From Michael Oneil Lam (who's married to one of the students I work with at the University of Maryland) -- an idea for making orchestra concerts more comprehensible to outsiders. And, believe me, he's got reasons for thinking about this. He's not a classical music person, but he goes to hear his wife play the bass in the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra. And wishes he could have a little help in following the music.He wrote this for his blog, The Free Arrow. I'm reposting it here with his permission. Thanks, Mike! What you wrote is … [Read more...]

Each fall, I teach a graduate course about music criticism, at Juilliard. As I've said here before, it ends up being a class in how to talk about music, more than a class about criticism itself. Though we do read my favorite classical critics (George Bernard Shaw and Virgil Thomson), as well as current reviews from the New York Times, which the students pick, and bring into class.They also have to do a bit of writing. I tell them (and I mean it) that they'll be judged not by their writing skills, but by what they say. They're musicians, after … [Read more...]

Here's a thought that's been on my mind for a while. Lincoln Center, in New York, has heightened its branding. Now (on 65th Street, next to its main campus, where all the big halls are) it's got a row of very tall video displays, which often show moving images. Across the street from them, in front of the remodeled Alice Tully Hall, is another video display, looking spiffily contemporary. Well, fine. A move into current culture. Contemporary branding. Two problems, though. The images vary. Some are low-res. Painfully low-res -- … [Read more...]

Warm and happy Thanksgiving wishes to everyone. One of the things I'm thankful for, all year long, is you -- all of you who read my blog. Maybe you comment, maybe you don't, maybe you email me, maybe you don't. Doesn't matter! I'm so glad you're here.And lately I've been grateful for the warm comments I've gotten on my last series of posts, about ways to get people caring about classical music (and about your own classical music performances). With two examples from the University of Maryland. If you haven't read these, you might want … [Read more...]

Not long ago I got an email from someone trying to promote some musical events. As part of the promotion, she'd posted things that seemed interesting -- questions to answer, videos to watch -- on her group's Facebook page, hoping to get some discussion going. But there wasn't much response. Which, I thought, was more or less what I'd expect. A performing arts center I'm in contact with created an extensive blog to promote a fascinating concert, and the blog was full of tasty things, including videos (really lively ones) of musicians … [Read more...]

In my last post, I passed on an email from John Devlin, a graduate conducting student at the University of Maryland at College Park, and co-conductor of the school's Repertoire Orchestra. He'd had great success attracting a new audience to the orchestra's last concert, and his email explained some of how he did that.After the concert, he sent a thank-you email to the new people who'd come. You'd think this would be a no-brainer, but I don't know how often it's done in the classical music world. Elsewhere, of course, it's common. (My inbox is … [Read more...]

John Devlin is, along with Michael Jacko, co-conductor of UMRO -- the University of Maryland Repertoire Orchestra. (The school seems to specialize in baffling acronyms.) This is a group made up of students who aren't music majors, who play concerts of symphonic repertoire in casual dress, with great success. (Check out the performance of Beethoven's Seventh on John's website.) John supports my Maryland project with great enthusiasm, and in fact was the source of some of the ideas that helped UMSO (the Symphony Orchestra) and UMWO … [Read more...]

As maybe the start of a larger effort to publish my writing on the web, I've made a ;; of my posts about awakening the audience. It's rewritten to be a single essay, and you easily can send it to your friends and colleagues. If you'd like it, please email me with "audience series" in the subject line, and I'll send the PDF to you by return email. Also available:My Australia talk, which -- when I posted it here -- I said was the best summary I've ever made of my current ideas about where classical music is going, and what we need to do. An essay … [Read more...]

Here's the end of my series on awakening relationships -- relationships, of course, between classical music performing groups and their communities. Didn't know it would turn out to be so long. I call the post "finishing -- for now" because certainly there's more to say on all of this. ***Final installment (for now) -- excitement and surprise.There are few things, I think it's safe to say, less surprising than most classical performances. The music mostly is familiar. The musicians know it. The long-time audience knows it. Performances move … [Read more...]

In my last few posts -- here, here, and here -- I've posed a problem (based on both things I've heard about, and my direct experience) about classical music and the community. (And thanks to so many people for so many thoughtful and supportive comments.)The problem, very simply, is that many people in a community, knowing that classical music is being performed, will think that the performances are likely to be nice enough. Which then leads them to say that maybe they should go sometime. As opposed to saying: "From everything I've heard, the … [Read more...]