In September 2001, I was living and working in Portland, Oregon, running the Oregon Symphony. On the morning of the 11th, my son and I were visiting his school for a very early morning meeting. As we walked into the headmaster’s office, he said, looking rather quizzical, “Oh, did you hear that a plane flew into one of the twin towers in New York City?” I said, “No, what an odd thing; it must have been one of those two seaters.” We still had no idea of the magnitude of the event when we emerged at 8 am (Pacific Time, that is), but then we were bombarded by stories and images, all of which seemed totally unbelievable. Throughout the day, there seemed to be nothing any of us could do except ask questions, talk, sit and discuss, and confront those images being played over and over again on TV.
Eventually, discussions at the Oregon Symphony started to crystallize around the contribution we might make to the community, which, even though 3000 miles away from NYC, was in deep shock and trauma. We conceived of doing a special free community concert, televised and broadcast live on the radio and played out on speakers in the park blocks behind the concert hall. Such a project would normally have taken 18 months of planning and negotiation, but we were on a mission and pulled it all together in three days. Everyone wanted to help, everyone wanted to provide something free. Donors and corporations willingly gave to make everything possible.
However, what I had forgotten to do in the heat of the moment was enlist the orchestra musicians in the project. Not surprisingly, they were feeling confused, neglected, traumatized. What was this concert? Why was it important? Very understandably, they wanted to be with their families, offering support to their children. I took a call in my office, which was a few blocks from the concert hall requesting that I come over and talk to the whole orchestra. The players wanted some reassurance and answers. I raced over, but on the way could not conceive of a single phrase that would explain how important I felt this event would be in healing our community.
So, there I stood on the podium, feeling intensely emotional with all 90 pairs of eyes expectant. I have no idea where it came from but I found myself telling a story. It was a story of my own country,
London in the Blitz
England, during the Second World War, when London and many other cities were relentlessly bombed by the Nazis. London alone suffered over 70 massive raids, which destroyed huge chunks of the city, and killed civilians indiscriminately. In this chaos and fear, people turned to the arts, and, in particular, music, for reassurance and an alleviation of the horror they were experiencing.
Sir Henry Wood
And musicians were there, playing, singing, providing the comfort to the soul that only great art and great music can supply. On many occasions, audiences sat through air raid warnings, heard and felt the sound of bombs exploding, yet continued listening to
National Gallery Concerts, London
the power of a symphony orchestra playing with emotion and total commitment, disregarding the mortal danger they faced.
That was my story. The story of the power of music in our lives. It filled me with pride and with tears. No one said anything. The concert happened and it was truly magnificent. The then Music Director James DePreist led a programme listened to in silence and appreciated in silence, with the slow movement of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony seemingly prefiguring all the grief of those few intense days.
Portland, OR September 2001
Thousands watched the concert live on TV, hundreds of people stood in silence in the park blocks, as the music emerged from giant speakers, holding hands or cradling children tired but not asleep in their arms. It was in community terms, the best of times and the worst of times.
Ten years later, and we are commemorating those events, remembering the world at that time and how it was changed by the tragedy. At NEC, we are giving a special concert on September 11 at 2 p.m. in Jordan Hall. It will be broadcast simultaneously on Boston All Classical 99.5 and WGBH 89.7. With the exception of the conductor, all the performers will be young people—high school age—including our Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, three soloists, Youth Chorale, and singers from the Handel and Haydn Society’s Young Men’s and Young Women’s Choruses. These huge forces will be conducted by Ben Zander. At the centerpiece of the program will be the world premiere of Silvio Amato’s interfaith oratorio, Illuminessence: Prayers for Peace. Fittingly, the work sets prayers from the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths and it underscores the commonality of human aspiration and the universal spiritual impulse.
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Tragedy is so often in our lives. Just a few weeks ago, one of our alumnae, violinist Alicia Doudna, ’04 M.M. was involved with her fiancé in a horrific car accident. They are both still in hospital and we send them our love and support. String chair Lucy Chapman has coordinated a special concert in Williams Hall on Sept. 13 at 8 p.m. Many musicians have rushed forward to donate their services wanting to help in the way that only music can help. I remember my music master at grammar school suddenly addressing the entire school with a quote: “Whither doth the uttered music go?” That question has always resonated with me, but today I know the answer. It goes to the heart.
Outsourcing Orchestra Administration: The Columbus Symphony Turns Crisis into Opportunity
Roland Valliere
When Roland Valliere, NEC Class of 1978 percussion performance, took over the Columbus Symphony in August 2009, the orchestra was on the brink of collapse. There had been a bitter work stoppage the previous year. The budget was unsustainable even after shortening the season and reducing the administrative staff. There was no capitalization. The endowment had been spent to cover operating deficits. There was no line of credit, no cash reserves, no unrestricted endowment. And both the Music Director and Executive Director had left. Roland, who is all about reinvention and had masterminded a promising new high tech device that he believed would revolutionize the concert experience, felt there was an opportunity to turn things around by creating a new business model. I talked to him—he is now the President and Chief Creative Officer– about the solutions he has put in place and how the orchestra is faring almost two years later.
Tony: Just before you went to Columbus, you had switched gears, left your previous job as Executive Director of the Kansas City Symphony to become an entrepreneur. The project you were working on is a fascinating example of your creativity. Tell me about that.
Roland: I had created a prototype of what I called the Concert Companion—CoCo for short.
It’s a handheld device that offers explanatory text, program notes and video images in real time with the music. It’s analogous to the audio guides you can rent in a museum. The audio guides offer an aural enhancement of a visual experience. CoCo offered a textual enhancement of an aural experience. With funding from the Mellon, Knight, and Hewlett and Packard Foundations, we were able to do three rounds of testing over about five years but the economics of the venture didn’t work out. I subsequently got involved in a project with the Juilliard School and soon thereafter was contacted by the Columbus Symphony.
Columbus Symphony
Tony: The situation there was pretty dire, wasn’t it?
Roland: Well, the orchestra had a checkered history financially but a stellar artistic reputation. In 2007-08, there had been a lot of public hand-to-hand combat with a messy work stoppage. Before the work stoppage, the orchestra had been on a trajectory of moving toward a 52-week contract and a budget of $12.5 million. But that budget couldn’t be funded. When I came in, the budget had been reduced to $9 million, which was viewed as sustainable. To get to that figure, they had reduced the season from 46 weeks to 38 weeks and the staff from 28 fulltime and 10 part-time to 18 fulltime and 4 part-time. At that time, there were 53 fulltime contracted musicians.
