Earlier this month the Walker Art Center hosted a symposium on agonism in collaboration with Northern Lights. I only attended a small portion of the week-end’s offerings but even a small dose has been enough to keep my mind active for the past two weeks. And what’s stuck with me is the idea that there is good work to be done in being a worthy opponent, “a thoroughly dedicated adversary.” More on that in just a bit.

The first question is, what is agonism? Maybe you all already know all about it but I had to read and think about it before the symposium. Agonism (Wikipedia)  is “a political theory that emphasizes the potentially positive aspects of certain (but not all) forms of political conflict. It accepts a permanent place for such conflicts but seeks to show how we might accept and channel this positively.” Or, “Discourse among adversaries rather enemies” (Walker web site).

The Walker symposium convened artists, architects, urban planners, and scholars who are taking the conceptual framework of agonism and exploring it in their work. Some of the questions they ask are: Is the design of public space (real and virtual) conducive for dialogue and discourse? If disagreement and conflict will always be with us (and are in fact essential to the democratic process) how do we plan (create physical and intellectual space) for conflict? How can conflict be made most constructive? Most imaginative? And, in what state of preparedness and engagement should one approach conflict given the expectation that through conflict, ideas are often improved?

Among the artworks related to the symposium that you can see online, check these out: Marisa Jahn’s Pro+agonist: The Art of Opposition (available for free download, Jahn’s work is a book and set of playing cards that “explore the productive possibilities of .. a relationship built on mutual incitement and struggle”); and Carl Skelton’s Betaville,  an “open-source multiplayer environment for real cities, in which ideas for new works of public art, architecture, urban design, and development can be shared, discussed, tweaked, and brought to maturity in context, and with the kind of broad participation people take for granted in open source software development.” The Walker’s laudable commitment to digital access means that detailed links to all of the participants’ work is easily found through links to the main symposium web page.

Inherent in the idea of conflict is the existence of an opponent, or multiple opponents. And at the symposium there was mention of what it means to be a worthy opponent. We all have had opponents whose conflicts with us do not strengthen our thinking or improve our ideas, who offer no insights and do not change our minds. But sometime, I’m sure, you’ve had a conflict with someone who did expand your mind and make your ideas bigger and better. What qualities existed in that situation and what was your interaction like?

And now allow me to date myself with this quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: “Without the aid of a worthy opponent, who’s not really an enemy but a thoroughly dedicated adversary, the apprentice has no possibility of continuing on the path of knowledge.”

So what I’ve been thinking about is how this relates to advocacy and civic discourse, about public positions and changing minds. It seems to me that the practice of public and political advocacy is mainly focused on clarifying what you are for, and spending most if not all of your time thinking about how to be for your position. Usually this is done by talking to other people who think just like you do and who already agree with your position. And we excel at this in the cultural sector.

What would happen if we put as much energy, focus, and imagination into the qualities of opposition that we practice? That is, what is the most thoughtful and imaginative way to be against someone else’s position rather than merely for your own? What if we spent more time with people who are against our positions and people we rarely, if ever talk to? People who are the least “like us”? Would our habits of mind change? Would our advocacy be stronger? Would our ideas be improved?  The agonist would answer a resounding “yes” to this last question. That’s what I’ve been thinking about thanks to the Walker.

The San Francisco Symphony is celebrating its Centennial this season with gusto — they’ve invited six major American orchestras to perform in their home at Davies Symphony Hall, created three national symposia on the state of American orchestras, issued new recordings and produced new television, web, and radio broadcasts, and produced the second American Mavericks festival, the brainchild of the Symphony’s energetic music director, Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT). The festival ended Sunday in San Francisco and now is traveling to Chicago, Ann Arbor and New York.

I was happy to be there last week-end for at least some of the festivities. My expectations were high. Full disclosure: I was executive producer of a 13-hour radio and web series inspired by the first American Mavericks festival in 2000. The series, hosted by Suzanne Vega, with MTT, was heard on public radio stations nationwide. (Documentation of that series is here.) It took producer Tom Voegeli and the team a couple of years to gather the festival’s concert audio, interview participants, collect contextual information, build the website, and get the series into circulation. None of us went to Mavericks the First, but we were excited to work with the music and ideas it represented.

