State of the Arts

Question For My Inside The Arts Family

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Here on Inside the Arts, I am surrounded by orchestra professionals (or professionals closely related to orchestras). There are two conductors, a consultant, three musicians, some radio broadcasters and an opera administrator. I figure this is a good cross section of views and experience. There has been a question lingering in my mind for some years that I have wanted to ask so I thought I would toss it out there for some cross blog discussion, if my confreres are so inclined. (Certainly, readers are always welcome to chime in.)

My question is this- Orchestras have some of the best trained and skilled musicians around. Why do they primarily confine themselves to a certain genre and periods of music? Why aren’t they playing all the best music out there? I know most groups have a pops series, but that still barely scratches the surface of the available material and it is separate from their main product. And really, why are the pops separate?

This is my thought- Have an evening of music around some theme like romance. One of the pieces is Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” (or some other selection, I am just trying to stay away from the obvious “Stairway to Heaven”), maybe there is another contemporary rock/pop/blues/jass piece as well and interspersed between them are pieces of the regular repertory (or vice versa.) I am not suggesting getting rid of the current programming, just enhancing it with other works. The concept of great music being part of a continuum of excellence that didn’t stop at a certain year.

The only compelling reason I can think for not doing this is artistic unity of an evening. But I wonder, does it really matter to audiences? If you do the beginning of Hamlet set during 1920s flapper days and then shift to steampunk, audiences will find it jarring and perplexing. Would there be the same problem going from orchestrated classic rock to a baroque piece of a similar energy in the same evening?

Since many potential pieces weren’t written for orchestras, I imagine there would be some cost involved in arranging songs for a larger number of instruments. That could certainly prove an impediment for some organizations, as might royalty payments where required. It might prove a boon for lesser known ensembles if one group’s arrangement was recognized as superior to another’s. Given that the music may be more widely known, a larger segment of the population would have the discernment to make that judgment.

I know that not every piece will lend itself to adaptation for orchestra performance. Those who do not recognize that may shout “Play Freebird!” or the equivalent. But I have to believe there is potential in a lot of works.

I guess there would also be a concern that things were being dumbed down or compromised to fill seats. I have heard of symphonies playing video game themes and integrating cell phone rings into the performance. There is much more potential for a quality experience in this idea –and an interesting educational one too boot! You can have a blues guitarist perform Lead Belly’s version of “Gallis Pole” and talk about the centuries old history of the folk song and then have the whole orchestra play Led Zeppelin’s “Gallows Pole” as a comparison.

Talks about the composers might be a lot more interesting to audiences because some have lived recently enough that the circumstances that influenced their writing are more familiar to audiences. Then there are the controversies over song writing credits.

I know that it is easy for people on the outside to criticize and say they could do better. What I have described here has sort of been my idea of how I would program things if I were in charge.

But to a degree, I am.

I have a lot of under employed symphony musicians running around my community right now. What is to keep me from going to them and asking them to put together a program that mixes a few of the standard pieces with arrangements of more contemporary works for a performance some point in the future? Given my financial resources, I wouldn’t imagine I would get the whole orchestra, but 1/4 might sound impressive enough to determine if the basic concept is sound.

Any success I may have wouldn’t necessarily imply similar promise for orchestras. I do not run an orchestra so expectations of my events are much different than for theirs. While I would love to have this idea succeed and an orchestra schedule these events at my space, real success in my mind is when a change like this becomes the primary practice, not separate from it.

Just Leave Those Barriers Intact, Eh?

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Well, I am actually happy to confess that upon review, there aren’t as many artists being promoted by trite phrases as I implied at the end of my post yesterday. I get 40-50 emails a week from agents and artists during the off-season and close to that a day during the conference season. Even if only 1% contain trite phrases, I am seeing them with enough frequency that it feels like an epidemic.

The general area of offense I had in mind when I mentioned it yesterday is of the “ground breaking, barrier shattering, break through” ilk. I found quite a few of this type in my review. It appeared in emails, two cold call resumes I received in the last month and at least one radio advertisement I have heard lately. The closest to the truth any of these people seemed to get was the label experimental. I see the claim made a lot in reference to dance, but theatre and music make their share.

If you do modern dance with ballet, hiphop or jazz influences, you really aren’t pushing the envelop. Employing Hopi Indian influences gets intriguing. Getting the women of al Qaida to do modern dance is breaking all sorts of barriers. As is a ballet company doing something other than Nutcracker for their Christmas show.

Performance art pieces doing strange things in strange costumes that may or may not be a reference to the alienation of the individual by some force may be entertaining and thought provoking, but the ground was broken and has been pounded back down by many who have come before.