Tony: But, in fact, even those austerity measures weren’t enough, were they?
Roland: No. But, as you know, the Chinese character for “crisis” is made up of two characters that mean danger and opportunity. I felt there was opportunity in the situation so long as the organization was not hemorrhaging so badly that it couldn’t be revived. I felt it could be revived and saw a chance to do something new.
Tony: Before you committed, you did something that was essential to your strategy.
Roland: Yes, this was a critical thing. I met with the head of the union and the orchestra committee and talked about some of the ideas I had. I told them I would need to work with them in close collaboration as partners—even though that had not always been the case there. And I wanted some assurance from them that this was their goal as well. If the communications were transparent, open and honest—and I assured them they would be from my perspective, then we would have a chance to move in a new direction. They were very supportive of that. The position would not have been attractive to me otherwise.
Tony: So, even the $9 million budget couldn’t be balanced?
Roland: That’s correct. This was true for a variety of reasons. We needed time to ramp up, we had lost momentum with subscription renewals, we had lost credibility with the public, and this had impacted the Annual Fund. When I put together a budget and added up the annualized revenue from ticket sales, fees and contributions, I realized that the budget, really to be sustainable, was only $7.5 million—about $1.5 million from where we were. So I put together a White Paper, The 21st Century Columbus Symphony, with the view forward, a new vision, and a different future, plus the corresponding need to fund that vision to the tune of $1.5 million which we called a Transition Fund. We had success in raising that. But at the same time the Annual Fund, mainly due to the economy, was proving even more challenging then we thought. It went off the rails in January 2010. We didn’t meet our December goals and since we didn’t have a safety net, we found ourselves in a potentially devastating situation. This was no surprise to the board and musicians because I had projected that we would run out of funds in March if we didn’t raise the funding in advance of that. When fundraising ran short in December, it became evident we would have a severe problem and not be able to make payroll in February.
Tony: At which point, you turned to the board and musicians with four options?
Roland: Yes. The options went from bad to worse, including reducing the number of full time players (from 53 to 21), moving to a freelance orchestra (with no benefits or guaranteed services) or folding the tent completely. Ultimately we agreed to further reduce the season (from 36 to 25 weeks) and consolidate the administration with the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA). This was very difficult, especially for the musicians, and remarkably was achieved in a spirit of collaboration.
Tony: So talk about the administrative reorganization.
Roland: By reducing the season, we were able to realize $1 million in savings but we needed to get to $1.5 million. So, the next step was to talk to the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA)and its President and CEO William B. Conner Jr.
William B. Connor
We discussed an administrative consolidation or merger, a process that took a month to figure out.
Tony: Explain what CAPA is, would you?
Roland: CAPA began in 1969 by saving from the wrecking ball the historic Ohio Theatre in Columbus, renovating that venue, and then operating it along with several other theatres it acquired/or managed in Columbus, New Haven, CT and other places. It provides shared services to a number of arts organizations including ticketing, marketing, public relations, finance, human resources, IT, and development/fundraising. What it offers each group is custom tailored to the group’s individual needs.
Tony: Describe the Columbus Symphony’s organizational arrangement with CAPA.
Roland: It functions much like a holding company. The Columbus Symphony’s board continues as before, with its own committees, fundraising work, Executive Committee, but the CAPA board has ultimate fiduciary responsibility. There is a kind of cross-fertilization on the two boards, with two of our board members, including our chairman Martin Inglis, sitting on the CAPA board. Bill Conner wears two hats as President and CEO of CAPA and as Managing Director and CEO of the Columbus Symphony. He has management responsibility on a daily basis for the symphony.
Tony: Your position evolved into something that’s probably unique in symphony management, isn’t it?
Roland: Yes. A ship can have only one captain and we agreed that that should be Bill. The board and musician leadership asked me to stick around to see the transition through and help set a future course. The CAPA arrangement went into effect in April 2010 and at that point I acquired a new title, that of President and Chief Creative Officer. I don’t think there’s another position like it in the industry.
My portfolio originally consisted of four key areas: 1. to abet the integration with CAPA 2. to facilitate the conclusion of our search for a new music director—which we did and hired Jean-Marie Zeitouni, who is a terrific catch.
Jean-Marie Zeitouni
3. to lead the collective bargaining talks with the musicians’ union and negotiate a new contract before the expiration of the current agreement in August 2011. We did this last March and produced a new four year agreement. I thought it would be a six month process, but we concluded it in a week—a reflection of our resolve to work together, even in tough times, for the greater good of the organization. 4. to create the “21st Century Columbus Symphony,” that is, to figure out the business model for going forward and guide this with CAPA and the Board. This is what I’m most focused on today.
Tony: How does your position dovetail with Bill Conner’s?
Roland: We’re joined at the hip, with Bill focused largely on the day-to-day running of the organization and me focused on strategy and innovation. Both Bill and I, along the our Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni, report directly to the board through the chairman of the board.
Tony: You are now about 1 1/2 years into the arrangement with CAPA. How is it working out? Roland: In the first full year of implementation, operating on a $7 million budget, we were able to eke out a small surplus. I had expected we would realize a savings of about $500,000 from the integration with CAPA, but in fact we were able to do better than that. There was an upside in revenue, which we hadn’t anticipated. Both the City and the County stepped up to a major degree in way they never had before, each making multi-year $250,000 commitments. A number of corporations stood up too. We have a five-year agreement with CAPA and our goals are threefold: 1. stabilize the finances by balancing the budget, which we did last year and are on track to do this year 2. establish a cash reserve so we could have an operating fund. Part of deal with CAPA was that they provide us with a line of credit. That was a blood infusion that we desperately needed. 3. build up the endowment to $20 million or more to generate revenue for the operating budget. Tony: So, let’s talk about your vision for the 21st Century Columbus Symphony.
