Archives for November 2015

[contextly_auto_sidebar] I’ve seen two powerful operas in the past week — Philip Glass’s Appomattox at the Washington National Opera, and Lulu at one of the Met’s HD movie showings. Appomattox might be Philip’s masterpiece, and certainly the evenings I spent with it — I saw it twice — were some of the most intense and rewarding time I’ve ever had with classical music. I’ll write about it after Thanksgiving, but now I’ll share some thoughts about Lulu that I posted on Facebook. The new William Kentridge production (a work of art in itself) is … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar] I’m often asked to support things out in the classical music world — causes, performances, projects, groups, crowdfunding campaigns. And I almost always don’t do it, because when these requests get numerous, they could overwhelm both me and the blog. And diminish whatever force my support might have. But Groupmuse is an exception. They’ve just begun a Kickstarter campaign, and I urge to you support it. I’m going to. This is an organization I’ve underestimated. Maybe not entirely my fault, because I think they … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar] Audience engagement — it’s a weak strategy. Never mind that it can seem to work. A friend sent me notes from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, with details of the Cleveland Public Theater, and its impressive season, full of plays on subjects that just seem to scream contemporary relevance. But still they wanted to boost attendane on slow nights. So they added some audience engagement — attrractive things, happening all around the art, in this case free beer — and ticket sales went up. Which … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar] Audience engagement. Such a buzzphrase in the arts these days. The subject of the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, held in Salt Lake City November 6th through 9th.A conference full of useful suggestions, hopeful case studies. Success stories! In which arts organizations learned to engage their audience. A week or so earlier, Matt Lehrman — a terrific “Audience and Customer Experience (ACX) expert” (as he describes himself) — and fellow ArtsJournal blogger — asked me about audience engagement. Did I have … [Read more...]