The Beat Goes On

By Steven Brown

What better place for an Independence Day concert than a sports arena—a place with room enough for a full orchestra, a rousing stage production, and 14,000 flag-waving viewers? The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra had something else in mind, though, when it took its “America Strong” program into its hometown’s new Dickies Arena. “We thought it would be the perfect venue for a socially distant orchestra,” says Keith Cerny, the orchestra’s president and CEO. Welcome to pops during the pandemic.