Roland: Well, there are several themes. Education is key. We’re coming to see that music and the arts can be windows for developing creative and innovative thinking, the ability to problem solve. How can the Columbus Symphony make a contribution to that? How can we make ourselves more accessible—perhaps in part by making our content available in a time- and space-shifted manner. We need to stop focusing on the traditional model and figure out how we can serve our community in our unique way. We need to find a way for the orchestra to do R&D, something that takes money and the freedom to fail. Over the next one to three years, we’re looking at several things: 1. Maintaining a budget that matches supply with demand 2. Diversifying our concert locations so that next year instead of doing all 12 subscription concerts in the Ohio Theatre, which is too large, we will do eight there and four at the smaller Southern Theatre, fitting our repertoire to the theatre. 3. Experimenting with new concert formats such as one-hour Rush Hour concerts and one-hour Noon Concerts. 4. Utilizing the Internet and social media as marketing and education tools and offering more streaming or video opportunities. We’ve discussed creating total access subscriptions, whereby premium subscribers would have access to the concerts both physically and virtually in a time- and space-shifted fashion.
At the end of the day, the Columbus Symphony exists to serve our community through the wonder of great music. It’s about connecting the music to people. In a world of lightning fast change, we need to embrace the opportunity that such change provides and muster the courage and resources required to take smart and calculated risks.
The Armory in NYC (on Park and 66th) was new to me. It’s an imposing if ugly building with unimaginative use of brickwork and little sense of outward style… it’s an Armory. Inside it’s huge and cavernous with dark wood paneling and creaky floors.
Inside the Armory
Then there is the Drill Hall which is enormous. You could easily fit a regiment in there and still have room for an audience.
It was the Drill Hall that was the unlikely home for the six weeks residency by the Royal Shakespeare Company, England’s premier theatrical troop which arrived at the height of the NY summer. Part of the Lincoln Center Festival, the company brought along five of the Bard’s greatest works: King Lear, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale, and Julius Caesar. And the way the RSC used the Drill Hall was amazing. The company brought in its own pre-fab theatre, designed to resemble the home theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and seating around 1000. The space felt intimate, boasted all the technological wizardry in the world including video, trap doors, astonishing lighting, and entrances and exits for the actors throughout the audience which gave the viewer the sensation of actually being in the play. It was the perfect setting for great theatre.
These were real ensemble performances as the members of the company appeared in literally every play, sometimes playing more than one part. So Lear became Caesar, Brutus became Romeo, Touchstone became a servant. Rosalind was transformed into Goneril, and on and on. It gave the Company an energy, a bounce, a confidence that reached the audience and drew us into the action. But what was most extraordinary— and I have this experience every time—was how Shakespeare still commands our attention with drama, poetry and philosophy that can only be described as contemporary. We are still the same creatures that he spied in Elizabethan times, 4 centuries ago.
I “discovered” Shakespeare in my early 30’s after the usual immersion at school. How can a 14-year old make sense of Othello or Hamlet? The plays were frankly lost on me. My discovery came in the form of a birthday present of tickets for Henry IV, Part I & II, and Henry V… all on the same day, starting at 10:00 a.m. and ending after 11:00 pm. Wow… I really had to be persuaded to take this gift seriously and arrived at the theatre with the greatest reluctance. What happened when the curtain finally rose and there was Prince Hal and Falstaff, changed my life and has made the Bard a regular source of study and theatre going, with the occasional movie… (I love the Olivier “Richard III” and “Hamlet,” and “Much Ado about Nothing” with Kenneth Branagh.) The Henrys were such a visceral experience, the performances so powerful, that all these years later I can still visualize the scenes, still hear the audience shouting at some of the actors because they too had become part of the drama.
In New York, the RSC tapped into the profound heart of the dramas.
RSC Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar was a revelation. Consider this intriguing fact: Caesar’s part is tiny; he has only 5% of the lines, yet… he is the eponymous hero. It is said that Shakespeare deliberately structured and titled the play this way to avoid competition among the other leading characters who actually dominate the action; Cassius, Marc Antony, and Brutus (the largest role with 28% of the play devoted to him). But he couldn’t very well call the play “Brutus” without detracting from Marc Antony, Cassius, and Caesar!
Although not the title character, Brutus is one of the great theatrical creations who irresistibly becomes the focus of our attention. Virtuous and idealistic, he faces his demons, loves his wife, applies music and poetry as a balm for his soul. And he philosophizes memorably: There is a tide in the affairs of men Which taken at the flood, leads to fortune: Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.
He is also an honorable man—which attribute, of course, becomes fodder for Marc Antony’s great oratorical moment. That speech, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen,” screamed at the crowd to quieten them after Caesar’s assassination, is one of the most powerful political orations of all time. Contemporary sessions of the English Parliament and the famous Prime Minister’s Question Time, which find the English at their most rhetorically aggressive, have nothing on the skill and manipulative device of Antony’s speech. His use of repetition, with “honorable man” twisted ironically each time into something despicable, mesmerizes and finally sways the crowd. His false modesty—“I am no orator, as Brutus is “—and his coup de theatre—
displaying the still bleeding body of Caesar—succeed in finally winning over the crowd which then turns against the conspirators. We all know it’s brilliant, but hearing it again in the theatre comes as a vivid and welcome reminder.
RSC King Lear
The RSC’s King Lear took us to a different world—the spiritual journey of an old man, from king with all the brute force and privilege of that position, to dotage with a childlike wonder at nature and acceptance of death. The play is dissonant, it doesn’t attempt a resolution. Unlike As You Like It where all the plot strands are finally tied in a happy bow, you are left at the end of Lear with questions. Why didn’t Edgar (Poor Tom) reveal himself to Gloucester as his son with a big reconciliation? What on earth happens to Gloucester at the end? Does Kent leave to kill himself? Who is left as Lear’s heir, Edgar or Albany? And the final cadence is so inconclusive. Spoken by Edgar: The weight of this sad time we must obey Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much nor live so long
My wife Virginia and I managed to see three out of the five plays on offer and our last was As You Like It.
RSC As You LIke It
We were not so familiar with this one so I bought a copy of the play and we did a bit of prior study. My word, that was worth it! Curiously, the tragedies are much easier to understand than the comedies. With the latter you have a myriad of characters and plot lines tripping over themselves, like the Marriage of Figaro on steroids.
The strangest character, for me at least, is Touchstone, who is one of Shakespeare’s fools. I read and reread his lines and I just could not make sense of them. Where’s the humour? What on earth does it mean? Sort of like watching the Marx Brothers with the sound off. Then I read an article about a well-known British comedian who was engaged to do the part and had exactly the same response. He decided that the only way to do it was with a great deal of physical humor and that’s pretty much how the RSC did it too. When all the characters decamp to the forest of Arden, Touchstone appears covered in brambles, sticks, and leaves. His famous “how you construct an argument” set piece was done with huge amounts of mime. And ………….it was really funny.
