There is an article on the National Endowment of the Arts in Commentary this month (via Arts and Letters Daily) with a suggestion about the role the organization should play that may not please everyone.

The author, Michael J. Lewis, an Art and Architecture professor at Williams College recounts the history of the organization from President Johnson’s declaration at the NEA’s founding that “There is a quality in art which speaks across the gulf dividing man from man and nation from nation, and century from century. . . . The stakes may well be the survival of civilization” to the obscenity accusations of the 80s and the caution exhibited in the years that followed.

Lewis argues that NEA funding practices, rather than freeing artists to experiment actually promote mediocrity by funding the under served instead of quality artists and succumbing to political pressure from elected officials. (I should note that a number of his citations from two other Commentary articles on the NEA so the opinions are a little inbred.)

Having failed to cultivate new works on a wide scale, Lewis argues the NEA should re-purpose itself to preserve existing works.

“The audiences for music and dance have long been graying (perhaps whitening is now the better term), and there is much concern that they will vanish within a generation’s time. Here, the role of the NEA would not be to create but rather to preserve or, if it comes to that, to “cocoon” art by means of a holding action: for instance, subsidizing classical orchestras and ballet companies so as to maintain a cadre of professionals who will keep alive what would otherwise become a dead language. As it happens, this is precisely the area where the NEA record has historically been brightest.”

I am not sure if I appreciate his reference to orchestras and ballet companies as working in a dead language (or soon to be so.) But maybe that is a truth that needs to be faced. At the same time, I am also not terribly comfortable with the idea that the NEA should enable ballets and orchestras to avoid innovating their practices. Though I am sure if this philosophy was embraced, the nation’s flagship ballets and orchestras would be the ones receiving the funding leaving the smaller organizations to innovate or disappear.

I am packing and repacking for my trip to the APAP conference, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity point out a great story that appeared on Artsjournal.com about a rotating club show in Berlin that has people packing techno clubs on Monday nights despite the lack of advertising to listen to chamber orchestras.

Every first Monday a club night called Yellow Lounge rotates among the hottest clubs in the city. According to the article, one club turned over 100 people away. The live performance is sandwiched between DJs playing classical recordings. Part of the appeal to attendees seems to be the approach to classical music the DJs and performers bring.

“What is particularly enjoyable about the Yellow Lounge is that it is not at all intimidating. You don’t need to know anything about classical music to feel at home. There is none of the snobbery associated with the genre; Canisius never gives you a “Duh! It’s Mozart, dummy” look if you ask what he has just played, and the musicians tend to introduce each track with a non-patronising explanation of its importance. He welcomes requests, too, but only plays them “if the mood is right”.

Admission is only five euros ($7.33). Universal Music, seeing an opportunity to change perceptions about classical music, underwrites the cost of the event. The organizers are apparently free to book who they like, but many of the artists are on a Universal label.

I am not going to suggest that a similar program could be successful in the U.S. because I suspect that classical music has a more prominent place in the collective consciousness of Germans than U.S. citizens. Even if younger Germans are turning away from classical music, I imagine that the concept of what type of person listens to the music isn’t as narrowly defined as it is in the U.S.

But perhaps there is some sort of program that might have success that doesn’t necessarily involve plugging instruments into amps.