Concert Review: Delirium Musicum Takes Its Red-Hot Concert Experience to Central Park
Review from: San Fransisco Classical Voice
Author: Tom Jacobs
Late in the final season of the Emmy-winning HBO Max comedy Hacks, the legendary stand-up Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart, solidified her place in the pantheon of comedy greats by performing for a large and enthusiastic audience in New York’s Central Park.
Six weeks after the episode aired, the Los Angeles-based string orchestra Delirium Musicum made its case as a joyous new voice in classical music in precisely the same way.
On July 7, the ensemble, founded in 2018 by violinist and Artistic Director Etienne Gara, completed a three-concert tour of the Northeast with its New York debut at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, presented by Naumburg Orchestral Concerts. It wowed an enthusiastic audience estimated at 1,400 to 1,500, while a live simulcast on New York’s classical station WQXR brought the performance to many thousands more.
“Being LA-based, I wasn’t sure how we would be received,” Gara said in an interview. “But the audience was extremely warm and very focused. During the slow movements, you could hear a pin drop. In Central Park!”
More impressive still: rain fell during the final 15 to 20 minutes of the concert, “but nobody moved,” he reported. “We were under the shell, a stone structure that protected us a little bit. But the first row of violins and myself — we got rained on. I was concerned about the instruments, but they’re fine.”
This was an important milestone for Delirium Musicum, which has established itself in California over the past few years as an artistically innovative and audience-friendly ensemble. The group swept SF Classical Voice’s 2024–2025 Audience Choice Awards, winning all five categories in which it was nominated: Favorite Chamber Ensemble, Favorite New Music Ensemble, Favorite Chamber Performance, Favorite New Music Performance, and Favorite Orchestra Performance.
New Yorkers were equally enthusiastic. “We felt a real communion with the audience — a bonding,” Gara said. “You could feel the energy going back and forth. We got four standing ovations.”
