PHILADELPHIA -- If only the American symphony orchestra could be a bit more like Netflix.
As the recorded sounds of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute orchestra last weekend poured through speakers and video of instrumentalists glowed on 18-foot-tall screens, you had the sense of an old institution reaching for, if not the future, at least one possible future.
Yes, Netflix may be having problems of its own — it’s losing customers in droves — but the streaming service has cemented the idea that people now expect to get their entertainment when they want it. Orchestras and other performing arts groups, because of obvious logistics, have long seen their relationship with audiences the other way around: We do what we do when we do it, and you, the consumer, must arrange your life around curtain time.
