Side stuff

Note that I’ve refurbished the items on the right-hand panel — all the stuff about me, and about things you can read on the subjects I cover here. This last — the “Resources” section — I’ll expand a lot, I hope, now that I have some free time.

About me: Read the list of things I’ve been involved with this spring. I’ve been busy!

One “Resources” link I’ve added is important: It points you to a study that will tell you how the Melbourne (Australia) Symphony attracted a younger audience. This comes from a chapter in Innovative Arts Marketing, a book by Ruth Rentschler, and it’s the best information I’ve ever seen on the topic. Some of the study’s vital conclusions:

• If you want to reach a younger audience, you’d better let people from younger audience tell you how to do it

• You’ll have to play more new music

• You’ll have to lower ticket prices

• You won’t make any money doing all of this, so you’ll have to treat the program as a long-term investment

And here’s a footnote to the book I’ve cited under “Things I Like,” The Peregrine, by J. A. Baker. (It’s a difficult book, by the way, so loaded with imagery that the writing might seem excessive. But that’s only if you read too quickly. Read it slowly, and the way Baker’s inner world meets nature all at once turns precise, entirely unexpected, and often quite explosive.) Peregrines, I learned from Baker, prey on other birds. They lay their kill on its back, and eat everything except the wings and head, leaving only bones everywhere else.

On a roof next to my building in New York, there’s a dead pigeon, lying on its back, with everything gone except the wings, head, and bones. I’d been looking at it for weeks — and now I know a peregrine killed it.