This year’s festival reminds us not only of the energy and vitality of American music but also of how much has changed in 12 years. The landmark 2000 festival was created before we had social media, live streaming, and so many other digital discovery platforms. In 2012, the Symphony and artists are blogging, streaming, video-chatting, and using social media to talk about the work in real time (although the concerts themselves are not being live-broadcast or webcast). The Symphony’s website is chock full of links to biographical and contextual information, and recordings of the highlighted composers. To celebrate the festival’s New York visit next week, WQXR’s Q2 channel is already offering us a live web stream of “mavericks’ music” on demand. And Carnegie Hall, partner in the project, has been releasing artists’ videos and information on its Facebook page for a couple of weeks now. Beyond its digital reach the festival is also traveling – physically — this time (and to think of touring with the huge band and battery called for in Edgar Varese’s Ameriques! — it is like a production manager’s Olympics).

Another big difference in the 2012 Festival — four commissions and world premieres (there were none in 2000). New works from John Adams, Mason Bates, and Meredith Monk were festival highlights last week-end, with all three composers in residence, performing and engaging with audiences.  If you agree (and I do) with Ed Sanders, Google Creative Lab’s Group Marketing Manager, who said at last Saturday’s Orchestra Forum that classical music should connect with “maker culture” to engage broader audiences, then the Symphony’s efforts to include new works in the 2012 Mavericks Festival are an especially important addition. We can argue about what a maverick composer is, or what maverick means, period, in a musical context. But it’s the right impulse to show audiences that “makers and do-ers” are alive and kicking in concert music.

But Sanders’ comment also stayed with me as I’ve thought about what more the Symphony could do to connect more people – from festival newcomers to long-time subscribers – to the universe of American music that lies outside the mainstream of symphony concerts, which is to say, a lot of American music. How could a festival connect us with the pioneering spirit of “American-ness” that distinguishes so much music, but also so much visual art, poetry, film, and dance? And how can a festival about the new, be new itself? How can it inspire “maker culture” in its audiences?

And here is where the festival let me down a bit. While the content of the concerts was an ear-opening experience, the production values were as traditional as any other orchestra concert. The audience experience from start to finish was the same we’ve become accustomed to, only with longer set changes for these complicated works.  The same length, format, and pacing; the same program books and stage set up. The same distance between performer to audience.  The same formality.

The gap? The content of the American Mavericks festival puts the Symphony in an ideal position to not only present the work, but also to present it in new ways, and I don’t mean digitally, I mean physically. They could open our minds by disrupting our expectations and surprising us with new sounds and new experiences. How? By immersing us in the other art forms that could help us understand the context for a maverick sensibility, or by giving us the tools and opportunity to make art ourselves, or by breaking from standard-delivery-two-hours-with-intermission concerts to create unexplored and unexpected encounters with works of art. How about the artists talking from the stage? How about a poetry reading during the long set changes? Or multiple intermissions with activities that use Davies’ grand lobby spaces? How about an all-day instrument-building festival culminating in a concert, or other projects that could unleash the DIY energy that the Bay Area personifies? The festival could move out beyond the downtown concert hall and into other venues, or its themes could be amplified by local museums, at movie theaters, in local restaurants, at universities, or in the street. In marathons, pop-up concerts, symposia, or other formats the festival could more boldly embody the voices that are so clearly present in the music itself. I now long for a “Mavericks the Third” that would bring the whole city of San Francisco into the mix in ways that celebrate the region’s own role as maverick, a place that represents discovery, free-spiritedness, and innovation. And please, let’s not wait 12 years for this to happen!

That said, the musicmaking was terrific. With me as my plane took off for home — the haunting melodies of Meredith Monk’s Realm Variations, performed by the Symphony’s singular piccolo player, Catherine Payne, and an ensemble of singers and instrumentalists, the counterpoint in John Adams’ new Absolute Jest for the St. Lawrence Quartet and the S.F. Symphony, and the cacophony of Varese’s Ameriques. If you live in Ann Arbor or New York, plan to attend.

Snapshot of 2009 foundation funding, from Foundation Center and GIA Reader

I wasn’t sure whether or not problemization was a word until I looked it up and found that it is one. Problemization is to consider or treat as a problem (Merriam Webster).

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. The reason is that increasingly when you look at a foundation’s grant guidelines you are asked: “What problem are you trying to solve?” I put the following into Google: “Foundation funding what problem are you trying to solve.” The search result: 182 million hits that included dozens of foundations’ guidelines and many articles about how to write successful grant proposals. The additional question is “What is the need or problem that will be eliminated if your request is granted?” (And subsequent questions about how you identified and documented the problem, what logic model you followed to design your solution and how will you measure your results.)