Taking a classic rock tune that appears fairly often on soft and light rock stations, turning it into an easy listening tune and calling it a break through crossover hit is just plain evil.

I have harped on the annoying overuse of “what it means to human” before. I am happy to see that phrase has moved to the fringes. I did see it used two weeks ago, but there had been a very welcome gap in our encounters. (I do pray it isn’t experiencing a revival.) I am hoping that the barrier breakers either find some other ways to talk about themselves or become involved with some legitimately innovative activities.

Use of trite marketing language generally doesn’t have any relation to the value of the performance or audience enjoyment. It does form a first impression so it definitely impacts the likelihood of being considered as a performer.

I’ll be the first to admit that writing effective copy is tough and if I am not, I will be among the first to shout Amen! Staying away from the trite stuff makes it harder but you ain’t gonna get any better allowing yourself to default to those word choices.

New Efforts, Briefly

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There have been a couple nice developments among the blogs I regularly read.

-Neill Archer Roan has begun blogging again. Unfortunately, the wonderful old material I linked to was retired when he moved to this new format.

-Scott Walters has semi-retired Theatre Ideas in favor of discussing trends and developments in the context of his <100k Project

–Poor Player Tom Loughlin has started a new site, Acting in America, where actors of every stripe can tell their stories.

I see these latter two additions as a sign that arts blogging is maturing. Both men have taken subjects they spoke of passionately over the course of many blog entries and spun them off into projects aimed at serving the arts community as a whole. There may be others whom I haven’t been following who have done this already (and by all means, point me to them.) The fact the numbers are growing only supports my assertion about emerging maturity.

I also don’t mean to imply that their earlier work, or than of bloggers like myself, did not contribute to the arts community. These new efforts look to examine and develop opportunities in ways that haven’t really been tried before.

Where Are All The Good Theatre DVDs?

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Last week economist Tyler Cowen pondered aloud about why there aren’t more stage plays on DVD. He had three basic theories.

1. It wouldn’t be very good. (This doesn’t stop most of what is put out on DVD. Furthermore the highly complex genre of opera on DVD works just fine and has become the industry standard.)

2. There wouldn’t be much of an audience. Yet you could sell memento copies to people who saw the plays, a few plays on DVD might hit it big, and in any case they wouldn’t cost much to produce. There are plenty of niche products on Netflix.

3. It would squash the demand for live performance. Really? Most people don’t go to the theater anyway. Those who do, in this age of 3-D cinema and TiVo, presumably enjoy live performance in a manner which is robust. It is more likely that DVD viewing would stimulate demand for the live product. Besides, they put these plays out in book form and no one thinks that is a big problem.

In my mind, it is actually the comments that really bear reading. For two pages, people debate the reasons. Some blame all the unions, producers and other entities that seek to preserve their intellectual property and financial interests. One person suggested there are play people and film people and never the twain shall meet. Others blame the cost. When you turn a movie into a DVD the primary material has been edited and is ready to go. With a play, you have the cost of the production and then the cost of filming and editing on top of it. As one commenter implied, there is also an entirely different marketing approach when promoting a DVD than a live performance. Films can effectively adapt the television ad for the theatrical release for the DVD release because people are already familiar with the material from the first advertising campaign.

The biggest general consensus though was that stage productions don’t translate well to film in terms of setting, acting technique, costuming. People have an expectation of video that staged productions can’t deliver and vice versa. An apparent theatre person using the handle, “Meisner-trained,” noted that “Much of the world’s great literature is in the form of a play — I am embarrassed at having to say this, so I won’t even provide examples. (In contrast, even “great” screenplays, like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, aren’t great literature!)”

The real reason I say the comments bear reading is due to the passion with which people argue for the validity of both live performance and film. These are the people you want on your board and advocating to government and civic groups on your behalf. My assumption is, “Meisner-trained” aside, there are more than just arts people reading and commenting on an economist’s blog. The Epicurean Dealmaker, for example runs a blog on mergers and acquisitions and notes, “A great many forms of art derive much of their power from the way they satisfy, push up against, and transgress their own limitations. (Think sonnets, or haiku, for example.)”

Something I was interested to note. Most of the comments dealt with Cowen’s first two hypotheses-quality and lack of demand due to poor quality/different expectations of the DVD medium. Almost no one addressed the idea that DVDs would undermine interest in live performance. Only the person who noted that recordings of Broadway shows aren’t available until after the show closes really addressed that idea. (Though there are a couple of less direct implications). While the comments on a blog entry are hardly scientific, the dearth is enough to make me question the validity of a objections to recordings on the grounds that it will undermine interest in live performance. I wouldn’t roll out a DVD of Les Miz during a local run, but I suspect that the existence of a DVD released a few years prior won’t significantly dampen interest in a live performance.