Andreas Delfs, MSO

A champagne toast and “Auld Lang Syne” will top off an evening of effervescent music as Andreas Delfs and the Milwaukee Symphony celebrate the turn of the calendar with a Viennese-style New Year’s Eve program at 8 p.m. Monday at Marcus Center Uihlein Hall.

“It’s nice to be back in a no-pressure situation,” said Delfs, the MSO’s music director from 1997 through 2009. “We’ll just have fun with waltzes and polkas. We’ll celebrate the Austro-Hungarian empire, and all that gypsy fiddling.”

Delfs looked relaxed Sunday afternoon, alongside eldest son Dorian –soon to be an collegiate economics major – for an interview at Alterra on Prospect. Delfs, spouse Amy and all four of their children are staying at a friend’s home nearby. “The girls had been back to Milwaukee with us, but this is the first time all of us have been back together,” Delfs said. “It’s very nostalgic and nice to be back. I’m reminded once again of what a loyal community this is. People realized that I bought into the community and they haven’t forgotten that. The girl at the dry cleaning shop remembered me. I feel that we could move back here and feel right at home.”

Home for Delfs’ family is now split between Trumansburg (pop. 1,801), in upstate New York, and Flensburg, Germany, Delfs’ home town. “We had been much more in Trumansburg, but now it’s about 50-50,” Delfs said. “I’ve been doing a lot more work in Europe.”

Delfs, who has no real interest in becoming a music director again at this point, maintains a fairly stable circuit of guest conducting venues, including Sapporo, Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore in Asia; Phoenix, Milwaukee and Rochester in the U.S.; and a cluster of orchestras in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. He has especially cultivated relationships with orchestras within driving distance from Flensburg, in northern Europe.

“The closer to home, the happier I am,” he said. “I pretty much do as much as I want to do, then spend my spare time thinking up what might come next.”

That’s not just what comes next for Andreas Delfs, but for the classical music business altogether. He’s not convinced that the current models can carry the art into the future, so he and some fellow investors are in the early stages of doing something about it. Delfs has always liked to add theatrical elements to concerts. His group, which includes New York lighting designers, a stage director and theatrical producers, are working on 3-D mapping projections that would add visual elements to classical concerts in a sophisticated way. “It’s all very experimental,” he said. “They’re working on some animations now. My first idea was to provide it to orchestras, but you know how musicians are about distractions. Now we’re starting to think about working with young freelancers who would think nothing of dancing naked on the stage.”

OK, he was kidding about naked dancing (I think). But the idea is to find young players who can act and move while they play. (They do exist – we saw a whole band of them in the Rep’s Cabaret in 2010.) The business model would be along the lines of Stomp or Blue Man Group – a self-contained, scalable show that pays its own way and bringsgreat music to a mass audience that is beyond orchestras in their present form.

“The goal is to be musically and intellectually serious — it’s not ‘Cirque Meets the Symphony,'” Delfs said. “It might never see the light of day, but I can’t simply stand by and watch the music business fade. We need to be willing to try new things and not be so scared all the time. It’s great music, but we can’t forget that it’s also show business.”

Milwaukee Symphony New Year’s Eve Celebration concert with Andreas Delfs, 8 p.m. Monday, Dec, 31, Marcus Center Uihlein Hall. For tickets and further information, visit the MSO website, call the MSO ticket line (414 291-7605) or call the Marcus Center box office.

Strini’s New Year’s Eve Schedule:

8 p.m.-10 p.m.: Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, featuring conductor Andreas Delfs in Viennese New Year’s Celebration.

9 p.m. – ?: The Chris Hanson Band, featuring Robin Pluer and Glenn Asch, Via on Downer, preceded by guitarist Neil Davis. Admission free — but you’ll buy me a drink, right?

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Next up for the MSO: All-Gershwin Pops concerts with conductor Jeff Tyzik, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, Janice Chandler-Eteme, soprano, and Kevin Deas, baritone. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 4-6.