What I’ve been up to

Besides Rebirth, my book on the future of classical music, of course. (Go here and here for that)

I’ve been — and I’m honored by this — appointed Artist-in-Residence in the College of Arts and Humanities of the University of Maryland, for this academic year and 2010-11. I’ll be working with students and faculty of the School of Music, and with the staff of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, to find new ways of giving classical concerts. I’m especially interested in finding ways for students to reach an audience their own age.

Of course this follows the terrific time I had last summer with students from the National Orchestral Institute, also at the university. For the university’s website about their artists in residence (there are three of us, quite a varied group), go here.

And earlier this month, I had fun (and I hope I was useful), talking about technology via Skype video to a large group of people from British orchestras. This was courtesy of the London Symphony, which has done good things, technologically. My main message was that new technologies create a new culture, and so the opportunities they create go way beyond finding new delivery methods for the same old messages. Recording from Skype wasn’t in the cards that day, but I recorded my talk myself on my iPhone (believe it or not), and you can listen to it here. Along with some Q and A with participants.

This summer, I spoke at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, about the future of…well, you know. Seemed to be very well received, by both students there and some of the lovely people in the area who go to the concerts. They seem to be pretty much like the classical music audience we see in most places, so it meant a lot to me that they responlyded so happily to my calls for change. You can listen to this talk, too.

Finally, I’m off to Tunisia tomorrow (10/16), to speak at an international conference on music, courtesy of the International Music Council. I’ll be there for six days, and have no idea what my schedule will be like, or how easy Internet access will be. I may or may not be blogging. More on this in another post.