Love and Friendship Orchestra

The Love and Friendship Orchestra (LFO) is a Boston-based orchestra that is built upon and around real relationships. Every member of the orchestra has personally played with conductor/pianist Yannick Rafalimanana, and so part of what makes the LFO unique is the palpable personal connection that the musicians share with one another. The LFO has grown from the belief that in order for great music to be as emotionally immediate and engaging as it can be, its creation needs to be informed by, well, love and friendship.

The LFO is, in part, a response to a belief that the contemporary classical music climate is increasingly characterized by a competition between performers, and a growing distance between the audience and the musicians. The LFO believes that in order for classical music to find its footing in the modern world, it needs to emphasize community and interpersonal connection as much as it does artistry to remind audiences that ultimately music is about bringing people together to share something great.

Concerts that the LFO gives are not your standard classical music concerts. Before the concert, the audience is given time to comfortably socialize with itself, and with the musicians. Then the first half of the concert features chamber works performed by as many of the musicians as want to participate, so that the individual performer’s talent can be fully exhibited to a larger crowd than he or she might otherwise have access to. The second half of the concert features all of the musicians who had performed in the first half, plus many more, engaged in a full scale symphonic creation, to illustrate the fact that a orchestra is composed by many brilliant individual talents who believe in participating in something much larger than themselves. The concert is followed by a reception in which the musicians and the audience members meld into one crowd, demonstrating that listener and performer are but two aspects of one musical experience.