Katherine Hepburn as Rosalind
The play’s dominant lead is Rosalind—the largest part that Shakespeare ever wrote for a woman, and yes……….you have to qualify that because women were not allowed to act on stage. So in his time, the audience would have seen a boy actor playing a woman who is then disguised as a boy called Ganymede for the scenes in the forest………all very complicated (on a par with the gender-switching character Octavian in the opera Der Rosenkavalier). I read about Katherine Hepburn playing the role in NYC in the 30s—which must have been something! She would certainly have been very determined and I can just hear that voice. In the early 1960s, Vanessa Redgrave, another strong woman, just took off in the role—particularly when she experiences nature and the attraction of the forest for the first time. The RSC’s Rosalind was all passion and strength with lots of ambiguous sexuality. Polymorphously perverse I suppose!
The character who really captivated the audience (for me at least) was Jaques (pronounced for some reason as Jake-Qees) who is described in the cast list as a “Melancholy Philosophy.” His part is mordantly humorous but he does not play the fool. Instead, he offers quiet insights into our lives. At the end of the play, he decides against a return to court and remains in nature instead. He has one of the most famous speeches in Shakespeare, one that speaks to all our lives. All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the canon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
In addition to receiving the Artist Diploma from NEC, the quartet has gone on to win the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award (2001), and the Cleveland Quartet Award (1998), and to serve as Ensemble-in-Residence for National Public Radio’s Performance Today (1998-99). Besides being a wonderful performer and teacher, Nick is also a formidable early adopter of technology and an indefatigable entrepreneur. Under his leadership, the Borromeos have become probably the first (and only?) string quartet to perform using laptops, from which they can read the full score—not just their individual parts—and advance the “pages” with foot pedals. The quartet also records all its concerts—both video and audio—and has offered for sale these Living Archive recordings through its website. Because he is such a well-spring of creative ideas, I asked Nick to write a guest blog entry talking about entrepreneurship for the musician. You will find it inspiring! –Tony Woodcock ]
What is the simplest kit for transcendental artistic fulfillment?
Well, there’s looking into the glowing green of a stream in Yosemite National Park,
or…
the String Quartet.
Anyone who has experienced playing in a quartet notices very soon that as long as you have, one Cello, one Viola, two Violins, four bows, at least one chair and some means of four people seeing the score, you have a complete vehicle for exploring and recreating a vast and startlingly inspiring musical literature.. With a little clef-transposition, you can even venture into the contrapuntal vocal music that built the compositional dynamo that became Western Art Music. And you can do all that with the outrageously spare resources mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. In today’s world the obstacles of procuring printed scores have even mostly disappeared. At a site like www.imslp.org, with a computer and a printer or a monitor and page-turning foot pedal, you can be playing almost anything you wish within a few minutes. If you are performing from a computer, I might add, you will need some power for the computer, but you won’t need to turn on the light.
Well, I would say the satisfactions of playing in a string quartet have been noticed. Today, there may be more virtuoso-level string quartets than ever in history. And anyone who has listened to quartets over several decades has probably had the pleasurable realization that there is a tidal rise in the standards of string quartet playing. It is inspiring.
So, a forest of artistic richness is growing around us in the form of string quartets. Wonderful, right?
Yes, but in the forest each tree has its place, and that tree supports many life forms from huge vines to tiny insects to entities we can’t even see. Although trees may grow where the seed falls, we as teachers and artists of all ages have a lot of choices regarding where to plant our tree and where we will encourage our students to plant theirs. And I often wonder if we unwittingly tend to plant all of our trees in the same spot. Instead, I would love to look at how we can expand the forest, make our goals more local, and in so doing have more impact on more people. Maybe doing this we can both effectively sustain ourselves and significantly alter the cultural drought we all feel we are fighting.
A uniquely powerful vehicle for doing this could be the string quartet. With its self-sufficiency, overwhelmingly rich repertory, and modest economic footprint, it is, I think, the ideal tool for reaching more people with great music, and having a great time doing so. With a string quartet you can give as many concerts as the community shows interest in, with virtually no setup cost or administrative burden.
It is one thing for individual students to make their way into a community, look for performing opportunities and students, and hope that their careers come together. This sometimes turns out fine. But sustaining a regular schedule of concerts performed at a consistently high artistic standard may prove difficult. This model can work, but is probably less reliable than the concerted, ongoing practice and progress of a string quartet.
Myself, I have witnessed a lot of local music making. Both of my parents are hosts of local music establishments. My father has been organist and choir-master at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Durham, NC since before I was born, and my mother founded a music program called the Duke University String School about the year I was born, way back in 1966!
Duke University String School Orchestra, Dorothy Kitchen, Conductor, Alexander Scurtu, soloist in Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2.
At first the string school was just an independent entity that grew out of my mother’s teaching at the YMCA, but soon there was the opportunity to join with Duke University and conduct lessons and rehearsals in the Duke Music Department facilities on Saturdays. My mother’s school has had a steady enrollment of about 300 students for as long as I can remember and boasts one advanced orchestra, several intermediate ensembles, and a fairly extensive chamber music program. Most parents are able to pay the modest tuition, but there are quite a few students who are given scholarships because the fees are beyond their means. Out at St. Stephen’s, my father played for years on a mediocre electronic organ, but in 1977, funded by an inspired patron, the church was able to build a Flentrop three-manual tracker organ. Since then the music program has expanded to include an orchestra, which, in turn, spun off to become the Orchestra of the Triangle. The church also offers an annual series of five or six concerts. This is all icing on a cake of rich service music. Currently, my father, in addition to playing, writes notes about the music each Sunday for the bulletin (a nice segue, I suppose, from teaching math at Duke University, a position from which he retired a short while ago).
Both of my parents’ music institutions enlist groups of people in performing live music every week. In the school, the performances are viewed as a means of enhancing individual artistic development. In the church, they offer the opportunity to enhance an individual’s inner wish to worship.
So, let’s think about local music-making. Say a violinist and violist meet at NEC and are both from Missouri. They know someone who could arrange concerts in a church near their hometowns. They ask that person to let them present concerts in the church for $10 a ticket ($2 for the church, $2 for each player). They invite another violinist they know to travel and join them and they know a recent conservatory graduate in Missouri who is a good cellist. They all agree to play a series of six quartet concerts in two years at this church. They start to communicate to local students and their teachers about their availability to coach chamber music and they invite as many people as they can to the concerts. They may be able to add a chamber music offering to already existing music education in the area. They can invite local professionals and students to collaborate in a sextet or quintet or octet.
