Skeletons will dance, a ghost ship will sail, and a Nintendo Switch 2 is up for grabs when the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic turns Columbus North High School's Erne Auditorium into a haunted concert hall on Oct. 31. The orchestra's annual Halloween program, dubbed Philharmonster, pairs more than 60 musicians with guest pianist Dror Biran for a 2 p.m. show built around some of classical music's spookiest standards, plus a costume parade and contest for the kids in the crowd.
The concert anchors the orchestra's 40th anniversary season, a milestone rooted in the organization's 1970 incorporation as Columbus Pro Musica before it became a fully professional orchestra in 1987, according to the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. Music Director Isaac Selya, now in his fourth season on the podium, succeeded 35-year founding conductor David Bowden in May 2023, becoming just the second music director in the orchestra's history, as The Republic reports.
A Setlist Built for Fright Night
The Philharmonster program leans hard into Halloween atmosphere, mixing orchestral staples with cinematic favorites. According to the same report from The Republic, the setlist includes Richard Wagner's Overture to The Flying Dutchman, Danny Elfman's This Is Halloween, Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King, Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre, and Franz Liszt's Totentanz. Selya told the paper the audience does not know what to expect from the concert, and he has encouraged people who are not typical orchestra fans to come out because many of the pieces are iconic even to casual listeners.
Wagner's 1843 overture draws on the German legend of a ghost ship cursed to sail the seas forever after its captain defied a storm, a narrative detailed by the Utah Symphony. Saint-Saëns' 1874 symphonic poem, meanwhile, is famous for introducing the xylophone to orchestral music specifically to mimic skeletons clattering together at midnight, according to Flypaper by Soundfly.
Liszt's Dance of Death Takes Center Stage
The afternoon's centerpiece arrives with Liszt's Totentanz, composed in 1849 and revised a decade later, a piano-and-orchestra showpiece built entirely from variations on the medieval Gregorian plainchant Dies Irae, or Day of Wrath, per background from the LA Phil. Selya said classical music has long found ways to depict the emotion of fear, and per The Republic's report, he listens to the concert's selections year-round regardless of the calendar.
Taking the piano bench for Totentanz is Dror Biran, a Cincinnati-based soloist making his first appearance with the Philharmonic. Biran has served as a full-time piano performance professor at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music since November 2015, following a string of international competition victories, according to the school's own announcement. The Republic's article notes that Selya and Biran have crossed paths multiple times over the years and share Israeli backgrounds.
A Conductor Who Speaks Fluent Video Games
Selya is expected to show up in costume himself, dressed as a recognizable video game character, and per the same account he said music from that character's game has previously been performed by the Philharmonic. The choice fits his résumé: Selya has conducted on the official soundtrack for the video game Masquerada: Songs and Shadows and previously built a concert program called Swordcraft around music from The Legend of Zelda, according to the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance.
That instinct for lowering the barrier to classical music runs through Selya's other projects. He is also founder and artistic director of Cincinnati's Queen City Opera, where he paired opera with social-impact work, including a staging of Beethoven's Fidelio alongside the Ohio Innocence Project. In Columbus, that same community-first approach showed up during his first season, when he partnered with Dancers Studio Inc. in December 2023 to bring live orchestral accompaniment back to the local Nutcracker for the first time in 21 years, per the Philharmonic's own account.
Costumes, Prizes and Ticket Details
Children are encouraged to wear Halloween costumes to the concert and can join a costume parade just before the performance begins, per The Republic's reporting. Judges will pick the best-dressed attendees throughout the show, with a winner announced at the end: first place takes home a Nintendo Switch 2, second place gets a $75 Amazon gift card, and third place receives a $50 Best Buy gift card.
Tickets run $40 for adults, $35 for seniors, $25 for military members, veterans, first responders and teachers, $20 for college students, and $5 for high schoolers, the paper reports. Children 12 and under get in free with the purchase of a guardian's ticket. The concert takes place at Columbus North High School's Erne Auditorium, 1400 25th St., a 1,021-seat hall that reopened in late 2017 after a $2.6 million repair and seat-replacement project following fire damage, according to a separate Republic report. It's not the orchestra's first Halloween-themed outing, but it arrives as the Philharmonic's holiday concert follows on Dec. 5, closing out the fall stretch of its 40th-anniversary season.
