During Media Communications class, two weeks before the Candlelit performance, my friends and I were just discussing new things in our lives and what our plans are for Valentine’s Day. Emma mentioned that she was going to a candlelit performance with her boyfriend, so my friend and I ended up joking about going and having a little Galentine’s. About five minutes later, we booked our tickets.

Mia’s Perspective

Now, I highly dislike anything about the downtown area. The traffic. The smell. The hassle of it all. So, the fact that this performance was smack dab in the middle of the city already gave me an uneasy feeling about going.

When the day finally arrived to go listen to love songs, I picked up Kassidy and we went on our way to the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

The first 15 minutes of the drive was pretty peaceful, taking easy backroads. But, the minute we entered downtown, cars honked, swerved and merged all over the place, which just made the experience of traveling to the performance ten times worse.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by thousands of candles. There were candles everywhere you looked. In each corner, row and step. As we made our way up to the balcony seats, the ambiance of the venue really took over and made me forget about my drive over. The warm lighting and quiet atmosphere helped ease my mind and give this performance a fair opinion.

Sitting up in the balcony, I actually felt as though they were the best choice of seats out of them all. And, for the price range of $20-30, these seats were perfect in my eyes.

The performance had a delayed start, so I started to get impatient, bouncing my legs and playing games on my phone because of the anticipation.

Finally, the performance began.

As the musicians walked out onto the stage with hundreds of candles surrounding them, I noticed that they looked pretty young. This is just one of the many things that impressed me, other than the ambiance of the venue of course.

As seen below, many love songs were played throughout the performance, even featuring beloved Disney songs. Those were the songs that I loved.

I felt a connection with each of the songs played, each and every one was played with clear intention to touch hearts, and they touched mine.

I feel as though I would have enjoyed the performance so much more if I had brought a significant other to hold my hand and strengthen our bond.

This was the first candlelight performance dedicated to Valentine’s Day in Cleveland, and I thought they did an excellent job with their song choice and the idea of putting candles around each row of seats for everyone to experience the same ambiance as the person next to them or across from their row completely.

Overall, I think this is a performance that one should see with their significant other. It is beautiful to listen to and really help bring an end to the celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Emma’s Perspective

As a person who went with my boyfriend, I didn’t have to drive, so I didn’t have a nerve racking experience driving in. But I did as a passenger who bought our parking ticket. There was an extremely long line into the parking lot, and I bought a parking ticket before, so I was scared that my pre-bought ticket would go to waste. After about 20 minutes we made it to the parking lot, so I didn’t really feel any point in buying parking prior because it didn’t give us any privileges. We had to wait in line with all of the other people who didn’t buy parking prior. So by then, we were late, and we left an hour early. Our tickets said if we aren’t on time doors will be closed and nobody will be let in. I was really nervous we would miss some songs, but they let us in a little late, and we didn’t miss anything.

I thought this orchestra concert was a perfect date. The candle ambiance and love songs are perfect for a romantic date. I also felt comfortable because just about everywhere you looked there were couples. The concert was definitely a wonderful couple date for the Valentine’s day week.

I personally love orchestras, so I think I would have loved this even without having a date. I actually heard about this concert through the Taylor Swift Candlelight concert and decided to go because that was just as amazing. I thought that the set list was also perfect because I knew just about all of the songs, so this concert could be for just about anyone, old or young. Even my boyfriend, who isn’t a big orchestra person, liked it. My favorite song by far was “City of Stars” by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. “La La Land” is one of my favorite movies, so it really pulled on my heart strings hearing it from an orchestra. I believe it made the song 10 times more beautiful.

Overall, I would recommend it. They don’t have anymore love concerts, but they have a ton of other candlelight choices.

You can find tickets here.