auditorium, where even the most lush and majestic of orchestras sound like gridlock traffic.

The warmly conversing woodwinds in the opening strains of Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin confirmed what I’d long suspected was holding the DSO back: They just couldn’t hear each other well on the GSU stage. Now, the sonically pristine chapel of First Baptist was affording them the opportunity to play with, rather than at, each other, and the results were nothing short of transcendental.

Read more at artsatl.org