The resulting new friendships that are set in motion can result in good outcomes, mixed with some failures. But think what happens when these really first rate players tear into Beethoven Op. 95.
Is there any limit to the artistic quality that can be achieved? None at all. Will the audience be enthusiastic and want to come back? I think so. Will it be possible to suggest to young people that they should try playing Op. 95? Probably at least one movement. If the audience is really enthusiastic and they invite the ensemble to play another concert next week or give a presentation at someone’s company offices, can it happen? Yes. If a different church expresses interest in having a concert next month, can they do it? Yes. Does any of this interfere with the quartet’s efforts in other areas, perhaps applying for Chamber Music Two at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center or auditioning for Young Concert Artists? Not at all. In the string quartet you have a formidable musical entity that presents with full force the vivid masterpieces of western music (and all sorts of other music, too) and it is an organization that can turn on, and function on (!) a dime.
Get a good sound engineer and amplify the group to play in the city park like the bands of the past. Add live music to a local theater production. Play music underneath a silent film. Play the Cavatina for a church’s Easter service. Get the local Library to support a concert series with explanation about the music. See if the library could stream videos of the concert on its website. Where creativity and curiosity lead, there are extremely few limits on the quartet’s ability to try new things, and the next morning they can still hone in on some of the tougher intonation in the Haydn “Sunrise” Quartet.
There is a worry when I mention all of these projects that no one will pay for them. Well, this is where I think the real flexibility of a string quartet comes into play. If the quartet insists on a modest, mutually workable fee for many of the ideas I just mentioned, the players will be able to supplement these small resources with income from teaching, and that, I think (actually I know), can start to add up. I have not even mentioned the chance to link up with larger local institutions such as universities where an ensemble can serve as Quartet-in-Residence. It is natural that this might happen but better if it is built from the ground up by a group’s active engagement with the community. Such a progression would lead to the healthiest combination of raw materials that will benefit the group and also the University.
The isolated ideas I am discussing are not new, but the equation-changer is utilizing the string quartet as a vehicle. An individual could try to make the efforts I have just mentioned, but doing them alone is totally different than working with a steady group, where standards can be continually elevated and where fully realized masterpieces of music are within arms reach at any moment and in any situation.
You can play Beethoven Op. 131 ANYWHERE for ANYONE at a moment’s notice, or you can read or transcribe a song that a child just sang, or play the theme of Star Wars, or repeat a cell phone ringtone. The last are gestures to bring music into contact with contemporary life, but two seconds later the group can blast into the last movement of Bartók No. 4, and I guarantee everyone in the room is in for a thrilling ride…
And consider that the group is self regulating. Ensembles tend to pressure their members to aspire to ever higher standards and, though this can cause internal tension, it tends to work. This quartet’s steady improvement then inspires all those around them and creates a virtuous cycle from which everyone can benefit.
So I am proposing that the string quartet is a fantastic cell of local musical production. Having a professional quartet functioning, performing and teaching in a locality will inspire students, amateurs and listeners to get in on this very exciting action. It will also be musically fulfilling for the quartet. Once again, for players and audience there is no limit to the musical quality that can be achieved.
Now, could a group fail to create this inspiration, fail to achieve the critical momentum to make this work? Oh, yes! And how! Succeeding at what I am suggesting requires tireless work, unquenchable enthusiasm, fanatic persistence and selfless commitment. But if Beethoven and Bach and Mozart and Haydn and Brahms and Bartók and Shostakovich and Schoenberg and Dvorak and Debussy and Schubert (I have to end the list somewhere) don’t inspire these qualities in a musician who has just studied at the Conservatory… just think for a moment of the determination of Beethoven who, even at the moment he almost lost faith in the battle with his deafness, turned around to write music that changed the world.
Actually, I am not worried. There are cases of failure in determination and inspiration, but not that many. The determination and inspiration that gets most young musicians to NEC is not so fragile and I am sure it is the same at other conservatories.
And what I foresee is young musicians going out in communities, not with a vague hope that something good MIGHT happen, but with the confidence of knowing that the powerful self-sufficient cell of a string quartet can overcome ALL obstacles. These musicians can create great performances of some of the greatest music ever written, and this music can be made anywhere they choose to make it, simultaneously in places big and small. How exciting and empowering!
And how many communities are there which might be open to this friendly invasion?
They are not even countable, and in every one of these places there are people who are curious and sincere seekers of learning. There are adults who continue to educate themselves; parents of children who want to give their children learning of value; even that precocious entity of a child already determined to plumb the depths of musical meaning.
Quartetutopia.
And, by the way, what if a couple of town quartets get together to make an orchestra concert? Why not!
“Many financial approaches have been tried over the past 50 years to improve the financial condition of orchestras. Yet, the industry as a whole appears to be in the worst shape it has ever been in…If orchestras are to assume the undisputed pre-eminent position they once held in the American cultural landscape, they must begin to redefine themselves. This research on the financial condition of orchestras is clear. It tells us that the orchestra industry is probably not just caught up in a brief economic downturn. We are living in a fundamentally new society with new definitions of culture, recreation, education, philanthropy, and a new set of presumptions about the role of the arts in communities. All of these things will shape the financial context for orchestras in the future. We can ignore these realities, but we do so at our peril…”—The Wolf Report
In 1991, consultant Dr. Thomas Wolf and his associates carried out a comprehensive 25-year study entitled “The Financial Condition of Symphony Orchestras.” Commissioned by the League of American Orchestras, it became known as “The Wolf Report.”
The League followed up two years later with what was projected to the second of three installments, Americanizing the American Orchestra. Together, the two studies offered some stark truths about the sustainability of the 20th Century orchestra model. They generated much heated controversy.
Tom Wolf
Recently I talked to Tom on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of The Wolf Report.
Tony: It is 20 years since you undertook your study. My recollection is that you predicted much of what has occurred in the interim.
Wolf: In a way, yes. But remember, the study was primarily looking at the past, charting historical trends. It was three volumes long. Only in the introduction did I talk about what might happen if the trend lines of the previous quarter century got extended into the future. I did predict the serious financial crisis and major deficits we see today. So I guess you could say that much of what I predicted has occurred.
