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…….
Goldilocks Come Forth…….
Gee, I kinda feel like Goldilocks wandering into the home of the Three Bears during Christmas. Looking out over the music world I thought I would take the leisurely approach and blog about… well, something. My buddy Ron has been furiously posting when I thought for sure he would be exhausted from trying to defend Mahler V, so it’s up to me to through something out into the ether. A quick scan of the blog sheets reveals all sorts of suitable topics – and some not so much.
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!….
Challenge = Opportunity: Becoming Well Endowed!
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…..
For Whom the Bellevue Tolls
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.
Behind the Times (again…)
I had a wonderful experience today in the Art world. Unfortunately it was not in the Classical Music business. Rather it was the Theater that provided me with some insights, and I’m left wondering (again) why we are stuck doing things in classical music that make absolute no sense to our public. Again……..
Heresy
This business is built on Universal Truths That Cannot Be Gainsaid even though we know they’re not all true. You know them: “All conductors are domineering pricks”; “All orchestral musicians are sullen wannabes”; “All administrators are incompetent’; etc. etc. Then there is Musical Dogma – “despite the fact that the vast majority of people think that their music is butt ugly we must proclaim the genius of the 2nd Viennese School”; or “The 9th Symphony of Beethoven is the greatest work of music ever, even though for many people it wouldn’t … Continue Reading
Smack Down – Mahler 5 – It’s personal!….
It’s been a while since we did one of these, but since mentioning that I was conducting a performance of Mahler’s 5th, Bill suggested we don the gloves for yet another round. Now this time it’s personal! Mahler 5 is like family to me, it even stopped my rebellious teenagehood in its tracks…well for a day anyway….. First things first, our performance went over big, the audience reaction was incredible. If Mahler does anything, it makes at least the Springfield Symphony musicians check out their parts way in advance (some even last … Continue Reading