Thinking outside the box for community outreach
I happened upon this recent New York Times article while perusing Joe Pisano’s always excellent music education & technology blog MusTech.net. It’s about imaginative ways in which orchestras and opera companies are engaging young people and organizations in the community. Good food for thought.
L.A. Opera, other music companies play to youth – latimes.com http://bit.ly/7T00lQ
Mad Men and reminiscences of an earlier era
Ahhh, Mad Men. My brother got me into the show over the summer of 2009. I don’t watch anything on actual live television (I don’t even remember how to switch our entertainment center over to live TV!), generally waiting until a season of a show has completed and then purchasing it on iTunes for enjoyment at my leisure.
As has been stated man times since the first season, Mad Men conjures up the sights, sounds, and situations (including those both charming and not-so-charming) of a bygone era, giving viewers a window into the testosterone-soaked world of post-World War II New York advertising culture. Great pains are taken in terms of stye of dress, collegial relationships, and the interactions of the sexes inside and out of the workplace.
This historical era also corresponds with the height of classical music on the cultural barometer and the early phase of the corporate-sponsored “orchestra as profession” era of which (in my humble opinion) we are witnessing the slow but inexorable demise (read my take on this phenomenon here…. or over here or over by there and back here and even here).
What happened to classical music? What could Don Draper do about it? And, more importantly, what would Don Draper do about it?
Here are some thoughts:
- Image is everything – In many respects, symphony orchestras would fit in well with the clients of Sterling Cooper, if not in terms of budget then certainly in terms of portraying their product (music, hotels, cigarettes.. it’s all the same in a certain light) as the natural extension of a desired lifestyle. If smoking a Lucky or staying at the Hilton could, with the right advertising, be billed as stylish and smart, then think about how something as inherently “classy” as a concert could have been effectively marketed.
- You can sell anything – Could the New York Philharmonic have been marketed as effectively as Hilton? Sure! Could the concert as an essential lifestyle accoutrement have been imprinted in people’s minds through the advertising trade? Certainly! Could the same happen today? I’d wager a great deal on it. Then why didn’t it happen, why isn’t it happening right now, and why will it never happen?
- It’s all about the money – Don works for a company with massive annual profits that specializes in selling images of Coke, Hilton, fashion, or whatever to the masses. His company is fantastically successful at doing this and is compensated accordingly. They employ the best in the business and fight for the best clients in the business, and like a top law firm or any other business-world entity, they demand compensation commensurate with their skills. But classical music does not play with the “big boys” in this arena. The budget of a classical music organization is nothing but a rounding error on the books of a company like those that Don Draper services. Coke, Hilton, and Don’s other clients walk the financial streets like kings, with classical music groups like a band of hobos fighting over scraps of lint tossed from the pockets of these fat cats.
The answers to my earlier questions are now quite clear:
What could Don Draper do about classical music perceptions, attendance, and sales?
He could take the music in any direction he wanted–if Don could make carbonated sugar syrup beverages appear essential to the day of every American, he could certainly make classical music seem like a critical part of the human existence.
What would Don Draper do about classical music perceptions, attendance, and sales?
Nothing–he’s not taking charity cases.
The Partial Observer – Sorry, We’re Fresh Out of Mahler
Holly Mulcahy wrote an interesting blog post for the Partial Observer recently considering how much is really saved when, for budgetary reasons, a “heavy” piece like Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 is swapped out for a “light” piece like a Mozart Symphony. She writes:
For example, if Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 programmed is later replaced with a Beethoven or Mozart Symphony due to budget reasons, there should be questions as to how much is really saved. Is the audience comfortable with this? Imagine what would happen if a similar situation unfolded at a restaurant: “Sorry, we are out of the Filet Mignon but we are happy to present you with the Caesar salad instead. Same price, sorry.”
Maybe this will be the best Caesar salad you’ll ever eat. But while the entrée price hasn’t changed, and the appetite may have wanted more, there must be sacrifices…right?
Interesting food for thought–read Holly’s complete post here:
The Partial Observer – Sorry, We’re Fresh Out of Mahler
Financial meltdown or no, I rarely perform the “heavy” works like Mahler 5 at all anymore. Most of the groups I play with can’t afford to put a piece like this on their program; adding the extra 15-20 wind players and augmenting the string section accordingly stretches the budgets of many smaller groups to unacceptable extremes. As such, I usually end up doing a whole lot of Beethoven and Brahms and very little Mahler, Bruckner, or large-scale Strauss pieces (Apline Symphony, for example).
I guess I never realized that I’d be bidding farewell to these more massive pieces after I left music school and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Not only did the scope of the pieces shrink in terms of scale, but I’ve found that the repertoire of the groups that I play with is quite conservative. I miss taking musical chances with groups like the IRIS Orchestra and now roll my eyes at yet another Beethoven Symphony No. 8 or Candide Overture (not that his isn’t great music, but doing these pieces every single year starts to grate on me).
Grand Rapids Symphony in peril
I’ve been corresponding with Paul Austin, a musician with the Grand Rapids Symphony and Co-Chair of the Negotiating Committee for this orchestra and Vice President of the Regional Orchestra Players’ Association (ROPA), and organization to which my Elgin Symphony also belongs.
The Grand Rapids Symphony musicians are facing an extreme situation, and at present the hope for an amenable resolution appears bleak, as you can see from the articles below:
Grand Rapids Symphony musicians reject ‘last, best and final offer’ contract, call it ‘insulting’
by Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk | The Grand Rapids Press
Friday September 04, 2009, 7:10 PM
Grand Rapids Symphony musicians, calling a proposed contact “insulting,” have overwhelmingly rejected a collective bargaining agreement for the orchestra’s 2009-10 season.
Musicians informed management Friday they had voted 63-2 Thursday evening to reject a two-year pact that would have cut three weeks from their 42-week season, transformed two weeks of paid vacation into unpaid furlough, suspended 401k pension contributions, and raised employee contributions to medical insurance to 25 percent.
“What they proposed as their ‘last, best and final offer’ is insulting to the musicians,” said Dan Mattson, co-lead negotiator for the Grand Rapids Federation of Musicians.
Symphony president Peter Kjome said the proposed 2009-10 budget reflects to the 15-year average of spending 44.5 percent of the budget on the musicians. Read more
Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle
My good friend Aaron Burman passed along the following story about the Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle, a great name for a community orchestra if I’ve ever heard of one. This orchestra is probably getting 100 times the press and buzz that they would if they’d gone with the more traditional (but boring) moniker “Chapel Hill Community Orchestra.”
About the group:
Who are we? The Really Terrible Orchestra Of the Triangle exists to encourage those who have been prevented from playing music together with others, either through lack of talent or some other factor, to rehearse and perform in an ensemble of similarly afflicted players. From a humble beginning in May 2008, we have grown into a 75-piece symphony orchestra worthy of its role as one of the premiere cultural gems of the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill NC (USA) region known as the Research Triangle. Except that we’re pretty terrible. Terrible, in the French sense of Des Enfants Terribles … in that while we haven’t made fun of Bach or Mozart yet, we certainly have had a naughty excursion or two with Strauss and Tchaikovsky.
Want to hear them in action? Here’s a YouTube video of them live at an outdoor concert this past April:
Original story:
-
Sponsors:
Subscribe to our podcast!
Blog highlights
Network with us!
-
