Dear Mr. President…….. First, let me tell you how delighted I am to be able to say those words.
Challenge=Opp
Challenge = Opportunity – Undoing the Mess(iaen)
So you’re in a fine restaurant, order a dish, eat a little and decide not to finish or to send it back. Maybe you didn’t like it and wished you had asked more about it before ordering, maybe it was under cooked, or that you liked it but you were full. Question, if you were the chef would you march out to the table to make the customer eat it? Well that’s what Itzhak Perlman did recently in a recital after performing a Messiaen piece. Just like in a restaurant though, he could have instead offered the equivalent of a description of the dish or even better, a take out box…….
The Middle (Golden) Age…..
Some seriously good naval gazing into the future of Classical music is going on over on Greg Sandow’s blog. Really detailed posts (there will be 5 in the series) covering a lot of ground and summarizing in his view where things appear to be headed and what to do about it. I do think though that the issue of the average age of the audience is not as alarming as it appears, and quite possibly is something to celebrate…..
More ASS in clASSical – Off their “Rockers”
The bar keeps lowering, but in this case it’s the whammy bar! It seems the lack of marketing creativity is so prevalent that it in itself is becoming creative! It’s time to be in awe of the latest believe it or not marketing connection being made between Pop and Classical, so strap on a plastic Guitar with 5 buttons to get those $70 Symphony seats sold!……..
2009 – The Year of the Audience….let’s hope!
Could this be the year with seemingly inevitable economic woes painting a bleak picture for individual, corporate and foundation support and most importantly ticket sales, that while strategizing we collectively all ask the question……well what does the audience want? It’s not so much that we need to hit the reset button, but we do need to realize that it’s the audience that has the power to unlock our growth in these times…..
Audience Connection Final – part 2
The final two dream big Arts organizations from the Audience Connection final (here is part 1). Also, as part of their final I wanted them to take a genre of music and redefine it into more clearly understood sub-genres i.e funk, techno funk. I have included clips from two that were very well thought out and presented. For the Holidays, at the end of the post I have included audio from a rehearsal of Franz Biebl’s extraordinary Ave Maria with yours truly conducting Choirs from Evangel University and the College of the Ozarks….
The Audience Connection Final – Part 1
The Audience Connections Class you have been hearing clips from since August had their final on December 10, so here they are this week for the last time. Below is the main part of their final, which was a challenge…….
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
What is it all coming to? The recession is forcing even major arts organizations to …..gulp……actually program what the audiences want to hear and see! Now what’s that I hear, the big 3 automakers need to build cars that people want to drive! I guess newspapers need to start writing what people want to read! In the immortal words of R.E.M:
It’s the end of the world as we know it…..
Let’s hope so, at least for the arts world!….