I’ll never forget one particular day during my senior year in high school in Sydney Australia, when in English class we had our first lesson on King Lear. Our teacher began to talk about the play. We were not paying much attention and suddenly he stood up, opened the door and asked us to follow him. Someone asked him where we were going, (to the Principal’s office I thought) to the theater he replied…..
Education
Part 2 of 2: Putting the all in Hall, Audience Connections Final!
Welcome to The Underground!
What really surprised me about this concept is something that inadvertently came up during the final presentation. This Hall might actually provide a solution for saving money whilst working in concert with the environment, the community and the audience!…..Here is my summary and grading of Paper # 2:
Part 1 of 2: Putting the all in Hall, Audience Connections Final!
The idea is to build a performing arts center that truly does accommodate the needs of a community. Just saying it does or will, is not enough! For their final, my Audience Connections class of 4 divided into 2 groups and were charged with creating a concept design. If we want to attract the 20 somethings, shouldn’t they have a say too!…….Here is my summary and grading of Paper # 1:
Introducing the Electric Celestetophone
This past weekend in the middle of conducting “The Nutcracker” a thought occurred to me. Didn’t composers try to use new instruments as soon as they became available? Case in point the Celeste. We hear Sugar Plum now and the first thought from conductors and musicians is probably Great only 10 minutes till the end of the ballet! Seriously though, when it was first heard it would have been like hearing an Electric Guitar in the orchestra today the sound was so new…
Challenge = Opportunity part 3: Steeling Hearts
In my first post, Out of the Shadows, I mentioned that the musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony out of all the major orchestras I keep track of, truly demonstrate and care about the audience connection. Here are two instances of how they turned seemingly hopeless challenges into opportunities. Plus, the first in the series of “On the Go”, what people in the business are listening to right now…..
Not Sorry, Charlie……..
The question of the day – how do you satisfy an audience that ranges from 12 to 80? That is what I pondered last Thursday, 15 November, and it’s taken me this long to write about it. I’m going to tell you what happened, but I’m not going to let on how we did it until the end of the post. So there………….
Moving Sounds – Giving thanks to two of the great ones..
With the recent passing of Luciano Pavarotti and Marcel Marceau, much has been written about them separately, their art, their contributions to humanity and their extraordinary gifts. They were really one and the same….
Nature vs. Nurture…….(vs. Suzuki……..)
So, I just got back from my eldest’s Suzuki recital. The one thing that I’d recommend to the Suzuki folk is that if you want to make it more interesting you might want to consider an open bar. Other than that all the kids did really well. And then there was the 8 year-old daughter of Raef’s teacher, and my jaw hit the floor.