I wonder what effect this culture of pathology, of diagnosis and treatment, is having on the nonprofit sector in general and the cultural sector in particular. Do foundations increasingly see themselves in the role of a sort of benevolent physician, identifying social “disease” and using their grants as the medication needed for wellness to be achieved? Not that long ago, a primary framework for organized philanthropy was one of ideas and experimentation; the mindset was one of risk capital and the ability to fuel new ideas that are interesting and should be tried.

The problem/solution framework is especially insidious for the arts. Yes, we do solve problems in the arts, particularly we work on aesthetic and philosophical problems, though these are not problems a foundation could help solve (at least not directly). In fact, the problems we solve are not easily documented, it is difficult to apply a social scientist’s approach to them, and our documentation of results is more likely qualitative than quantitative.

What problems are we trying to solve? Here are a few. More people should encounter beauty as part of their daily lives. Artists who are able to focus uninterrupted time on their creative work will create stronger work, work that will create more meaning and value for those who encounter it. All people deserve access to the transformative power of artmaking, and its ability to simultaneously draw on the physical, intellectual and spiritual aspects of being human. The creative impulse is as basic to our species as the need for food and cultivating individual creativity will result in richer, fuller lives.  Communities should have permanent structures where creativity can be fostered and artists can find meaningful work. There are many more.  But, do we really see these as problems?

I think that people working in the arts see the world through the lens of human potential and not through the lens of disease (or human failing). I wonder whether this accounts for the widening chasm between foundation priorities and arts giving (arts grantmaking is shrinking as a proportion of overall grantmaking, down 21% between 2008 and 2009). Perhaps the reason is that those in the cultural sector are unwilling (and unable) to re-orient their deep-seated belief in human potential to satisfy an analysis by those who look at society and see what’s wrong, rather than what’s right.

Problemization is a world view and the nonprofit sector seems only too willing to embrace it. You may argue that this has meant more rigor, more focus on results, and better outcomes. But something also has been lost. Maybe you can help me put my finger on it.

Robert J. Flanagan

Stanford Emeritus Professor Robert J. Flanagan‘s book, The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras, Artistic Triumphs and Economic Challenges, was just released from Yale University Press and will be of interest to anyone working in, volunteering for, or listening to orchestras. The slim volume is jammed with interesting data, and its extensive bibliography will be helpful to readers who want to delve even deeper into the subject of the economics of symphony orchestras and their prospects for financial health and artistic vitality.

Flanagan’s study group was every symphony orchestra that was one of the largest 50 orchestras in the United States for at least two of the years during the period starting with the 1987-88 and ending with the 2005-6 season (which includes the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra). His research makes primary use of the federal tax returns and other publicly available reports coming directly from the study group, and data and information on members’ operations and finances provided by the League of American Orchestras and Opera America under the condition that individual performing arts organizations’ data cannot be identified in the publication.

The central thesis of the book is a search for changes in operating structures that would result in greater financial and artistic health for orchestras, given their long-standing economic challenges. Flanagan helpfully divides orchestras’ challenges between “the weather,” meaning the changes in economic cycles that bring ups and downs to the overall economy, and “the climate,” meaning the pervasive economic and societal trends and conditions that transcend the weather at any given moment and must be studied over longer periods. Weather and climate demand different responses, and in this study, Flanagan is focused on the climate.

Specifically, Flanagan looks at paths orchestras could take to arrive at a stronger operating platform.  He examines historical trends and prospects for growth in  “performance revenue,” meaning ticket sales, revenue from recordings or touring, and other direct performance revenue (school concerts, etc). He studies orchestras’ capabilities for growing “non-performance income,” defined as  government grants and subsidy, private contributions, and endowment/investment income. And finally he looks at ways orchestras have reduced or might consider reducing or slowing the growth of performance expenses.

Flanagan’s conclusion is that none of these paths, alone, is sufficient, and in fact “taken as a whole, this book documents the futility of single solutions.” We can conclude therefore that all three must be adopted. Along the way, Flanagan details some interesting facts derived from data. (And I do a bit of a disservice to the book to pick out a few points when the text is rich with much more data of interest.)