I would argue that the orchestra industry must undergo a paradigm shift –not a process of small-scale, selective tinkering but a basic transformation in the way business is conducted.—The Wolf Report
Tony: I remember there being quite a lot of controversy around the report. Why was that the case?
Wolf: When I originally presented the results of the study at a League conference in 1992 at a plenary session, it was well received. And initially the press was positive. The New York Times and other major media reported the findings. But in the next couple of years when people realized the implications of what was being said, it became controversial. It got quoted a lot in negotiations as a rationale for keeping musicians’ salaries flat. And then when the Americanizing the American Orchestrareport came out from the League a couple of years later, a report that was a follow up to mine and one on which I worked, the press went wild, stating that orchestras would be ruined if they followed the prescriptions of that report. Orchestra leadership did not like the bad press and an effort was made to get the reports buried and get on with business as usual.
“For all the report’s obeisances, this policy shows little allegiance to music or to the orchestra and almost total allegiance to commercial success and financial security. Cynically led by its managerial class, the orchestra is explicitly urged to lean toward pop and make courting audiences its primary activity. The only people being asked to ‘assimilate’ culturally are those who uphold the importance of the orchestral tradition.” “In bringing the racial politics of the streets into the concert halls, it may very well Americanize the orchestra into extinction. This report is a disgrace.” On Americanizing the American Orchestra, Edward Rothstein, New York Times, July 11, 1993
Tony: As I remember, there were also some people who tried to refute your findings including other researchers. What was your reaction?
Wolf: As I said, the study was never intended as a statistically accurate predictor of the future. It was primarily about the past and no one ever challenged our findings about the 25-year trends. What bothered them were my predictions about the future and my recommendations for correcting the problems. Ten years after the report was written, my predictions did look as though they were off. Don’t forget the state of the economy in the 90s – it was a boom time. The stock market went into the stratosphere. Endowments were growing by double digits. This meant that even when many orchestras took large amounts of money out of their endowments to cover short falls, their net worth kept growing. So the problems that I had predicted were masked, though I continued to claim they were there. Eventually it became clear that the growth was unsustainable. September 11th, 2001 is a convenient date to mark the change and that happened around the tenth anniversary of the report. A decade after that, the bankruptcies and the bitter strikes we see today are the legacy.
“Where does the orchestra industry find itself 10 years after Thomas Wolf’s address to the League? For the 1999-2000 season—the season for which the Wolf Report projected a $64 million deficit—the industry posted, according to the League, an estimated $84.5 million surplus (extrapolated from 203 responding orchestras to approximately 1,800 orchestras). Total revenues and expenses for the season were, respectively, $1.267 billion and $1.183 billion. The Wolf Report projected 2000 revenues at $946.5 million and expenses at $1.01 billion, greatly underestimating the prospects for growth in the industry.”—The Wolf Report and Baumol’s Curse, Douglas Demster, 2001
Tony: If you were to choose one factor that is responsible for the deterioration of the finances of orchestras over the 25 year period you studied, what would you choose? Or isn’t that a fair question?
Wolf: It is absolutely fair and it is absolutely clear in my mind. One factor above all others is responsible for the problem. Until 1965, the number of concerts offered by orchestras was in large measure predicated on demand. But after that time, the push for year-round employment for musicians and the guaranteed service count for a certain number of weeks throughout the year, meant supply was no longer calibrated with demand. The number of concerts offered increased exponentially. Consider orchestras in the budget category of $5 million to $8.5 million in 1991 – one of the sub-groups I studied. They went from an average of 40 concerts a year in 1966 to 157 concerts a year in 1991. The assumption was “play concerts and they will come.” But audience growth did not keep up. This meant that marketing staffs had to be beefed up to find new audience members and there was more pressure on fund raising, so development staffs had to grow. As a result, administrative costs also increased dramatically. And ticket prices had to increase to cover the gap since the amount of the budget covered by ticket sales was dropping. The whole system got readjusted around a formula that had unlinked supply and demand. For the sub-category of orchestras I mentioned above, deficits increased over 11,000% in the 25-year period and even after adjusting for inflation they grew by almost 3,000%.
“…ICSOM, as well as many influential critics of the arts in America, find the recommended changes [in Americanizing the American Orchestra] to be profoundly wrong-headed…We and our member orchestras need to disassociate ourselves from this report, while simultaneously stating that we are willing to participate in intelligent and intellectually robust attempts to define institutional partnerships, in helping provide the public with accurate information about our orchestras, and in supporting a constructive examination of the role our art has in our culture.”—Senza Sordino, Official Publication of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians, October 1993
Tony: So despite what musicians said at the time, you did not claim that it was only musicians’ salaries that were responsible for the problem.
Wolf: No, it is actually interesting. Artistic costs as a percentage of total costs did not budge during the entire 25 year period I studied. But most people did not read carefully and assumed I was blaming everything on musicians. Musician salaries grew in proportion to overall costs – but all of these costs were unsustainable.
Tony: Does this mean that you think the trend to provide guaranteed salaries to musicians with a certain number of services and weeks was a mistake.
Wolf: As with so many things, the instincts were right but the implementation was wrong. There is no question that providing a living wage to musicians was one of the factors that increased the artistic quality of our orchestras. I was all for it. And even at current levels of pay today, I believe most musicians are underpaid for the skill levels they have attained. So many of these individuals are amazing and I wish they were paid for the skill levels they have attained (I know since I played professionally for many years and couldn’t possibly attain the level that so many of our great musicians have reached.). Finding a way to pay musicians properly might have been possible except for lack of imagination and vision. The orchestra industry and the union assumed that the only way to do so was to increase the service count through more concerts and associated rehearsals. But the market could not absorb it.
Tony: So what should they have done?
Wolf: What should have happened is that orchestras should have explored other ways to offer musicians employment and musicians should have jumped on the band wagon to help them do so. I wrote an article in 1993 about this in the International Journal of Arts Management. I spoke about the ideal orchestra and its musicians becoming the major purveyor of great music in a community. The model I was espousing is not unlike what many are fighting about today. Orchestras are gradually seeing the light. But there has been great resistance on the part of musicians. And I suppose you cannot blame them. They were trained to play concerts at a very high level. They were not trained to be ambassadors for great music in their communities or to teach and coach and play chamber music as part of the orchestra contract. It starts from the earliest moments in a conservatory. If your role model is a soloist or a first chair player in a great orchestra, you are not going to value any other career track. It is people like you Tony who have to change that and I know you are trying to do so.
