Into the Woods

On Saturday night, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra kicked off its 118th season with an opening-night gala. The two-part event (well, three for the sponsors and V.I.P. ticket holders who were treated to pre-show cocktails) was dubbed "Northern Lights," a concept inspired by the evening's musical program.

Before headline artist Lang Lang took to the Symphony Center stage to perform a Chopin piano concerto, the orchestra opened the concert with a short piece from Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. "We wanted a theme that stemmed from the music itself," said CSO senior project manager Kim Duffy, who spent a year planning the gala along with a committee of roughly 100 volunteers. Taking its cue from Sibelius's northern heritage, the gala committee settled on the northern lights theme. 

Duffy said that this year's theme helped overcome the greatest challenge of the planning process, which she described as "selling tickets to a luxury event in an unstable economy." In order to "sell something so glamorous," she said, "you need to have a hook that gets people excited. Our theme played into everything from the save-the-date card to the invites and right onto the stage [at the gala performance]." Ultimately, the concert drew more than 2,400, and 625 guests attended the dinner.

The committee tapped Vince Hart of Kehoe Designs to create the evening's look. Using the gala's printed invite for inspiration, Hart settled on a "moody, nighttime" color scheme of plum, merlot, deep blue, and gold. He also chose decor he said would "create the feeling of the northern woods." At the Symphony Center, the pre-show cocktail reception featured bars adorned with branches of birch trees and scotch pines. Bunches of orange and white roses played off hues that were also present in the invite.

After the concert, the Blue Plate-catered dinner and dancing took place in a tent covering Millennium Park's Chase Promenade. "The feeling was of dining by moonlight in an enchanted forest," Hart explained. At the entrance to the tent, a line of uplit pine and birch trees created the look of a moonlit path. Inside, cut pine branches adorned each tabletop and lighting fixtures simulated a northern lights display on the tent ceiling. "The CSO gets high drama, so major lighting is a big deal to them," Hart said.