Yesterday morning, more than 800 delegates to the League of American Orchestras’ 2011 conference in Minneapolis-Saint Paul gathered for “Red Alert,” a 90+ minute plenary session that framed the critical issues facing American orchestras and proposed solutions. Jesse Rosen, the League’s president, began by putting a stake in the ground, stating that the current problems faced by many (not all) orchestras cannot be attributed to the economy but instead are symptomatic of underlying trends and conditions that have been brewing for decades. It is time, Rosen said, to “face our brutal truths.” Here is his diagnosis:
1 – Declining revenues and rising costs. Orchestras’ share of corporate, foundation, and individual gifts is down sharply. Fewer tickets are being sold per household. Audiences are moving away from subscriptions. Fixed costs (labor, occupancy) are rising.
2 – Donor fatigue. Donors — individuals, foundations, and corporations — at the local and national level are telling us that until fundamental issues of the field are addressed, they are unwilling to invest.
3 – Commitment to performance excellence is not enough. Striving to attain world-class performance levels is no longer enough to assure that orchestras’ case for support is strong. Orchestras must find new ways to relate to and serve their communities in order to attract and retain support philanthropic.
4 – Stagnant product delivery systems. Too many orchestras are stuck in the two-hour, evening, subscription concert format and there is insufficient experimentation with other ways to bring music to listeners. Orchestras are too absent from electronic media.
5 – Lack of diversity and its effect on our case for support and our long-term prospects for vitality. Despite our efforts, orchestras and their boards, staff, musicians and audiences remain overwhelming white at a time of increasing diversity in the American population.
What to do? Rosen said that the League would re-focus its efforts across all programs and services to help orchestras “crash proof themselves.” And he proposed three things that every orchestra needs to do:
1 – Understand and take responsibility for our orchestras’ true financial condition. The frail condition of orchestras results in an inability to innovate. Though most orchestras understand their capitalization problems, we are not acting swiftly enough to change them. Boards must not only understand this but must support management’s efforts to change it. (After Rosen’s presentation delegates heard from Susan Nelson, who has been working with organizations and funders on capitalization issues. More on that in another posting.)
2 – Realign with community needs. At the local level, orchestras need to become more relevant, more engaged in their communities in ways that make them invaluable participants and contributors to community life.
3 – Foster creativity. Orchestras must draw on the latent creativity within the orchestra itself and within their staffs to become more vibrant creatively. There is overwhelming evidence that audiences can be engaged around innovations such as performances in intimate and unlikely venues, programming that speaks to broader humanities themes, programming partnership with other cultural institutions, and programming that offers interesting juxtapositions of repertoire and/or artists.
While none of the messages in Rosen’s diagnosis or in the League’s re-focus are new to observers and participants in the orchestra field, the energy and urgency with which these messages were delivered is new for the League.
The conference continues today. I will post more about it over the coming week but thought you would all be interested in yesterday’s session and its contents. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is co-host (with the Minnesota Orchestra) of this year’s conference. Tonight we perform for delegates in a program led by Thomas Zehetmair.
For more than thirty years I’ve been saying that American orchestras have to break out of the two-hour German-Austrian 1780-1950 format (Tchaikovsky hasn’t helped). Dudamel’s LA Phil may be beginning a breakout; we’ll see. The single most valuable holding of the orchestra is its musicians. Whether against their will or not, they must be interfaced much better with the community. I’d begin by literally breaking them away from the big symphony orchestra. There should be dance orchestras, string quartets, wind bands: it worked in Mozart’s day. Repertory has to extend beyond the Berlin-Vienna-(occasionally)Paris axis, and the Mozart-Bartok timeframe. There should be minifestivals concentrating on narrow-audience repertory; that’s where crossover begins.
It may be too late for any of this. I hope not.
Go Jesse!
Mr. Rosen writes that, “There is overwhelming evidence that audiences can be engaged around innovations such as performances in intimate and unlikely venues, programming that speaks to broader humanities themes, programming partnership with other cultural institutions, and programming that offers interesting juxtapositions of repertoire and/or artists.”
Maybe, but we need to know exactly what these innovations are, not just his general ideological descriptions of how orchestras should change. And where is the “overwhelming evidence” of which he speaks? We especially need evidence to prove these innovations have provided *long-term* solutions and not just temporary bumps. Until it is provided, we should not assume convincing, substantive evidence exists. The evidence should also be independently corroborated.
The purists have ruined lots of things. (hmmmmmm) I’ve been saying this for years. When a purist singer cuts out the Broadway songs or Spirituals for the last group, they may cut the only part of the recital that the bored spouse enjoys. Who knows? The bored spouse may control the purse.
3 – Foster creativity. Orchestras must draw on the latent creativity within the orchestra itself and within their staffs to become more vibrant creatively. There is overwhelming evidence that audiences can be engaged around innovations such as performances in intimate and unlikely venues, programming that speaks to broader humanities themes, programming partnership with other cultural institutions, and programming that offers interesting juxtapositions of repertoire and/or artists.
We all agree with Mr. Rosen here. Many of us have proposed interesting juxtapositions of our concerto repertoire to orchestras, and offer new commissioning projects relating to broader humanities themes. The repertoire includes standard works paired with very exciting works not often programmed, and equally interesting by composers known and those lesser known. The commissioned works are relevant to sociological shifts, or matters relating to the heart and soul of the audience. These include historical, biblical, psychological, and even dealing with migration. I applaud the many creative administrators and conductors who follow Jesse’s advice wholeheartedly.
