Well, part of this isn't imaginary. I have speaking gigs coming up — late May at the Bergen International Festival in Norway, and June 19 at the League of American Orchestras annual conference in St. Louis. In Bergen, I'll be speaking privately on May 30 to Klassisk, the association of Norwegian concert promoters, and then I seem to have top billing in a debate on the future of classical music, from 5 to 6 PM on May 31. Debating with me will be Rolf Gupta, a conductor, and the manager of the classical music at NRK Radio (the Norwegian … [Read more...]

Here's a solution to the Met Opera's financial woes: Open a gambling casino in the opera house. Cue howls of outrage. But opera was in fact funded that way in 19th century Italy. That's one thing I've learned from a book called Bel Canto Bully (not a great title), a biography of Domenico Barbaja, the leading 19th century Italian opera impresario, written by Philip Eisenbeiss, and about to be published. I knew Barbaja's name, as many serious opera fans might, because he ran the San Carlo opera house — the grandest in Italy — in Naples. And … [Read more...]

Taking some leisure yesterday in the sun, at the Lincoln Center fountain. The fountain was putting on a show — dancing, playing, shooting high, falling back to nothing at all, making walls of water, so much fun. Here's a video (from my iPhone), complete with dancing little girl. (It'll take a while to load. And clicking the arrow on the right won't show it.) All this was completely unheralded. Nothing advertising the fountain dance, unless you count a guard coming around to warn people (like me) sitting at the edge that we might get … [Read more...]

This stopped me dead in my tracks the Sunday before last, when I was browsing through the New York Times. It's a photo of Julianne Moore, on the cover of T, the Times's fashion magazine. Arrestingly beautiful, I thought. And certainly not an old-fashioned, clear and simple kind of beauty. Hair everywhere. And all those dark spots. Spots of dirt, my wife and I first thought. But in fact they're some of the freckles that (as Moore says in the interview that goes with the photo) shower her body.  Contemporary beauty. Layered, deep, not … [Read more...]

I've been thinking a great deal about classical musicians and creativity recently, following my experience as a performer and composition workshop presenter for teenagers at the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF). It was rather shocking to me to hear from various people in the festival management that they found it very difficult to get the classical performers appearing in the festival to do creative workshops as well. A quick skim of the festival program confirmed their fears to me. Apart from a sprinkling of masterclasses aimed at … [Read more...]

As I replied to blog comments on my last post (about a coming tipping point), I found myself explaining why it's hard for many classical music institutions to change, even if they want to. Often I'm reminded of the very end of Waiting for Godot: Well, shall we go? Yes, let's go. They do not move.   Of course, some institutions do make changes, and some don't want to, because they're in denial — they don't think there's a crisis, or they imagine things will turn around if they just keep doing what they always did. Or else they're … [Read more...]

Here are some straws in a very strong, important wind: There's a major US classical music institution — one of the most important in America — whose CEO and board chair routinely say (in private) that the performances they offer are obsolete, not suited to contemporary culture. There's a top European music festival whose CEO thinks classical music has to change decisively. The deans of two US conservatories want to revamp their curricula, thoroughly, to bring their schools into the modern age.  I know these things either firsthand, … [Read more...]

It's time for me to plan a marketing strategy for the go-go symphony, my composition that plays symphonic music over Washington DC's unique go-go dance beat. I figure that blogging about my thought process would help me think, so here we go. But first some basic information for the uninitiated: As I explained in more detail in my last blog post, go-go is a sub genre of funk that has been extremely popular in the Washington DC area since the 1970s, especially with African Americans. Its main feature is live swinging polyrhythm — endless … [Read more...]

Here are some final thoughts on what music schools need. Well, final for now. This is a big subject, and readers — thanks so much for your support for my ideas! — are warmly invited to comment with thoughts of their own. Briefly…I'm saddened by the silos music schools build. And a parenthesis here: I realize I wasn't clear to readers outside the US, when I've talked about "music schools." It wasn't clear to them that I was talking about conservatories, about professional classical music education. So I should have said "conservatories," … [Read more...]

The happy news: a composing project premiering Thursday my blog collaborators and a grant I've gotten, to help me start a catalogue of changes in classical music Though first something less happy — an attack of stomach flu. That's over, but it laid me low for a bit. One reason for less activity you might have seen from me. Especially because I also, stomach or not, forged ahead with a composing project, which will be heard Thursday in New York. This is a piece for Blind Ear, a comopser/musician collective cofounded by a former … [Read more...]

[From Greg: Introducing another guest blogger, Sally Whitwell, a pianist — and much, much more — from Australia. Her website says she's a pianist, composer, conductor, and educator. But she's still more than all of that. An exciting spirit, an innovator, one of the many people who's reinventing what it means to be a classical performer. While teaching music to kids, with the greatest enthusiasm. I met her when she took one of my branding workshops, in which we had fun strategizing how she should present her portfolio career(s). With great … [Read more...]

[From Greg: I'm delighted to introduce another guest blogger, composer and — is this the right word? — mentor Alex Shapiro. I call her a mentor, because she's very active working with ASCAP's Composer Career Workshop, helping young composers develop careers. Which she's eminently qualified to do, because her own career is so successful, and so individual. But somehow "mentor" seems too conventional, too hierarchical. She may teach, and teach things that people need to know. But I'm going to guess that she inspires the people she works with, as … [Read more...]

[Jerry Klickstein commented on my own entrepreneurship post, and among other things linked to one he'd done on the subject, on his blog The Musician's Way, named after his book with the same title. I loved his post. Thought it made the best case I'd ever seen for entrepreneurship at music schools. I asked Jerry if we could reprint it here, and he graciously said yes. I should add that last week I had the pleasure of speaking to students at Peabody, in an event Jerry hosted as part of Peabody's new entrepreneurship center, which he heads. He's … [Read more...]

In my first guest post here on Greg's blog I wrote about a performance I recently did of Franz Schubert's song cycle, Winterreise, and the words I spoke beforehand to the audience.  So many people I perform with seem surprised that I enjoy this aspect of performing and that I feel so strongly about sharing in this way.  It's made me realize how daunting it can be for many musicians, whether they are students, amateurs, or professionals, and it is this fear that is the inspiration for this post. I've had my share of public speaking … [Read more...]

Entrepreneurship is the newest, buzziest thing at music schools. I've been involved with it quite a bit, and I'm all for it. But there's one misconception I quickly want to clear up — that these programs are all about business, and have no relation to art. Not so! They're a shot in the arm for musical creativity, because if they give students the skills to build whatever career they want, why can't the students, building their careers, make music in ways all their own? Though I do think the business skills taught might be too limited. Of … [Read more...]