Tony: Do you buy the argument that this will compromise the excellence of the orchestra if musicians are asked to do things other than play concerts together?
Wolf:Frankly, I think the argument is nonsense. I have even heard it argued that breaking the orchestra into small units for certain repertoire “compromises” its artistic quality. It is well to remember that before 1960, virtually all musicians – even those in great orchestras – put together a free-lance life and many of them preferred it. My teacher was William Kincaid, the principal flutist in the Philadelphia Orchestra
William Kincaid
for decades and one of the greatest flutists of the 20th century. He hated the 52-week contract and said that most of his first-chair colleagues had voted against it. He actually thought it would lower the standards of orchestra’s playing.
Tony: You have actually written other books and monographs about orchestras. Do they follow the same line?
Wolf: With Nancy Glaze of the Packard Foundation, I wrote And the Band Stopped Playing: The Rise and Fall of the San Jose Symphony.
And The Band Stopped
It is a very detailed look at how and why an orchestra failed. It was well reviewed by the Wall Street Journal and is still available through Amazon. Unfortunately, it too was controversial. In that book, I actually took funders to task for being enablers of bad practice. There were also lessons about the importance of responsible governance and staff leadership. Finally, I urged orchestras to be more careful in choosing music directors. Just because someone got great reviews in Berlin does not mean he or she will be a great leader in a small community in the United States. And indeed, music directors have to be community leaders if the orchestra is going to succeed.
Tony: You sound like a pessimist when it comes to orchestras. Is that fair?
Wolf: No. Orchestras represent one of the highest achievements of mankind and American orchestras are among the greatest in the world. I spent my boyhood going to Philadelphia Orchestra concerts most Saturday nights between October and May. I even got to play with that orchestra – one of the greatest thrills of my life. Orchestras will survive–not every orchestra, maybe, and not necessarily in the form we know them today. But new life and creativity grows out of crisis and already there are promising signs of change. I am optimistic.
[Colin Thurmond’s iPod is a veritable grab bag—his musical taste spans classical, electronic, and even Gaga. Only a few days after stepping on the NEC scene, he began sketching out an event that would mash up classical and electronic music, improvisatory dance and sound painting. In October of 2010, Colin received a grant from the Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department to bring AcousticaElectronica to life. He quickly collected a team of like-minded musicians, dancers, and visual artists, and together, they created a body of work that brings different genres of music and artistic disciplines into conversation with one another. The event was picked up by Boston’s premier electronic music festival, Together—and then, AcousticaElectronica started to grow into something greater. Colin and his team decided to launch toUch, a performance company that presents multi-genre, interdisciplinary shows, like the pilot AcousitcaElectronica.
In this post, Colin and Rich provide a window into the evolution of AcousticaElectronica and toUch, and showcase the creative team behind the venture. They also deliver a sense of the entrepreneurial mindset that drives their work, and the importance of “wearing many hats” and developing a diverse skill-set.]
AcousticaElectronica
AcousticaElectronica. Quite a mouthful to say, but then again – quite an idea.
The concept of the show was simple. Blend the virtuosity found in the classical concert hall with the energy of the late-night dance club. The show seeks to reconcile two worlds that are seemingly distant- classical and electronic. We didn’t want cliché, though. We felt that it was not enough to take an existing piece then add a beat and effects. We wanted to totally restructure the DNA of the music. Sound sacrilegious? Maybe, but a hell of a lot more fun. Check out our remix of a Faurechanson.
The pieces seemed to fall into place. Recent graduate from the Master’s program in classical percussion,
Rich Chwastiak (AKA The Wig)
Rich Chwastiak (AKA The WIG) has always been a fan of electronic dance music and combines his percussion skills to add a live performance element to his DJ sets throughout the US and Europe. Although having positive feedback from the dance club, he felt inhibited to showcase this side of his musical personality in a traditional classical music environment. Was it wrong to combine these two worlds?
While studying composition at Juilliard, Athena Adamopoulos felt hesitant to show off her own work as a producer of electronic dance music (EDM). Being recently turned on to EDM, and struggling to juggle popular music with classical training, Colin Thurmond, posed the idea of combining the two worlds in a single concert. It didn’t stop there. While meeting with the amazing amount of talented students across Boston, we realized that it was not just musicians struggling with the idea of how to create something fresh and relevant in the face of such a great tradition. It was also dancers and artists. How does one create a painting after the likes of Monet, Van Gogh etc.?
Wagner had his Getsamkunstwerk. This was ours, just without all that Anti-Semitism. A total work of art. Everything, from the music, art, dance, to the clothes on our backs, all working to the goal of expressing a young generation’s reality in today’s world.
This is how AcousticaElectronica was born. The WIG plays the Music of Athena with live string quartet, vocals, guitar and piano. The music is complemented by dance and visual arts. Visual artist, Josh Wisdumb, improvises on canvas to the performance stimuli. The dancers also improvise an unbelievable combination of classical dance with modern movement. We paired the show with the Boston Together Festival the largest electronic music festival in the New England region. AcousticaElectonica premiered at the Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA on April 22.
Music, dance and art exhibit tremendous artistic integrity and depth paired with an extremely visceral response. At once: sexy and classy, sensuous and stoic, irreverent and reverential. The three pillars: music, dance and art show great historical command by paying homage to past masters yet finding a fresh new voice. German art song of Schumann combines with Latin grooves and a dance club back-beat for a listening experience unlike anything ever heard before. 16th-century lute songs of John Dowland meets trance, Carmen’s habanera and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata are blended with house music.
Ok, so why? The 21st -century musician needs to wear many hats. This question of breadth vs. depth has always been an issue, but today we need both. Having multiple skills will not only lead to more success but will lead to a more fulfilling career. We cannot afford to estrange our audience or sit in an ivory tower. Neither can we afford to be a huge “rebel.” We need to take a hard look at what it means to be an entrepreneur. Arts in the community are only as strong as it’s arts organizations. For a young musician to ignore the stark reality that is the business world, is virtual suicide. To be an exceptional artist is not enough. Many of our educational institutions are beginning to see the light. Luckily, New England Conservatory is on the cutting edge and the support from the Entreprenurial Musicianship (EM) program for AcousticaElectronica was incredible. A huge thanks goes out to Rachel Roberts, Eva Heinstein, and Nell Buck for their support.
