Archives for 2014

Happy holidays to all! The photo shows my son — three years old in October — in front of our Christmas tree. Speaks for itself. Though it can’t tell you how thrilled he was when he learned to hang ornaments: “I did it!” Or how, while we were decorating the tree, he’d walk away and sit facing it in a chair on the opposite side of the room. ”I looking at it!” Or how I suggested we turn out the lights to look at the tree in the dark. And how he turned them off himself, saw the glowing lights of the tree, and just about danced. Or how he … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Cz19u65owQa4WzVOPbGyaq19QJBAdRSf"] Here’s a book by Adam Tendler, 88x50: A Memoir of Sexual Discovery, Modern Music and The United States of America. And here’s a well-meant quote, from Kirkus Reviews, which picked this as Indie Book of the Month: "An honest, searching exploration of the artist as a young man." Which is a safe, conventional description of what’s going on. It’s accurate enough: The book definitely is what the quote says, or rather fits into the category of books like that, since the words … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="4fbcUuBsn5SfYJcogrRJDChgcFg93ItA"] Here’s a question I asked myself, at one of the recent Irving Fine memorial concerts at the Library of Congress in DC. Fine, I’ll say in passing, is one of those entirely respectable but not memorable composers whom — in a festival or retrospective — we all more or less pretend was more important than he was. But I don’t want to go into that here. Instead I want to ask the larger question that occured to me. Fine began as a neoclassicist, and then, in the 1950s, started writing … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="0CQQxamfgn9Hce92qXid56YFjNnmRCbN"] WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC. *** Srini Kumar, genius sloganeer and counterculturalist, used to sell a bumper sticker that read “Destroy what bores you on sight.” I suggest orchestras heed this advice. Why belabor it? Players are uncomfortable. Audiences are visually bored. Nobody knows what's going on. Can we all agree to move on? Okay. Enough. The first quote comes from the Amazon page for a book by Will Roseliep, The Libertine's Guide to … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="2z8Iqc4FTXmNqb0dSTIQfB6JLeuIeJ94"] Clubbing for Classical Musicians: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Working in Alternative Venues, by Sarah Robinson, the codirector of Classical Revolution: L.A. Since she co-runs an organization that fosters playing in clubs and is a veteran club player herself, her book is beyond authoritative. And in fact you couldn’t find a more helpful guide, to something that more and more classical musicians are doing these days. It’s so helpful, in fact — and so thorough — that I’d reccommend … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YIPXOje5P1XkP7QlcaW0xveAhVMPRs8d"] Picking up now from one detail in my last post, about some Atlanta Symphony realities… When people say the Symphony is the soul of Atlanta, what do they mean? They can't be saying that any large part of the town dances to the Symphony's beat. Or that entire neighborhoods define themselves by what the Symphony plays. Or that whenever there's a performance, thousands of people — tens of thousands! — ask themselves if tonight they ought to go. Because those things clearly aren't … [Read more...]

…falls into every life. Today, with regret, I’m going to rain a little on the Atlanta Symphony. Of course I’m celebrating their return to life, especially for the musicians’ sake. They’re once more doing what they love, getting paid, and (no small thing) getting healthcare. But along with that, here are three things to think about: The contract Crucial to the settlement was an increase in the number of fulltime musicians (receiving full pay and benefits). Once the Atlanta Symphony had 95 fulltime members. That number fell, once the bad … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="70PVqZFYlov39Dc4ArV5U7JAsBI1aSFb"] Here’s a link to the talk I gave in Spain a couple of weeks ago, at an arts marketing conference that was both focused and fun. I mentioned the talk in my last post, about why I think the arts — as an industry that claims to represent art — are basically over. I didn’t put it that way in Madrid, instead talking about “old-model” vs. “new-model” arts, the old model being, well, the Kennedy Center in Washington, built on a grand scale, and deliberately placed off to the side … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gFJYwh5h24sjO4iVIQjloJQ7MX4cPemC"] That — "Time to join the rest of the world" — is what I called a keynote talk I gave last week, at an arts marketing conference in Spain. And what I had in mind was radical — I think — at least to some people. Maybe not to my Spanish audience (plus some people from the UK, and from Latin America). While I spoke, a few people tweeted — and OK, I’m really tickled — that if I had a fan club, they’d join it. What I said What was my message? That art — the artistic impulse, … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="MSUNXhB7U7DH8Yr3nDGELAyL5CxYy2NJ"] Continuing, about groups that successfully attracted a new, young audience… In my first post on this, I told two success stories. About the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, in London, which rebranded itself in the style of current culture, and now reliably attracts young audiences of up to 1000 people. And about Wordless Music, in its early years in New York, which combined classical music with indie rock, or in one case with a big indie rock name, Jonny Greenwood, the … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="mlSS19YuFk3QKrfaMWrCwsg4CEXPYwEf"] This is an important Kickstarter project, which needs to be funding. Luckily, they're close to their goal. But every little bit helps! It's a British project, and I haven't looked into  whether it can accept funding in dollars, but even if not, it's something important to know about it. What is it? I'm going to give you the complete email I received from Gabriel Prokofiev, the British composer, producer of electronic dance music, and creator of both the Nonclassical record … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ctCMXahMD8XY2682T9IuKSFZKLmSE6BP"] Continuing now with my suggestion — or is it a crusade? — that we in classical music start moving heaven and earth to find an excited, new, younger audience…to prioritize that…and to give education, outreach, and advocacy a lower priority… I suggested last week that we don't do this because it seems impossible, and because if it could be done, we'd have to dumb classical music down. Or otherwise make changes that many of us wouldn't welcome. So it's important now to say that … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="QozyjB9OFYaMj6zzdQl7aauiYUWGD8n3"] Continuing from two posts ago, when I said it was more important — by far — to develop a new, excited young audience than to focus on education and outreach… It's time now to say why I think most people in our field don't seem to think this way. First, and most simply, I think that most of us can't imagine that new young audience ever existing. In part that's because we're so used to the old audience, made up of people my age (I'm 71). And in part it's because we can plainly … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="PlXX9VygTxhlhw3bYqOMfIkv2QbL7WUpcm"] I have to thank my friend Eric Edberg for some pushback in the comme#nts. Pushback to my last post, in which I quoted Deborah Rutter — the new head of the Kennedy Center, who used to run the Chicago Symphony — about how she felt orchestras could improve their standing in their community, and objected that her suggestions really only touched on minor points. The key to classical music's future, I said, isn't outreach, education, or advocacy. Instead we need an explosive new … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YWGHPQvIyeLEohvh1W6bXuJ2qa3AFmL1"] Here’s something I feel passionate about. When I think about the future of classical music — about how it can, should, and will be restored to the place of honor it used to have in our culture — there’s only one measure of success that, in the end, seems to matter. And that’s full houses. If big and small orchestras, opera companies of all sizes, chamber music groups, soloists, early music groups, choruses, everyone who performs classical music were overrun with people buying … [Read more...]