We’re coming up on MLK Jr. day so it is time to reflect on what I’ve been doing the past couple of months.
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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…..
The Floggings will continue…..
Note to orchestra administrations everywhere: you wonder why there are some musicians in your ensemble who complain that they feel like indentured servants? Well, sometimes you treat them like that, and here’s a perfect example.
Let it Roll
I hate shopping at Menards. I’m supposed to “save big money” but I usually end up having a headache.
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!……..
Putting the Dis in Discharge!
So for a holy mackerel story from October that seemed to slip by, a Champaign County Municipal Court Judge Susan Fornof-Lippencott sentenced a man to listen to Beethoven, Bach and Chopin for 20 hours or pay $150. The crime can’t have been too heinous, otherwise the sentence might have been to listen to Berg, Schoenberg and Ligeti!……..
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…..