Dog Days

California Arts Advocates, of which I'm VP, begins a statewide visioning initiative with a first convening in Sacramento this week. We describe our goal this way:

This convening is not so much about finding new language to better describe or market what we do in the arts; this is about launching an unprecedented inquiry into what is needed for the arts to become an indispensable part of life to the diverse people and communities of California.

In California we are past the shock of having our state arts agency budget cut by 95%. This may be a new experience for you but it happened here years ago. We know the late 20th century days of multi-million dollar state general fund allocations to the arts are past. And I'm not convinced that the non-profit model is the only (or always the best) vehicle for investing in people's access to the arts.

We don't know where this visioning initiative will go. It is 100% dependent upon the willingness of participants this week and in the months ahead to imagine what the arts can be and can achieve in the lives, neighborhoods, and communities of our state. I'm convinced we have to transform our understanding of the relationship between art, people, and policy so we can add more models to the arts play book. One reference point we're using is the concept of Expressive Lives Bill Ivey introduces in this Demos publication.

We'll let you know how it goes. But don't wait to find out what happens here before you start having these same conversations in your state. Change is here and we have to keep pace with it or be left behind.

Two weeks ago Secretary of State Clinton spoke at Georgetown University about issues of Human Rights. The final question from the audience concerned the role the arts can play in advancing Human Rights. The Secretary's fantastic answer - and the one any artist or arts advocate might have tried to write for her - can be seen at minute 56:50 on this C-SPAN video.

She starts with this:

I think the arts and artists are one of our most effective tools in reaching beyond and through repressive regimes in giving hope to people.

Thanks to Gary for sending this to me!

I had the great good fortune of attending one of the LA Phil's last West Coast Left Coast concerts two weeks ago. It had the intimacy and ambiance of a community event unlike most orchestra concerts I attend. I came away understanding more than ever how effectively the LA Phil plays the role of community convener for its city.

I went to hear William (Bill) Kraft's "Timpani Concerto No. 1" because he'd been the composer-in-residence at San Diego Youth Symphony during my first year as CEO. I knew from working with him that he'd been the Phil's timpanist, assistant conductor, composer-in-residence, and founder of its new music ensemble during his tenure there. I understood that this concert would be a homecoming for him. What I didn't expect was the depth of community connection that would exist throughout.

Bill and John Adams (the festival's director and concert's conductor) shared the honors of speaking during the pre-concert talk with Molly Sheridan (of AJ's Minding the Gap) moderating. Mr. Adams articulated the arch of connectivity between the music on the program and Los Angeles: Paul Dresher was born in LA; Bill Kraft's connection to the LA Phil needed no mention; Leonard Rosenman's music for "Rebel Without a Cause" was written in LA for a movie set in LA; and Adams' own "The Dharma at Big Sur" was composed for the opening concerts of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Bill Kraft recounted stories of his recently passed friend Mr. Rosenman and the Phil's efforts over the years to perform works by LA composers, including Frank Zappa and Mel Powell. As he told one story the man next to me leaned over and said, "I was at that concert." John Adams stated that he could not have programmed this new music festival in any other US city and drawn a large and consistent audience as they had in LA. Bill, the founder of the Phil's new music efforts in the early 80s, explicitly credited Esa-Pekka Salonen with building the orchestra's audience for contemporary music.

To add to the sense of community experience, John Adams mentioned on stage before performing the Rosenman piece that someone told him earlier in the day the composer was once roommates with James Dean. He asked if Mrs. Rosenman was in the audience and could confirm the story. She did!

The LA Phil has been securing accolades recently for its El Sistema inspired programs and expanding community commitment. I don't believe this is a new phenomenon but one that is only now being recognized because of the attention that has come with the arrival of Gustavo Dudamel and his own remarkable community music experience in Venezuela. The LA Phil has been changing since the late 80s when it seemed remote and insulated during my college years in the city. Esa Pekka Salonen's legacy is much more than an audience for new music. During his tenure the institution transformed into the community resource it is today with points of entry for people from all walks of life, heritage, and musical tastes. 

 

UPDATE: Here is a photo of Molly, Bill, and me 

A colleague shared this Soul of the Community Knight Foundation/Gallup Poll research with me. It has fantastic findings for arts and culture advocates. My two favorites are

After interviewing close to 28,000 people in 26 communities over two years, the study has found that three main qualities bind people to place: social offerings such as entertainment venues and places to meet - the top factor in 21 of 26 communities, openness (how welcoming a place is) and the area's aesthetics (its physical beauty and green spaces).

Access to quality education - whether at the elementary, secondary or college level - was also an important factor.

and

The study also looked at the relationship between how passionate and loyal people are to their communities and local economic growth. Researchers did find a significant relationship between the two. For example, from 2002-06, the most attached communities had the highest local GDP growth.

I love the idea that economic vitality is connected to how strongly people feel attached to their community. And the number one factor in giving them a strong connection to their community is having places to meet and socialize. The arts are absolutely part of the solution for economic growth and this data makes new correlation. Let's use it!

In just a few hours I will introduce the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory's "Celebration of Music Education" concert. It is the one time in the year when all of our 500 students perform on a single concert. We annually honor a local music teacher for a lifetime of acheivement and provide free tickets to private, school, and university music teachers. We're actually honoring one of our alumni from the 1950s, JoAnn Ford, for her years of teaching music in the schools and privately. 

This year, the local public radio station used the occasion to focus on music education during its morning talk show. Along with our award honoree the stataion invited Dr. Diana Hollinger of San Jose State University, the creative force behind the California Music Project, and Russ Sperling, the VAPA Coordinator for the middle and high school district that covers the entire south end of San Diego County, to speak about the current state of music education.

The transcript of the full interview is now posted here. The most important statement from the 45 minute session got passed over by the host but offers all of us a new argument for the importance of the arts. Diana demonstrates that arts education is a social justice issue. 

Samuel Hope, who's the executive director of the National Association of Schools and Music, he says we have five ways to communicate and organize thought and knowledge. The first one is letters and words, which is our language. And the second is numbers and symbols, which is mathematics. But the next three are still images, which is art in architecture and design, moving images which is dance and film, and abstract sound which is music. And we tend to only place emphasis on the first two. And if a child does not excel at the first two, then we spend more time teaching him that or her that rather than - at the expense of the other three. And so there are other ways besides numbers, mathematics and language, to communicate and to organize sound, and music is one of those. And if we have a child who doesn't communicate well with the first two, then he or she just doesn't do well in the education system as we have it set up today. And, of course, we're going to have students at risk. Imagine if you spend eight hours, as a seven year old, just studying words and numbers and you're bursting to express something and you can't do it. I mean, this is just an accident waiting to happen. And I don't - I mean, we don't - we can't just do a little music. Let's outsource this and sing some songs after school. That's not how you teach. You don't teach algebra that way, you don't teach somebody to read that way, you don't teach science that way. You cannot teach anything that way. So it's very important that you have a structured, you know, step-by-step education so that students have access. Understanding how to read music and to sing music and to play music is access. It's social justice...  

I look forward to seeing Diana again tomorrow during California Music Project activities in San Diego and exploring this idea with her further. I'm sure others have been making this case before and I've just not heard it. Have you?