Candlelight string quartet sets the mood for Halloween at Unity Temple this Friday

A Candlelight concert. // image courtesy Fever

Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics takes place at Unity Temple on the Plaza’s Sanctuary on Friday, October 30. Details and tickets for that show here.

While browsing social media sites like Instagram or Facebook, you’ve likely seen sponsored posts for candlelight string quartet concerts in any genre, from bands like Queen and Tool to themed seasonal concerts around Halloween and Christmas. Fever, a tech company that specializes in discovering culture and live entertainment, created the Candlelight concerts and seeks to create “an immersive and intimate atmosphere” by combining live music in distinctive venues into a candlelit space for one night only.

This all comes together courtesy of folks like Candlelight junior music specialist Tyler Bectle, with whom we spoke on Zoom ahead of Candlelight’s Halloween concert at Unity Temple on the Plaza’s Sanctuary on Friday, October 30.

”Once they’re assigned out, we then use a little bit of intuition to make the set list,” explains Bectle. “Trying to make a narratively satisfying beginning, middle, and end of a set list, just like anybody would on a Spotify playlist.”

Using metrics and online resources to make sure they’re not missing anything folks might want to hear, while also creating a show which flows naturally, the end result is a program that not only someone immersed in music like Bectle would enjoy, but hopefully a show that everybody else wants to see, as well.

The Halloween program this Friday will feature what Bectle says is “an all-encompassing night of what we consider spooky,” with a diverse setlist which includes classical pieces like Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette” and Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” alongside popular music such as selections from A Nightmare Before Christmas, the theme to Stranger Things, and–of course–“Thriller” by Michael Jackson.

The musicians will be local, and the music skews toward the tastes of the area where they’re performing, says Bectle.

“There’s a lot of trial and error,” the music specialist notes. “Maybe something works on the East Coast and doesn’t work on the West Coast. We like things to be local, to be as curated as possible. If we can make sure that each program is specifically tuned to that locale, and what that audience is sensitive to or maybe that they’re looking for–that’s our goal.”

Often, Candlelight’s music specialists will depend on the expertise of the quartets in town, he continues.

“We present them the set list, and oftentimes they’ll come back and say, ‘Hey, can we swap these two songs?’ or ‘I personally love this one song,’” Bectle explains. “And as long as we’ve approved it and it’s still within those bounds, it’s great. We encourage that as much as possible.”

It’s actually very likely that if you were to see this Halloween show in Kansas City and then you were to go see it in Dallas, the setlist might be switched up a little bit or there might even be a new song.

What you can count on at every Candlelight performance is, of course, candles, from the moment you get to the venue to the moment you leave, Bectle says.

“Candlelight is an experience, not just a concert,” he offers. “We’re trying to usher [audiences] immersively from the time that they’ve parked their car or gotten to the venue until the moment that they’ve actually left and gotten back in whatever transportation they’re taking.”

One of the draws to the show is that Candlelight gets beautiful venues, which is a lot of churches and a lot of gorgeous large buildings with big open spaces because, as Bectle points out, “We’re trying to make sure that the acoustics are nice. We’re trying to have a very intimate experience.”

At the center of it all is the music and musicians, and Bectle says that he’s found the musicians lean into and enjoy it just as much as the audience watching

“They’re also going through the immersive experience, right?” he asks rhetorically. “They’re the centerpiece of the whole thing. It’s very easy for them to be equally immersed as the audience.”

Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics takes place at Unity Temple on the Plaza’s Sanctuary on Friday, October 30. Details and tickets for that show here.