Ready on Camera 10—And GO!

Jonathan and Jill Eisenberg placed a bid in a recent year's Symphony Ball auction and soon after found themselves in the thick of the backstage action at Orchestra Hall for a live This Is Minnesota Orchestra concert broadcast. The 2025 Symphony Ball Silent Auction—which is open to everyone online—again offers dozens of singular experiences from playing pickleball with Orchestra musicians at Smash Park to cooking with violinists Erin Keefe and Susie Park. 

Read on for a first-hand account from the Eisenbergs about their backstage experience —and consider placing your own bid in the 2025 Symphony Ball Auction beginning on Wednesday, April 23.

Place a bid now!

“Ready on Camera 10—and go!” With that command and a sharp snap of his fingers, Adam Romey conducted his own backstage “band” of technicians while Domingo Hindoyan led the Minnesota Orchestra with guest trumpet soloist Pacho Flores on the Orchestra Hall stage.

Romey, the Orchestra’s manager of digital concerts and broadcasts, was skillfully cueing a group of broadcast, camera and sound experts in the control room for a This Is Minnesota Orchestra concert on March 22, 2024, which was airing live on Twin Cities PBS (TPT 2) and streaming live over the Orchestra’s website and social media channels.

Throughout the broadcast, up to ten cameras were used to showcase the entire Orchestra, specific sections, the conductor or the soloist in a very finely tuned technical dance. Every camera angle, pan and zoom was pre-set by Romey and programmed by the camera team.

Because the broadcast is live, however, the camera work cannot be automated. Instead, the musical score—contained in large three-ring notebooks—is heavily annotated with camera actions that must be precisely cued. The camera must be timed, perhaps zooming in slowly, on the important Orchestra section of the moment, be it flutes, horns or first violins.

At other moments, a different camera may be zoomed out when the Orchestra is playing tutti (all together), or it may pan the audience. None of it is happenstance; it is all timed to the second based on Romey’s knowledge of the music, and hours of pre-planning that were performed—and rehearsed.

A camera arriving too late would spoil the moment, but everything was always spot-on. Since it was live, the tension in the room was palpable. Every person had their specific job to do, and not an unnecessary word was spoken for the entire duration.

Every broadcast team member in the room has two to four screens to follow. Some show the live broadcast feed while others show a specific camera, either live or on standby. Yet another screen shows a complex set of switches ready to flip and commands ready to be executed.

Meanwhile Ashleigh Rowe, director of broadcasts and digital initiatives, is overseeing the entire broadcast. Unbeknownst to the audience in Orchestra Hall or on television, she is in constant communication with TPT. The program is running longer than expected due to on-stage artist comments and enthusiastic audience applause. Rowe quickly adjusts, edits the host’s copy in the teleprompter and informs the host through an earpiece of the change.

Fortunately, she saves 95 seconds, enough time for television audiences to see bows and end credits. And this means the broadcast will not be cut off in mid-stream.

We won this opportunity in the Silent Auction at the previous year’s Symphony Ball. If you want to have this incredible opportunity, too, be sure to bid high this year!

- Jon and Jill Eisenberg