Back in the day, Drew McManus ran an annual series on Adaptistration during the month of April which he christened, Take A Friend To The Orchestra month. I found an old post which recounted some of my favorite entries which provide some great insight into the way different people experience attending the orchestra.
One post I linked to but didn’t quote was composer Alex Shapiro’s. As I re-read some of the entries I cited, I wanted to call attention to some of what she said.
If this orchestral thing is so enjoyable, why the heck do we need to fortify, inform, pre-warn, pre-inform and generally pre-experience it for someone? Is it actually that scary? That risky? Will body armor be necessary? Are we supposed to treat a new listener like a piece of food and soak her in a rich marinade of background information in order to ready her for the searing flame of the auditorium seats? Ouch!
As with all live concerts in any genre- chamber, jazz, rock, reggae- symphonic music washes over us as a sensual experience. If we insist on viewing it as difficult and challenging (perhaps because that automatically makes those of us who like it look awfully darn smart), we’re missing the point. And equally sadly, we’re sending a message that it’s an awful lot of work to listen to music. With an implication like that, people just might stay home, or opt to do something with their money that they perceive as a more obviously enjoyable experience. Hmmm. Sound familiar?
Later she talks about the way the L.A. Phil was advertising concerts. While this was in 2006 and the L.A. Phil has probably made changes to their promotional style, I am pretty sure there are still groups that employ the methods about which she complains:
One day last year as I was driving, a radio ad for the L.A. Phil came on. A haughty-sounding middle-aged white woman was cooing an oily, British-inflected voiceover into a high-end microphone, telling listeners just how marvelous the upcoming season was and that we won’t want to miss the “divine splendor and magnificence” (or some such combo of adjectives) of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
I was livid. This was “my” wonderful orchestra that was trying to get backsides into the seats, but this truly obnoxious ad “reached out” to only a very small and specialized segment of our population. How was this elitist presentation supposed to build audiences for the future? I love hearing the Phil at Disney Hall, but that radio spot even made me want to stay away, thinking, “gee, I guess this isn’t for regular folks.” These are the kinds of approaches that must be reconsidered, if the great tradition of the symphony orchestra is to continue. It has to do with the attitude we wear- not the clothes.
I know you have heard these sentiments about promotional efforts made before, but it is always good to be reminded. Especially because we don’t often hear “insiders” empathizing with the negative impression audiences might have of the way arts organizations talk about themselves.
Any way, I hope you will check out some of my suggested posts. They are a good mix of humor and insight about the experience of concert attendance.
Quick note: I think it is a bit disingenuous of Shapiro to question the ‘background’ information sometimes necessary to make sense of art experiences. The truth is that these things make sense to us especially because we DO have the background in our pasts. We have lived lives where these art forms have a recognized home. We can not only place them, but have a history of enjoying them. They are, in point of fact, part of who we are, part of our identity.
We perhaps forget this incremental understanding because it is so obvious to us now. We have forgotten the hours and hours we spent reading plays, attending the theater, listening to music, etc, and all of it building to our experience now. We forget that a new arts experience is sometimes like stepping into a foreign culture, where the rules are accepted by those who know, and the outsiders fumble as best they can. At worst a new arts experience is like trying to make sense of someone talking a foreign language. The fact that we ourselves speak the language should never be underestimated.
The issue isn’t art being scary or dangerous, as Shapiro states, but it being *intelligible*.
Every single person is stuck being who they are. You are you and I am me. I am not you and you are not me. It is beyond arrogant to suggest that others will simply see the same things we do if only they are put in the physical position of doing so. It is unfathomable to suggest that the values we take as self evident are necessarily available to someone else simply by virtue of them being in the right place at the right time. That is like putting toilets in rural India. We forget that the arts are part of a culture of information and shared experiences. Art is not available as a subjective experience unless the person has been primed for it. No more than we can expect to sell hamburgers to vegetarians or Bibles to atheists……