• Changes in audience behavior are “climate” not “weather” and must be dealt with as such. The public is attending classical music concerts less frequently and those who do attend are purchasing ever-smaller ticket packages. “The decline in attendance at classical music concerts may reflect broad social shifts in the use of leisure time that have little to do with orchestra policies.”
• Increasing marketing expense will not necessarily result in a larger audience since “incremental increases in marketing expenditures produce successively smaller gains in attendance per concert.”
• “Even if every seat were filled, the vast majority of U.S. symphony orchestras still would face significant performance deficits.”
• “As orchestras added concerts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, attendance per concert declined for virtually all types of concerts.”
• “Much private philanthropy rests on factors that are beyond the control of orchestras,” and is more likely to be affected by government policies to promote economic growth than an orchestra’s policies and practices.
• There’s just too much to summarize in the chapter on “Artistic and Non Artistic Costs.” It is a significant addition to the analysis of orchestra expenditures, including a fascinating re-play of the effects of the Ford Foundation’s endowment giving to orchestras on musicians’ salaries and working conditions. If you don’t know much about what and how orchestra musicians are paid and how they do their (challenging) work, this is an informative read.

The fact that there’s “no silver bullet” (Flanagan’s conclusion) to the economic challenges faced by orchestras will come as no surprise to anyone working in the field today. What Flanagan has contributed to the discussion is a thorough and fact-based analysis of how orchestras’ past choices are playing out in today’s economic and social environment. By doing so he’s informed the best choices for leading our organizations forward. His final comment is that “management, musicians, and trustees each have a role in increasing the economic security of orchestras,” and that “no single group can solve the problem by itself.” Obvious, perhaps. Helpful, indeed.

Note: Flanagan’s 2008 paper for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on “The Economic Environment of American Symphony Orchestras” is also a worthwhile field analysis.

Curtis Symphony Orchestra

On the agenda at a recent Board of Overseers’ meeting at the Curtis Institute of Music were past graduates, some with non-traditional careers both in music and not, speaking about the preparation their Curtis education provided them. The backdrop to the conversation was a speech the previous afternoon by Derek Bok, who advocated for the importance of liberal education beyond music as an essential component of an artist’s preparation.  The context for the entire discussion was the current state of the classical music field and the idea that young musicians will need resourcefulness to make their way in the world. Music “jobs” in the future are likely to be less attached to institutions (many of which are troubled in one way or another), entrepreneurial, and varied beyond a straight performance career to include all manner of teaching, coaching,  and work we could loosely call “public engagement.”  And while society’s appetite for classical music seems to be as strong or stronger than ever (more on that in a future post), the manner in which people want to engage with music and musicians is changing. What can an elite music school do to prepare its students for new opportunities?

Curtis is not the only institution thinking about this. New England Conservatory, Julliard, and places like Parsons and Cal Arts all are wrestling in one way or another with the question of young artists’ development and what new experiences and information should be added to their courses of study.  Higher ed increasingly thinks about justifying the expense of education with its practicality;  note the number of recent news stories calling the question on whether a liberal arts education can be justified financially (check out Who Needs an English Major?). The most popular college degree in America today is Business.

A life in the arts has always meant resourcefulness and artists are inspiringly resourceful — how else could they get their work done? I wonder whether a conservatory-based classical music education has really been less helpful than it could have been in this regard; witness the number of chamber ensembles (think Eighth Blackbird, among many others), chamber orchestras (think The Knights, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, many others), and music projects like Play On, Philly or KidZNotes that musicians are avidly founding and leading.  I also wonder whether resourcefulness can be taught. The most resourceful people I know are propelled by an inner muse, not one that can be gained in the classroom or studio. Their resourcefulness comes from curiosity, from courage, and from necessity, or from some combination of these.

Becoming resourceful means making a lot of mistakes. It’s an inherently creative process of trying, messing things up, learning, and trying again. On the one hand, this sounds exactly like practicing music: try/learn. On the other hand, perfecting a piece of music for performance is also about learning not to make any mistakes. So, maybe there is something in the musical training itself, rather than in any ancillary training, that could be considered if faculty want creativity and resourcefulness to flourish. Being rapped with a ruler for every mistake has fallen out of favor in the classroom.  Let’s be sure that conservatories don’t use the old-fashioned equivalent.

Conservatories should encourage young artists to read broadly, learn history, and understand science; these things make life fuller and more interesting. Many subjects can be self-taught by a motivated learner, particularly given the resources available on-line. And personally, I think everyone should know a bit of accounting. If I led a conservatory I’d be sure every young artist knows at least something about accounting and a bit about contracts, at least enough to know whether they need an accountant’s or a lawyer’s help, and enough not to be taken to the cleaners.

Beyond that, I think creating an environment where young artists can try things, make mistakes, and learn, perhaps with some mentoring but maybe without any — this is what I think will most help develop resourcefulness. The worst thing a school could do is to be over-protective, to anticipate situations where mistakes could occur and pre-empt them, or to squelch enthusiasm for an idea that seems dubious, but from which learning will occur, even if it bombs. In other words, the last thing young artists need is for someone to cut up their food and serve it to them. They need to learn how to cook.

