About...

Me 
Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days is composing or consulting, or teaching, or doing projects with orchestras... more

What's Happening Here 
Is classical music dying? That's a big topic, and a blog seems like a perfect way to attack it ... more

Elsewhere 
Some other past and current projects ... more

Visit my Book 
I'm "performing" a book-in-progress. Check it out here.

Archive  475 entries and counting

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greg@gregsandow.com

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Resources

ATTRACTING A YOUNGER AUDIENCE 
Read here how the Melbourne (Australia) Symphony found a way to do it. (A chapter from Innovative Arts Marketing, a book by Ruth Rentschler.) Note the four conclusions. The younger audience itself must plan the program; you have to play more new music; you have to lower ticket prices; you won't make any money doing all of this, so you have to see the program as a long-term investment.

GOOD PRESS RELEASES AND BROCHURES 
Some people do it right... more

USEFUL ARTICLES 
Why PBS doesn't broadcast opera. A report in Opera News explains the reason -- hardly anybody watches. Why public radio is cutting back on classical music. The bad news -- few people listen, and those who do, don't give money -- is in a New York Times piece that we can't link to. You can search for it, though, on their website: "Public Radio's Private Guru," by Samuel G. Freedman, published 11/11/01. You'll have to pay to read it, unfortunately. More to come.

ORCHESTRAL MUSICIANS' JOB (DIS)SATISFACTION 
The classic study of this, done in 1991 by Harvard psychology professor Richard Hackman, isn't available on the web (as far as I know). But you can learn Hackman's findings in an interview with him, from Harmony magazine, the unhappily defunct publication of the Symphony Orchestra Institute.

MUSIC AND SCIENCE 
Since there's so much talk about the "Mozart Effect" (or the alleged "Mozart Effect"), we need this thorough listing -- The Music and Science Information Computer Archive -- of online scientific studies. They're not just about the fabled Mozart stuff, of course, but about everything known about the effects music can have. Very useful at a time when many people think classical music is tangibly, even physically good for us.

PARC STUDY 
Who's the audience for the performing arts? A report from five cities, by the Performing Arts Research Coalition. It's encouraging -- lots of people go to performing arts events, and even those who don't go think they're important.

Things I Like

Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner 
What's notable, first, is that people know about it. People come to our home, see the little thing drinking electricity at its charger, and they'll ask, "Does it work?" The answer -- which both we and our neighbors across the street learned at Xmas, when Roomba showed up in both our houses, as a present -- is "Yes!" It's odd to watch at first, working its way apparently at random across the floor, clearly having no idea where the dirt is, lightly bumping into things, turning in a new direction, and moving on. (Its bumping mechanism is a marvel of construction, firm enough to leave no doubt that there's an obstacle, but so flexible that it does no damage either to Roomba or anything it hits.) But the random-seeming progress really isn't random. Roomba remembers where it's been, and slowly builds a map of the entire room, then cleans until every part of that map has been covered. Then it either turns itself off, or, best of all, locates its charger (if it can) and heads back on it, and then turns itself off. The room, you'll then discover, has been cleaned. Roomba isn't quiet, and there's a learning curve involved. In complex rooms (rooms with angles, or with lots of furniture, or stairs heading downward) it might be best to close off the area you want Roomba to clean, using the supplied "virtual walls," little boxes that send out beams that Roomba won't cross. But once you learn a few tricks like that, you can depend on Roomba. Set it going, go out for a walk, or do some work -- and your home is vacuumed. If the company's forthcoming model, which claims to mop the floor, works as well, I may well get one.

Pattern Recognition 
The latest William Gibson novel. We'd associate him with cyber-this and techno-that, and look for his books in the science fiction section. But this one was recommended to me by someone who wouldn't be browsing there, and the cyber stuff -- present-day technology, this time, nothing from the future -- isn't really the point. This is a poignant story about decency, devotion, and above all about the power of art. Note, though, that the art in this book is an enigmatic film, released in segments on the Internet, and finding there a niche of devotees, who ponder what it means, along with how (or even whether) the segments fit together. We're far from classical music, in other words, and in fact in a world that classical music (at least the mainstream kind) never seems to touch. If I made this into an opera, I'd have a musical composition set drifting on the web in fragments. And come to think of it, would such a thing (if it were to happen) gather any interest for classical music?

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