Good news

In my

href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2006/08/what_the_numbers_say.html">last

post, and often earlier, I’ve said that the biggest orchestras have

suffered falling ticket sales to their core classical concerts for well over a

decade. But now, on the grapevine, I’ve heard something hopeful–sales were

slightly up last season. Not all of the biggest orchestras showed an increase, I

hear, but most of them did, and their aggregate sales were definitely up.

This is wonderful news. And what’s the cause? I’m going to

make a hopeful guess. I’ll guess that sales are up because the orchestras–and

of course especially their marketing directors–decided to do something to

reverse the falling sales. And figured out something that

began to work, even if it wasn’t wildly radical. Not that they hadn’t

tried hard before, but years of trouble, combined with financial problems and a

troubled landscape (see the American Symphony Orchestra League’s new strategic

plan–go here and scroll down),

have a way of stimulating even greater and more thoughtful efforts. One goal,

from what I hear, is to sell more single tickets, since subscription sales have

been falling for many years. It’s encouraging to see that this might work.

But then there are changes all over classical music. I’m

amazed–and heartened, and impressed–by how fast things seem to be moving. Here

are some straws in the wind, chosen simply because I happened to notice them:

• Last

  year, the New York City Opera started its season with a gala, which

  included a party at which the East Village Opera Company did its

  arena-rock versions of opera tunes. Then they did a regular opera

  performance, with all seats on sale for $25. I

  href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2005/09/opera_in_the_real_world.html">praised

  that at the time; I went to the opera performance, and saw that it really

  did attract a new audience. So how are they starting this

  class=GramE>season. With the gala again, and three performances

  with all seats costing $25. I don’t know how many of the new ticket-buyers

  they were able to retain, but it’s good to see them expanding their new

  approach. (And raising the money to pay for it.)

• EMI is

  releasing Gabriela Montero’s second CD, on which she plays improvisations

  on Bach. I don’t call this crossover. Montero is a serious and quite good

  classical pianist, and her first EMI album had one CD of straight

  classical performances, and a bonus CD of improvisations. She’s a good

  class=GramE>improviser, and a dawning era in which top classical musicians

  are also featured improvising–making their own music, as

  individuals–is an era in which classical music is far more human and far

  more approachable. (For musicians, let’s note, as well as audiences. For

  more on Montero, see the end of this post.)

• w:st="on">Lincoln

  w:st="on">Center staged some late-night,

  relatively informal concerts in its Mostly Mozart festival this summer.

  And there’ll be more on its regular schedule this fall. I’m not the only

  one who thinks we need varied concerts–some shorter than usual, some

  earlier, some

  later–to attract a new audience. In fact, any study of

  current event-going patterns shows that this should be essential. (See

  Richard Florida’s seminal book, The

  Rise of the Creative Class, just for instance.) It’s good to see

  w:st="on">Lincoln

  w:st="on">Center doing it. My wife Anne

  Midgette

  href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/arts/music/14zach.html?ex=1157601600&en=ffc8b7f34a25b4c1&ei=5070">reviewed

  one of the late-night Mozart concerts for The New York Times, and thought the informal atmosphere

  spilled over, quite wonderfully, into the next night’s more formal Avery

  Fisher Hall event.

• Outside

  the Royal Festival Hall in London this summer, the Philarmonia

  Orchestra set up a sound installation called PLAY.orchestra

  (collaborating with Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, South

  Bank Centre Education and, not least, six elementary schools, whose

  students provided the graphics; ). You really should go to the orchestra’s

  website to

  href="http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/play__fllstp__orchestra/">read

  about this; there’s more than I can easily describe. Outside the hall, on

  a space the size of the stage the orchestra plays on inside, were 58

  cubes, each with a light and a speaker, representing one instrument from

  the orchestra. Or not just representing it — actually creating its sound.

  If you sit down on the cube, you hear that instrument. People were invited

  to bring friends and sit down on many of the cubes. Then, if you’ve got a

  Bluetooth phone, you can download a ringtone of

  the sound you’ve created. There’s much, much more. The music the cubes

  play changes each week; there’s always one standard rep piece, and one new

  piece. People were also invited to record sounds on their phones, and send

  them to the Philharmonia, to be added to the

  orchestra’s sample library. This all sounds just wonderful — a famous

  orchestra opening itself to the outside world in terrific, inventive ways.

  (Many thanks to regular reader Sam Richards, for e-mailing me about this.)

• The

  American Composers Orchestra has moved way past its many years of

  presenting American music (mostly new) only in formal settings. They now welcome

  a far wider range of music creation, including (just for instance) a

  series of

  href="http://www.americancomposers.org/rel20060927_20061020.htm">

  class=GramE>composer-performers, who’ll be

  presented 9/27 and 10/20 at Joe’s Pub, in

  w:st="on">New York, a terrific New York cabaret. Where

  Gabriela Montero will also be playing, on September 21. The ACO is also featuring composer-performers in its first regular concert this year, on October 13.

• Plus

  the venerable Concert Artists Guild, giving its awards (with concerts

  attached) to more adventurous musicians, and putting the concerts in far

  more informal places.

It all adds up to one absolutely crucial and ongoing project

– putting classical music back into the world most people live in. More than

anything else, that’s what classical music must

do, if it’s going to survive. I’m thrilled to see it happening, and gaining

such momentum.

But I’m sure I’ve only cited a few of the things that are

going on. Please let me know about more!

And about Gabriela Montero…here are some excerpts from

class=GramE>a a press release about her new CD,

starting with a quote from her:

“Because improvisation is such a

huge part of who I am it is the most natural and spontaneous way I can express

myself. I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard when

I was just eight months old, but for many years I kept this aspect of my

playing secret. Then Martha Argerich overheard me

improvising one day and was ecstatic. In fact, it was Martha who persuaded me

that it was possible to combine my career as a serious ‘classical’ artist with

the side of me that is rather unique. Improvisation is so natural for me that

it was something of a relief to be able to finally ‘come out of the closet.’”

These days, after performing a concerto Montero often invites her audiences to

suggest a melody for improvisation by way of an encore. They ask for themes

anywhere from Haydn symphonies to Star Wars, or they come onto

the stage to play a melody that Montero might or might not know. “When

improvising,” Montero says, “I connect with my audience in a completely unique

way – and they connect with me.”