It seemed like a huge waste to live in Boston and not collaborate with the wealth of talent that resides within, say, a five-block radius of Symphony Hall. For this reason, toUch performance art, was established. Collaboration is the heart of this venture. toUch performance art, is the company we founded in order to promote the larger conceptual works, such as AcousticaElectronica, that seek to give a new art experience to diverse audiences.
The mission of the group is to create high-quality, innovative and unique art by integrating music, theatre, dance, performance, poetry, and visual art. We bring a remarkable experience by engaging the senses through emotional and thought-provoking programming. toUch aims to create and host current and relevant new work as well as uphold great tradition. We push boundaries and questions our current conceptions of art by encouraging communication with the audience. toUch is rooted in collaboration and community service, bringing art and education to all types of audiences.
We had an amazing group of artists collaborate on the project. Truly the cream of the crop. Tessa Lark and Grace Park, violin. Elisa Rega, viola. Debbie Pae, cello. Adrienne Arditti and Laura Jobin-Acosta, vocals. Colin Thurmond and Jesse Weiner, guitars. Steve Martin, bass. Athena Adamopoulos, piano. Rich Chwastiak, DrumKAT, percussion and turntables. Marissa Roberts, Elizabeth McGuire, Lydia Zimmer and Josh Beaver, dance. Josh Wisdumb, visual arts.
To keep up to date with future performances visit www.touchperformance.com. For booking email: touchperformanceart@gmail.com. We would like to thank Tony Woodcock for the opportunity to write this blog.
Addendum August 18, 2011
I would like to take the opportunity to thank each one of the members and recognize their amazing contributions to making AcousticaElectronica so incredible.
First recognition goes to Athena Adamopoulos, who composed/remixed all of the music for the show. Her countless hours of work, and sheer musical genius have been an amazing inspiration for every person in the group. Her amazing ears, imagination and creativity have been tremendous fuel for the success of this project.
To Rich Chwastiak, who defines the “making it happen” mentality. His constant high energy and willingness to do whatever it takes, invigorates me. He opened my eyes to what a virtuoso performance a DJ can give.
To Marissa Roberts, who makes so much of toUch work behind the scenes. Her selfless works to better the show without any recognition humbles me.
To Tessa Lark, who astounds me every time she touches a violin. For her amazing versatility between styles and willingness to play anything, she is the epitome of what AcousticaElectronica seeks to celebrate.
To Deborah Pae, for her unflagging professionalism, her ability to give more than you think anyone is able to give, and the way she has everyone hang on every note she plays.
To Jesse Weiner for his willingness to support toUch above and beyond. His ability to give such solid advice at just the right moments keeps me sane.
To Adrienne Arditti, for her enthusiastic support for this project and her contagious excitement.
To Grace Park, whose charm, charisma, and musicianship truly shows that being a beautiful person can make a beautiful musician.
To Elisa Rega, for her hours of help beyond the call of duty. Her multi-faceted approach to music is an inspiration to us all.
To Lizzie McGuire, for loving toUch more than anyone. Her fire and enthusiasm for the ideas and ideals of the group, leaves me speechless.
To Lydia Zimmer, for her unending creativity in movement. Her ability to embody the music is a wellspring for collaboration for the other artists.
To Josh Beaver, who shows me every time he moves what it means to be uninhibited by technique. The direct link between his thoughts/inspirations and his body is so incredible. It serves as the model for what all artists hope to achieve.
To Laura Jobin-Acosta, for whom no distance was too great to be a part of a great project. Her flexibility and musicality pours directly into everything she touches.
To Steve Martin, whose humor brightened the most stressful situation and whose bass lines pumped us up in the most tired of times. His commitment to outreach must be thanked.
To Erika Boysen, whose energy in outreach and personality in performance kept me grounded.
Last but not least, to Josh Wisdumb, whose work inspires everyone. A big thanks to him for being such an amazing artist who can truly paint music better than I can play it. Everything his hand touches is an inspiration to me.
This blog has spent a great deal of time and space and generated considerable commentary and debate on the subject of the future of Orchestras in this country. The current situation is well-documented – orchestras going out of business completely (Honolulu, New Mexico, Syracuse), filing for Chapter 11 (Philadelphia, Louisville) or experiencing internecine warfare through strikes (Detroit, Cleveland). It was heartening therefore to see the League of American Orchestras revise the agenda of its Annual Conference, which ended in Minneapolis last week, to discuss “the issues.”
The League’s role has never been to lead the charge, since it represents, serves, and reflects its members. However, the ground swell of concern and discussion had reached such a critical mass that the League’s President Jesse Rosen felt it imperative to add a “Red Alert” 90-minute plenary session. This was, in itself, a brave and courageous move because the field has been in denial for a long time. Previously, discussion of this sort was relegated to whispered conversation outside the formal program. But, then, Rosen went for the jugular: “It is time to face our brutal truths,” he asserted. And he pretty much laid it out as it really is:
• Declining revenues and rising costs
• Donor fatigue
• Performance excellence is not enough and orchestras “must find new ways to relate to and serve their communities.”
• Stagnant product delivery systems. This is what the Knight Foundation described as the “vehicle of delivery” requiring much more creativity and diversity.
• Lack of overall diversity meaning that an orchestral organization really does not reflect the contemporary world in which it tries to survive
Jesse Rosen
He goes on to talk about some possible solutions. You can hear his complete address on YouTube.
Personally I would like to have seen a major mention about the changing role of musicians and how they need to be brought into the discussion and have full ownership of this new way forward. It is implicit in the above but I feel it needs to be explicit and central.
But I have to say “Bravo, Jesse.” Thank you for having the mettle to put it out there. Just this simple act will breathe oxygen into a system starved of debate, because it “provides permission and encouragement for people to openly engage.” I find the word “permission” in this context to be startling, but there you have it.
Maybe this isn’t the Arab Spring, or the Berlin Wall of 1989, but, my word, it is a start. There are 12 long months before the next League conference and so much work and reinvention that needs to happen in that period of time. Let us hope that in June 2012 we will hear about some new models, based on rejuvenation and the widest reaches of musicians’ creativity that will start to empower the whole field.
New England Conservatory (NEC), located in Boston, MA, is a leading music school with international enrollment, serving students from age 4 through postgraduate degree studies.
