Results tagged “Denver” from Program Notes

I am surprised at how quickly we can adapt. After only three years in New York City, I have forgotten how comfortable life can be elsewhere in these United States. As a matter of fact creature comforts make me somewhat uncomfortable. Why did that strange woman just smile at me? Why does the ladies room smell like amaretto extract? Why do the bellhops at the Hyatt swarm me with offers for cab service every time I exit the lobby?  Why is everything so...pleasant?
 
And so this is Denver. This unexpectedly flat, arid, elevated city perched on the edge of the Great Plains, gazing longingly at the Rockies. The city chosen by the National Performing Arts Convention (and the Democratic National Convention) for 2008. I had never been to Denver until I stepped off of the Jetblue flight on Monday morning. The most remarkable thing I've noticed so far (and appropriate for a performing arts convention) is the presence of citywide audio installations.   As my colleague and I stepped into the shuttle train at the Denver International Airport, a Jetsons-style voice cooed words of guidance over the speaker system before a couple bars of stride piano alerted us to the closing doors. An interesting take on sound cues -- the MTA just gives us a descending major third on the NYC subway.
 
Fast-forward past Monday night's dinner at the Buckhorn Exchange (buffalo, elk, quail, ostrich, rattlesnake on your plate and on the walls, bourbon and apple juice in your glass) to Tuesday morning at the Convention Center. The need for a Sharpie sent me scurrying out of ArtsTown and onto the escalator. Welling up from beneath the stairs were bubbles of laughter---women, children, men. The NPAC attendees in front of me began looking around for the source, quickly realizing it was a recording, which led them to laugh at themselves. I found myself laughing nervously as well. Is this designed to force people to laugh? If so, it's kind of like an unwanted tickle attack. But an interesting alternative to silence.
 
So I did a bit of quick research on Google and Wikipedia to find that these audio installations are the work of sound artist Jim Green. And there's more. In addition to the local voices and stride piano at the airport and the "Laughing Escalators" at the Convention Center, Jim Greene's work can be heard at the Denver Art Museum "Singing Sinks" and on Curtis Street between 15th and 16th Streets. I haven't heard the "Talking Sidewalk" yet but according to this Los Angeles Times article from June 8, "you will hear howling beasts, mysterious voices and thundering hoofbeats rising from the sidewalk grate."  Sounds like something to check out around midnight this Friday, the 13th.

posted by Sarah Baird, representing Boosey & Hawkes and noticing sound art....which is...music, too?

By Andrew Taylor
Discuss! To comment on this entry, click here. 

One of the elements I'm eager to observe during the National Performing Arts Convention (and, in fact, will be working with a team of colleagues and students to watch with me), is whether the thousands of performing artists and arts professionals assembled in Denver constitute a ''learning system.'' That is, does the opportunity to gather in such large numbers under a common convention make us smarter as an industry, or just better connected as individuals?

A large part of the goal of NPAC, after all, is to foster a collective agenda for the performing arts, and advance strategic collective action. Says the web site:

NPAC will lay the foundation for future cross-disciplinary collaborations, cooperative programs and effective advocacy. Demonstrating a new maturity as a united sector, NPAC is dedicated to enriching national life and strengthening communities across the country.

Such a goal requires the individual players to be smart and engaged, of course. But it also requires the system -- the relationships, connections, incentives, motives, and aggregate activities of all of us together -- to learn, as well.

It may sound a bit squishy and social-science-y to some, but a wealth of thinking and research on ''organizational learning'' has sprouted since the 1970s. As corporations evolved from ''do the job as defined'' widget-making to ''evolve the job as needed'' knowledge-making, corporate leaders and affiliated academics began to discover that the very structures of organizations seemed designed to block learning, both by individuals and by the system itself. A company would vocally encourage its teams to take risks, for example, but every incentive, feedback, and social system would scream ''be cautious, don't fail, don't look dumb.''

The performing arts world has never made widgets, of course. But we've professionalized enough to adopt many of the structures, cultures, and norms of corporate America. We've divided our labor by artistic discipline, by job function, by revenue potential, and all to wonderful effect. But have we built a system that is resistant to learning, to risk-taking, to honest self assessment, and to radical innovation?

In Denver, we'll be exploring this theme in several places. In a workshop session on Thursday afternoon, a group of us will dive into ''Higher Education and the Real World of Practice: Creating a New Alignment'' -- an obvious and essential part of any learning system. And throughout the convention, the I-DOC Project (interview, document, observe, clarify) will be observing and analyzing our capacity for collective insight and collective action. Some of the elements we might be watching for are described in this overview of organizational learning (summarized below). And we'll be eager to share our discoveries after the convention.

