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!….
Charleston, Virginia, Winston Salem, St Louis, Orlando Ballet, San Francisco Opera, plus many more organizations we don’t know about have financial issues! Millions of dollars have been wiped off endowment balance sheets. These are not rainy day funds, we all tap our endowment interest every year to help defray operating costs and shortfalls. So now what? I want to throw something out there…..
Occasionally one runs across an article about goings-on at another orchestra that just makes you scratch your head. I hadn’t even had the chance to sip my tea this morning before this article about the Bellevue Philharmonic caught my eye. I’m damn glad I don’t have a bad dandruff problem because with the amount of scratching this one is going to produce I’d need a frontloader to unearth my way to the bathroom.
Springfield Missouri! I don’t know how Gramophone Magazine missed us, obviously they are biased by not mentioning us in their top 20 orchestras of the world issue! PLEASE, what is the point of doing this except to p@#% off people? The truth is, the arguments wont rage, and no one is relocating from the city with the #2 orchestra to the city with the #1 orchestra (although it is in Amsterdam and there are some benefits)…..are they?….
A pop survey –
In my experience it’s “Boy, this conductor sucks!” I have heard it from several angles, including from inside the orchestra (I spent many years playing Orchestral Keyboards, probably the performance opportunity I miss most with having a conducting career) and from when I’m on the podium (word of advice to young conductors – just because you hear something that doesn’t mean you have to listen to it; you are out there to do job and you have to have a thick skin). And speaking of young conductors –
Both Bill and Drew have Junichi’s so called departure well covered. The legacy he has left behind is a future for the orchestra. His speaking out and standing with the musicians, essentially throwing himself under the proverbial bus, was the catalyst for no acceptance for a reduction in Orchestra personnel. This means that that they do not have start completely over artistically. Much damage has been done but the foundation remains, and I credit Junichi in large part for that. There is a sad truth to what will probably happen next, and I have a challenge for the CSO and their next Music Director (who will have many challenges that is for certain!)…..
Conductors are like reverse ostriches. We are constantly popping our heads up out of the sand, looking around, and trying to determine what orchestras are coming available, who’s looking for a new Music Director. We want that next job, the next claim to fame, etc. Buried deep on the New York Times website I noticed a little ditty. It seems that an orchestra that I am familiar with is parting ways with their M.D. Perhaps I should…….
Here I am again on the West coast where for some reason my sleep disorders love to haunt me. This weekend I participate in a series called Inside The Score with the Oregon Philharmonic. You know the gig – pick a big piece of music, talk about it, play it, go drinking. It’s Brahms Symphony #1 on the docket. But something else has caught my ear and my eye this weekend. Portland is one of those towns where there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on.