What to wear

Here's a new idea for concert dress, or new at least to me -- a new (and none too wonderful) thought about what classical musicians should wear when they play. It comes from New York's Eos Orchestra, whom I heard this past weekend playing smart, tactile, wry, and often touching music by Peter Lieberson, a good man and good composer. The musicians wore black pants, and black Eos t-shirts; "Yuck" might be one quick reaction. The whole thing looked to me like a crass promotion, but then I don't have much affection for Eos, which gets a lot of publicity and plays fascinating programs, but plays them badly. Their founder, prime mover, and music director Jonathan Sheffer just can't conduct…but let's not go there. (Insert tirade about vanity operations, led by incapable conductors with either money, or a gift for fundraising and promotion.) (And I do wonder why Eos was chosen to play this concert on a composers' series at New York's Miller Theater, whose events are programmed by George Steel, a good musician, who ought to know better. Lieberson's music, tricky, changing every few moments, needs a lot sharper playing than Sheffer and Eos could give it.)

I can imagine a group that's run by its musicians wearing t-shirts that advertised it. At least we'd know the musicians were promoting themselves.

But the most effective informal concert dress I've seen is wonderfully simple. Everyone wears black below the waist, pants or a skirt, and something colored on top. The musicians pick their own colors, and the result looks both festive and disciplined, free and creative, but also organized. I saw this first at a new music concert by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and have seen it elsewhere, too, though it's important to really coordinate the look. Sometimes most of the musicians dress this way, but a few people wear all black, which weakens the fun.

New music concerts tend to be informal, of course. Their audience tends to dress casually. What you'd wear to play standard repertoire in a formal concert hall for a dressed-up audience -- that's another story. But it's something a lot of people wonder about, including even major orchestras.

October 4, 2003 8:13 PM |

Categories:

Resources

Age of the Audience 
Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Reality: It used to be younger -- dramatically younger, in fact. Here's some evidence -- actual texts of old studies, links to NEA studies -- plus my blog posts on this subject. more

earlier resources

Things I like

Frank O'Hara... 
...or rather these lines from one of his poems, quoted today in the New York Times Book Review: more

The Ten-Cent Plague
 
To paraphrase the old quote about the Nazis: "They came for the comic books, but I didn't read comic books..." more

Improvisation Games
 
An inspired book... more

Elektra 1957
 
Seismic recording.  more

Carmen Sings Monk
 
It's piano music, but she'll sing it anyway...
more
more things

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This page contains a single entry by Sandow published on October 4, 2003 8:13 PM.

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