Fond Farewell: Moving On from the League of American Orchestras

I am excited beyond words to come to Roosevelt, a conservatory that has made enormous leaps of quality in the past decade. It is both a theatre and music conservatory with great accomplishments in its history and great promise for its future. I have been teaching there for six years, so I know the school and look forward to this extension of what has always been a strong interest of mine--the way in which we go about educating the artists of the future.

But all life changes have an element of schizophrenia about them, and as much as I look forward to this new chapter, it is with more than a bit of a tear that I say a formal farewell to the League. The general public doesn't know a great deal about the League--nor should it. The League's role is to help orchestras relate to their public and their communities, not to compete with orchestras for attention from that public.

The League has almost 1000 member orchestras, a fact that astonishes most people when I tell them. About 400 of those are what we call "professional" orchestras--our definition of that being any orchestra that pays all of its musicians each time they rehearse or perform. The remaining 600 are youth orchestras, college or conservatory orchestras, and community orchestras that consist of volunteer musicians. This country is filled with symphony orchestras. Whenever I hear someone say "there are too many of them, there's an excess of 'product' in the marketplace," my answer is that we should just sit back and let the marketplace sort it out. When a cynic responds by noting that the marketplace isn't operating here because these orchestras require contributed revenue to survive, I point out that contributed revenue is quite specifically an aspect of the marketplace. In any community, those who believe that the presence of a particular orchestra is important to that community--and who recognize that earned revenue cannot pay all of its costs, at least not if we want to have musicians who are actually paid for their services--have chosen to contribute to the orchestra. That is, in fact, a marketplace reality. And what the marketplace tells us is that this country values its orchestras--and values the art form that they preserve and enrich for the future.

For well over 35 years I have had an association of one kind or another with the League, and for around 20 of those years that association has been formal. It has been one of the most treasured relationships of my life, and I say goodbye to it--at least to the formal aspect of it--with some mixed emotions.

It has been my League work, and my visiting of orchestras, that has been the principal inspiration for this blog on Artsjournal. However, because I intend to stay active in the music world, though perhaps in a different way, I am going to continue the blog--and the League will continue to serve as the editor and facilitator if it, at least for a while. We shall see if I can continue to find content of interest. Your feedback will always be, as it always has been, very welcome.