But in the meanwhile, keep an eye and an ear open while you're attending in Denver to decide for yourself which of the following qualities we hold in abundance, and which are still under construction:

• At the individual level:
  • Self mastery
    The ability to honestly and openly see reality as it exists; to clarify one's personal vision.
  • Mental models
    The ability to compare reality or personal vision with perceptions; reconciling both into a coherent understanding.
• At the group level:
  • Shared vision
    The ability of a group of individuals to hold a shared picture of a mutually desirable future.
  • Team learning
    The ability of a group of individuals to suspend personal assumptions about each other and engage in "dialogue" rather than "discussion".
  • Systems thinking
    The ability to see interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect; the ability to think in context and appreciate the consequences of actions on other parts of the system.
  To hear more from Andrew Taylor, read his blog.  
  To learn more about NPAC sessions such as "The Not-So Distant Horizon: The Near Future and the Performing Arts", visit the website. 

by Jeffrey Kahane
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Since my first visit to Denver more than twenty-five years ago, this wonderful and unique city, like its equally wonderful and unique symphony orchestra, has seen its share of economic ups and downs, but if the last five years are any indication of the future, Denver's long-term prospects, and those of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, are bright indeed. The downtown area, where my wife and I have an apartment across the street from Boettcher Concert Hall with a breathtaking view of the ever-inspiring Rocky Mountains, has metamorphosed from what was not so long ago a classic example of American "urban desert" into a genuinely vibrant and immensely desirable place to live. For me, someone who grew up and and still spends a large amount of time working in Los Angeles (a city where life without an automobile is virtually unthinkable) it is a great joy to live in a central urban area where I can go for two weeks without ever getting into a car.

Within a few minutes' walk from our building are something on the order of 25 fine restaurants, several of them rivaling the best of New York or Los Angeles; one of the country's most magnificent and welcoming bookstores, the legendary "Tattered Cover"; Coors Field, the stunningly beautiful stadium that is home to the Colorado Rockies; and the second largest performing arts center in the country, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Just down the street is the  Convention Center, which will host not one but two important conventions this summer, one of which, the Democratic National Convention, will change the history of American political life forever, no matter what the outcome of the current contest between Senators Obama and Clinton.

The arts scene here, which grows richer and more vital each year, is only one of the things that make Denver so attractive. Life here, perhaps more than any other American city, is centered around the outdoors, and it probably goes without saying that some of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery in America is easily accessible from downtown Denver. This does, naturally (pun intended), present challenges for a symphony orchestra, which of necessity plays primarily on weekends, when a great many residents of the city and its suburbs head for the mountains.

Nonetheless, the line of cars on most weekends coming into the performing arts complex is impressively long: there are nearly always at least two if not three major productions  underway in the complex which houses a concert hall, an opera house and multiple theatres under one big roof and where the Colorado Symphony, Opera Colorado, the Colorado Ballet, and the Denver Center Theatre Company all reside and perform throughout the year.
Just a few minutes further away from my apartment is the Denver Art Museum, which recently proudly opened the spectacular new Frederic C. Hamilton Wing, designed by internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind. In the very near future, the international art world will witness the opening of the new Clyfford Still Museum, thanks to the extraordinary, historic bequest to Denver by Still's widow of the late painter's entire estate, which comprises virtually the entire body of work of one of the last century's greatest artists: a body of work that has for the last few decades been inaccessible to the public. This, along with the recently announced first "Biennial of the Americas" in 2010, will unquestionably make Denver one of the country's most important magnets for lovers of the fine arts.

The Colorado Symphony, while it does not yet have the international cachet of the current and future art museums, is, in the view of many, unquestionably one of the finest jewels in the city's cultural crown. I have on more than one occasion referred to it as the "sleeper" of America's orchestras: the greatest American orchestra that isn't yet known as one. This June, I believe that will change dramatically as thousands of arts professionals arrive in Denver for the National Performing Arts Convention.

Having worked with major orchestras around the world for more than a quarter of a century, I can say that it is one of the most versatile, committed and responsive orchestras in America. Not a single one of the many distinguished colleagues who have come to work with the orchestra and me during my first few seasons here has failed to comment in astonishment on the quality of the orchestra's playing, and their determination to make music at the highest level.  As new players arrive, which they do almost every year, we are blessed with a steadily influx of exceptionally high level of technical and artistic achievement, thanks to the substantial number of extraordinarily fine young players coming out of conservatories and training orchestras around the country and the world. Many of them are especially drawn to Denver, not only because the opportunity to work in this orchestra, but because the combination of the cultural richness of the city with the joy of living so close to the magic of the mountains. The Colorado Symphony, which in addition to its 21 week classical subscription season plays for the opera and does dizzying numbers of pops, children's, family and other special programs, is one of the hardest-working orchestras in America, but their professionalism and positive attitude are nearly as impressive as the sheer beauty, virtuosity  and musical integrity that comes off the stage on the best nights at Boettcher Concert Hall.

In just a few short years, Boettcher Concert Hall will undergo a major transformation as a result of a $90 million renovation project made possible by the citizens of Denver, who, in a display of civic-mindedness all to rare in this day and age, voted to pass a $60 million bond issue to help finance a new concert hall. This is an historic moment for the orchestra, and I think will serve not only to launch the orchestra into a new era of national and international recognition, but bring to Denver at long last what every great city deserves, that is, not merely a great orchestra, but a great symphony hall. We are all counting the days! And, needless to say, it is with the greatest pride that we will be the host orchestra at this year's NPAC!


To hear more from Jeffrey Kahane, go to a Colorado Symphony Orchestra concert! 
To learn more about NPAC sessions such as "The Denver Model: Building Local Support for the Arts", visit the website.

- the National Performing Arts Convention - took place in Denver, Colorado on June 10-14, 2008. "Taking Action Together," NPAC sought to lay the foundation for future cross-disciplinary collaborations, cooperative programs and effective advocacy. Formed by 30 distinct performing arts service organizations demonstrating a new maturity and uniting as one a sector, the convention was dedicated to enriching national life and strengthening performing arts communities across the country.