I’m glad that Curtis is thinking about this. Curtis grads form a distinguished cohort in classical music and their future resourcefulness will be a boon to the sector. What would you change, if you could, about conservatory training?

Jasper's Antique Radio Museum (thanks to trustynick)

The Station Resource Group and Walrus Research, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, published a report in June on the Performance of Classical Music Stations.   The report is part of a larger effort at the Station Resource Group to advance thinking around what it would take to expand audiences for public radio stations of all types.  Organized under the project name Grow The Audience, this multi-year effort has convened station leaders, studied high-performing stations, commissioned research, and published provocations from field leaders.  In the case of the classical station study, George Bailey of Walrus Research looked at the factors that go into differential performance.  Why do some classical music stations have an audience share two or three times larger than others’?  (“Share” is measure of the average quarter-hour audience as a percentage of all the people using radio during that quarter hour.  In other words, in any given 15-minute increment, how many of the people listening to radio are listening to a given station?  That’s “share.”  A whopping, huge share for a public radio news station would be the 7.5 share reported in SRG’s study of news listening, measured at the Raleigh-Durham station WUNC.  That’s unusual.  The SRG website details the relative share numbers for news and classical stations in the top 30 markets in the U.S.  Take a look and see how your local stations measure up. )

Over the summer I did a fair amount of driving around, a pleasure made even better if you love radio.  Some of you may pack a pocket-sized digital collection or even old-fashioned CDs for your road trips, but for me, a road trip means tuning in to local radio stations and listening to what they have to offer.  If you’re lucky and you get a truly local station, you can learn about your surroundings as you speed through the countryside, getting a sense of who lives there and what interests them.

The problem with classical radio is that’s seldom the case.  A local station for folkies, rockers or country music lovers — public or commercial — inevitably will have a DJ who’s eager for you to know who’s at the local bar playing live.  Some tiny towns will mix the local town council business with an eclectic mix of local favorites and music from the band who’ll be at the Friday night dance.  But if you happen to hit on a classical station — you almost always get an announcer with a “that was …. this is” interstitial between two musical works, and you have the sense that the announcer is far away, not with you in the here and now.  You rarely get any context such as why the specific recording was picked over dozens of others, whether there is any tie to an upcoming local or regional performance, or whether the musical work itself has any relevance other than to offer you companionship that asks little from you in terms of engagement.  (Apologies to those stations that are not like this. Feel free to complain.)

SRG’s report looks at multiple factors to determine whether they affect the size of any given local classical station audience.  No relationship was found between the size of the market and a classical station’s share.  No relationship was found between the number of stations in a local market and a classical station’s share.  The strongest indicator found was the level of educational attainment in a given market.  The percentage of people in the market with a college education accounted for about 50 percent of the differential among high-performing stations.  For the research period covered by the Walrus analysis, WETA (Washington, D.C.) had a share of 4.4 — huge — while Dallas’s WRR , in a city of comparable size, had just over a 1.0 share.   And, according to the research, about 50 percent of that difference can be attributed to the census data for persons over 25 with a college degree in the specific market.  (Note that Washington has a very high percentage of college graduates, approaching 50 percent, according to the report.)  And that is where the report stops. Nothing suggests what beyond college education accounts for differences in listening to local stations.

This all connects to my road trips.  It has to do with the 50 percent of station listening that can’t be attributed to educational attainment as measured by the US Census Bureau.  It must have to do with something else — and as someone involved in programming, I have to ask the obvious.  Maybe it’s the programming, don’t you think?  And maybe, if stations want more listening, the programming needs to change to more directly connect with the energy in the classical field today.  The field is far less stodgy than it was even ten years ago, and our energy is nothing like the “that was…..this is” announcing that prevails on far too many stations.  And maybe classical radio audiences are ready to hear something more akin to the energy and passion we hear reflected on high-performing popular music stations — connected to artists and the music they’re passionate about playing, connected to local performances and events, and courageous with respect to new music and surprising musical connections.  Something that demands more of our attention, and rewards us for it.  After all, anyone with a computer or an iPod can create their own DJ-free listening mix (and we do).  In the vast sea of available background music, classical radio will need to become more compelling, it will have to matter more, if it is going to grow its audience.  At least that’s my perspective.

Are there stations where you live where the classical mix is supporting the most vibrant aspects of our field?  Do you work at a station that’s trying new things?  I’d like to hear your thoughts about it.