Archives for 2017

Quite a lively discussion in class this week, about how conservatories could change. One quick takeaway: That the Juilliard graduate students in my class would love to go to a school where the focus was on how students want to make music. And where music of all genres was talked about, taught, and played. Here comes the ice cream! But of the many ideas in the readings I gave them, and the videos I asked them to watch, there was one they most loved. An ideal music school “will have pour over coffee and ice cream readily available at all times. … [Read more...]

Last week, in my Juilliard course on the future of classical music, one of my students asked about art and commerce. Where do they fit in classical music’s future? What roles will they play? Questions like that often come up in my work. They’re often asked — though not, I think, by this student — with some suspicion. Art is good, commerce is bad. Art is pure, commerce is, well;, commercial. Or, as another student said in this week’s class, often things that aren’t so good succeed because they’re marketed. Which of course is true. Though … [Read more...]

More about an engaged, participating audience…following up on my last post. I exchanged some email with Tom Wolf, the consultant whose firm’s newsletter I’d happily quoted. In this exchange, he told me a fine story involving Boris Goldovsky, whom I’d known of as an opera personage (host of the Met Opera’s old radio intermission feature, Opera Quiz, founder of the opera training program at Tanglewood). I hadn’t known that Goldovsky was Tom’s uncle, or that he’d been a pianist and conductor. Or that, as a musician of the old school, he’d have … [Read more...]

Very good comment from Matthew Hodge on my Tabatha Coffey post. I’d talked about Coffey, the embodiment of tough love — just go to her site and read the powerful words you’ll see — who on a reality TV show impressively fixes failing hair salons. What — I asked participants in a workshop I led — would Tabatha change if she came to an orchestra? And I listed some of the responses I got. Things people had seen, that might revivify orchestras. Audience coming up to talk to the principal cellist during a break. Kids in a youth orchestra smiling … [Read more...]

Here’s something I did in the workshop I led about imagining the future, at a League of American Orchestras conference. You can read about the workshop in my last post. We imagined hat in 10 years, all orchestra problems would be solved. They’d have a big new audience, community buzz, all the funding they need. So how would that happen? What would have happened to get us to that paradise? This is a workshop I’d love to do again. If you’d like to talk about it, contact me! So here’s one of the things I did. Imagine, I said, that Tabatha … [Read more...]

Suppose in 10 years all problems that orchestras have will be solved! Suppose that orchestras have a vibrant young audience, that people all over the country are talking about what orchestras do. Suppose there aren't funding problems. And that all of this has been accomplished without the slightest artistic compromise. How -- looking back now from this imagined 10-year perspective — would we have gotten there? What would have changed? That was the conversation I led four years ago at a League of American Orchestras national conference. … [Read more...]

Black History Month is over. But classical music stills needs to be more diverse, every month of the year. So another post on that subject, recycling one I wrote in 2013. That year I led a workshop at the national conference of the League of American Orchestras. My job was to ask participants — mostly orchestra staff and board members — to imagine a glorious future. Just suppose, 10 years from now, all the problems orchestras now have will be solved! Orchestras — yours included — will have vibrant young audiences, eager support from their … [Read more...]

Again about Black History Month, as it ends… It’s hard to find ways to honor Black History Month in classical music, because the classical music mainstream hasn’t related much to African-American life. A sad tale: When Jackie Robinson became the first black player in major league baseball — something now celebrated as a key event in American history — the Met Opera had never had a black soloist on stage. This was in 1947. Jackie Robinson played in Brooklyn, across the river from the Met. So don’t think no one thought the Met might … [Read more...]

It’s Black History Month again, and though I haven’t blogged about it, it’s been on my mind. I’ve thought of it when I’ve gone to the Kennedy Center, and seen that their most visible gift shop this month features Chinese New Year. Which does come in February, and nothing against it. But featuring Chinese New Year over Black History Month in a black-majority city? In a time of Black Lives Matter? In a season when the biggest cultural even in DC was the opening of the Museum of African-American History and Culture? Why? Last year… …for Black … [Read more...]

This week I learned something from a paper one of my students wrote. About how to present a case for classical music. Two words in that paper showed me something i hadn't so strongly realized. What we were working on This was a paper about why classical music is valuable, what it can do that no other kind of music can. I ask my students to think very carefully about this, because it’s crucial for classical music’s future. We need new listeners. So how do we find them? What can we say to make them think classical music can do something for … [Read more...]

What they should do to prepare students for classical music’s future. These are things I said in my talk at the Jacobs School at Indiana University. First, conservatories should make the future of classical music a major topic of discussion. I’d think this has to come from the top. The conservatory’s dean or president needs to be talking publicly about the problems we face, and about solutions. The subject has to come up in courses. Be discussed by studio teachers. There could be courses specifically about the future, like the one I teach at … [Read more...]

More about my IU visit (to the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University). I found the school, overall, to be an open and welcoming place. With a lot of emphasis — in the composition department, for instance — on student initiatives. Of course, as I said in my last post, I only got a taste of what’s there. Certainly there were some old-fashioned things. I’d love to go back, and get to know things better. Tech I mentioned in my first post about my visit that the school benefits from being part of a major university. Because, for instance, … [Read more...]

I’ve featured right now on the 21CM.org website. 21CM — shorthand for 21st Century Musician — is what the DePauw School of Music calls its revolutionary curriculum (and revamped school ambience), aimed at preparing classical musicians for the future. The website is, in effect, a monthly magazine, with future-aimed content. Very much worth reading, no matter what month. I’m in it now for two reasons. My talk First, they’re featuring the talk I gave in September at DePauw’s 21CMposium, the most inspiring conference I’ve ever been at, all about … [Read more...]

I’m pretty much wowed, after spending a long weekend — last Friday to Monday — at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Of course it’s a big place, so there’s a lot I missed. So of course this is just a partial impression. But I was the guest of the school’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Career Development, and I'm confifdent that this functions wonderfully. From what I saw, and what I know elsewhere, it must be one of the top entrepreneurship programs at any conservatory. Smoothing the way For one thing, Alain Barker, who … [Read more...]

This week I’m flying out to visit the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, which of course is one of the biggest and most important conservatories in the US. I’ll be the guest of their Office of Entrepreneurship and Career Development. I’ll meet with the people who run it, see what they’re doing. And I’ll have other meetings with faculty and administration of the school. I’ll also attend performances, most notably — since the school is famous for its opera department — a production of Handel’s Rodelinda. Plus I’ll be a judge for an … [Read more...]