Thank you, Jesse, for putting the issues out there in a clear and honest way. Audiences are hungry for innovative experiences and orchestras need to find more creative ways to interact with their audiences. The world has changed and there is a lot of opportunity to bring the orchestra into the 21st Century. Same old is not working and all stakeholders-musicians, boards, orchestra managers, donors, audiences–should be engaging in a dialogue that will take advantage of these opportunities and keep music alive and well in our culture.
Astrid is wrong about one thing. Audiences are NOT anxious for innovation because they do NOT know what it is…..what they are anxious for is innovative leadership and that has to be provided by imaginative musical and executive directors and artistic administrators.
I think Jesse Rosen’s assessments are pretty much on target, but I also firmly believe that orchestras have not been run sufficiently business-like, tend to be over-staffed, and absiolutely refuse to recognize the diverse make-ups of their communities. I live in a city that is predominantly black, yet I see no more than a dozen black faces at the symphony concerts I attend. One wonders why programming does not even attempt to appeal to the majority of the citizens in my city…..Our musicians have taken pay cuts in excess of 35% over the last four years and the “real” innovation has yet to take place….How much longer can we wait?
I love “the classics” as much as anyone but I am tired of the limited range offered in most orchestra halls. There is also the institutional fear of “new music” and it is embarrassing to watch orchestral attempts at humor. What we call the classics, 18th to early 20th century, used to be pop music of the era. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in my town is at least trying to become relevant to the 21st century. Where is the American music and the American conductors/music directors? Where are today’s classics; modern Jazz, zydeco, blue grass, afro-cuban and the huge library of mid-20th century pop and show tunes? Where is the coverage of great American composers such as Ellington, Bernstein, Gershwin, Thelonius Monk, Gil Evans, Charles Mingus? This is America and we don’t need to feel culturally inferior to Europeans any more.
5. “Lack of diversity and its effect on our case for support and our long-term prospects for vitality”. As a Black American who once aspired to an orchestral career, I can tell you first hand that racism is the main reason for the lack of minorities in orchestras and audiences, with the exception of Asians who seem to be quite acceptable. Orchestras think that all they have to do to “include” Blacks and quell any criticism resort to the same old tactics – staging revivals of Porgy and Bess, hiring famous Black sopranos (low risk and acceptable, but never any male voices as Black men are still considered a threat), and plopping a jazz ensemble on stage with the orchestra in some generally awkward and unconvincing pairing (of course ALL Black people love and play jazz, right?) There are also those useless Minority Fellowships that operate under the premise that Black musicians are automatically inferior and need “special help”. The musician plays in the orchestra full time, but stays only a few months at only a fraction of the salary, and no pension. This benefits the orchestra. They get a top player at a fraction of the cost, and they look they they are “doing something” for the presumably inferior Black musician. The attitudes behind all these moves has now come back to haunt orchestras, something they never thought would happen. Maybe a few more ensembles need to fold before the realization sinks in that old attitudes and ways of doing things are no longer working.
In addition to the issues laid out by Jesse Rosen, I think there is still a 900-pound gorilla in the room, which are the tremendous fixed costs — the pressure to meet payroll for musicians and staff 52 weeks per year — that prevent orchestras from being nimble. I’m a card carrying member of the American Federation of Musicians, so I’m not suggesting cutting musicians’ wages, but at the same time it’s a prominent issue that didn’t make it onto the “Red Alert” list that needs to somehow be addressed.
Jesse Rosen, too, is locked up in many peripheral issues pertinent to the administrative mind, and misses the big picture. The big picture is the art. The monotony of programming, the decline of artistry in conducting and playing is the big issue. Not everyone is going to love or regularly attend classical concerts. That is okay. But we have to retain music lovers and music makers. How many professional musicians actually attend concerts?
Yes, the administrative problems absolutely must be solved. But you have to then engage the educators who are training administrators and alter their curricula.
Do orchestras paper the house with serious musicians who can engage with other audience members? I doubt it. The quality of the audience, of how they listen, affects the performer deeply.
Is any great music that is not famous being presented? Is there any diversity in the programming? Why is it still being limited to Germanic warhorses? That is ignorance.
The contemporary music that is played is often garbage, or hostile to the audience, or lacking in any beauty, expression, or even form. Better selections would create more relevance to many audience members. There is too much politicking going on in composer and performer selection.
The racial issue is a political intrusion. The lumping together of Jewish, Asian, and other ethnic or racial groups as White is racist. It is hard to create interest in the Black community because too few choose to participate, it seems, based on attendance of concerts by Black artists. How many children can risk their economic lives on playing classical music? How many turn to teaching careers instead? Probably quite a few. That is sensible.
Supporting music education, community outreach are the answers, not all kinds of artistic compromises! Please, maintain some dignity and standards.
Hiring players based solely on their accuracy is a sure way to create a boring orchestra. The audition process is a joke. So is conductor selection.
This would be more interesting if the most aware audience members and administrative staffs hadn’t identified all these factors twenty years ago.
Its really very simple
Its not the music its the experience
Its not the concert length its the convenience of the concert
Its not the price of the ticket, its the value of the night.
Build responsibility for total listenership and patron engagement into the contract of the AD, and watch behavior change.
Its really very simple
Its not the music its the experience