I am embroiled in rehearsals for Mahler 5 and was not going to write till later in the week, but something jumped out at me over on Greg Sandow’s blog that I could not let pass by. The talk of free concerts for the community have been the subject of his last two post,s and most of the comments coming back to him make me think that people still believe we are in the music business. We are not, we are in the people business!….
Aud.Connect
Belated thanks…and a suggestion!
It occurred to me today that I didn’t realize when writing my post on Nov 5 commenting on the election, that it was Stick and Drones one year anniversary! I looked back these past few days browsing through some different posts and especially the comments. I can’t tell you how exhilarating the journey has been so far….
Go West Redux…
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.
Audience Poll – Gorilla Style!
My Audience Connection class attended the Springfield Symphony concert on Oct 18, a Big Band themed Pops concert. They were not there to review the concert, but to review the audience! The audience response was tremendous, as was the review in the paper. The students however did an internal eavesdrop poll with interesting results. Our discussion is in three parts below as well as some audio from the concert. I highly recommend every performing arts group do this kind of review!: (podcast 15 and 16 will be up Monday)
Cultural Trust – Redistributing Wealth Missouri Style!
So when we at the Springfield Symphony (Missouri’s 3rd largest Orchestra) read the news last week regarding the ruling against the Kansas City Symphony’s lawsuit to restore funds into the cultural trust that were not put in during a certain period as the legislature felt the money at that time was needed elsewhere, our reaction was : Oh that’s right they filed a lawsuit! We had forgotten about it. Arts funding in Missouri has risen the last two years….under a Republican governor! I have a little insight into what happened and some personal experience with the whole thing including some interaction with the governor….
Collective Pride…and Two Soldiers Tales
From the road this week: I’ve seen many a promotional video at airports whilst waiting for a connection, with all of them letting me know that by continuing on to my destination instead of stopping over, I will miss out big time on the excitement of the city that lies beyond the airport walls. Now mostly they are pretty frenetic because they try to pack as much in as possible and I have seen several that include the orchestra of the city albeit for a few seconds. The one I saw this week was different and had a twist, plus I was inadvertently placed in two related poignant moments in two different cities …..
The Brady Effect!……
I saw Wayne Brady’s (of Who’s Line is it Anyway fame) show in Vegas this past May. He is one of the most talented people on the planet! What was most impactful to me was the pre-show, a video of Wayne explaining the audience rules for the show. It was hilarious, involving tranquilizer darts and karate moves, very creative and completely disarming. I challenged my class to look for examples online of organization’s audience etiquette policies…discussion below:
Drum Roll please………
Just a quick post to announce that the full podcast of my class Audience Connection is up and you can link to it here, or via the Audience Connection tab on the lower left. It is a left click listen or right click download at this point and 13 classes are up there right now. I will keep posting highlights in future posts and will note whenever a new class goes up (No. 14 later today). The first two classes are a little low in volume, it improves from class 3, and … Continue Reading