There is a petition circulating on causes.com that should be a no-brainer – “President Obama, save the house that Ives built.” I hereby officially state that I am against this petition. Read on.
For many years I have been a fan of Charles Ives and his music. It started during my college years when my crew would explore music during late night festivals of baachanalia (thank all the Gods that YouTube wasn’t around then), and led by the ghosts of our forefathers we spent a lot of time on the great Concord sonata. This majestic piece was the gateway drug to the rest of Ives’ music. I still might learn it some day….. or some year…. or decade. My feelings about Ives’ music were codified when I had the chance to play his 4th symphony with the New World Symphony, Tilson Thomas conducting. Any NWS Alums from fall ’88 will remember that as a truly incredible experience.
When the news broke about the situation with Mr. Ives’ house it immediately caught my attention. After all, this is a great piece of Americana that is in danger. Like his intellectual partner-in-crime, Henry David Thoreau, the legacy of Ives reeks of that particular strain of New England genius, something that for me epitomizes the possibilities inherent in the culture and history of the USA. If for that reason alone, this house should be…… nay, must be saved.
Yet, the next thing I know there is this petition going around addressed to President Obama. It is essentially a plea for him to save the Ives house.
I admit to being dismayed by this petition. First of all, in case no one has noticed I think President Obama is a tad distracted right now. I’m going to go way out on a limb and speculate that he has other things on his mind than some piece of real estate in Connecticut. And even if this wasn’t a factor, do you really think he’s worried about the early 20th Century musical avant-garde constituency? I suspect he’s already got that particular demographic sewn up.
2nd – this is too easy. It doesn’t take much to start a petition these days, and it takes even less to get other people to sign it. But this is doomed to failure, and the only thing that it accomplishes is the soothing of our collectively ruffled feathers. We have now Done Something. We have Signed A Petition. It’s All Better Now. We have Done Our Part.
But that’s not the worst of it – this petition, in a nutshell, is the very representation of why classical music, especially orchestras, is in such a sorry state. During the past 50 years there has developed a mindset amongst musicians in this country that can be distilled down to: we shouldn’t have to do anything more than play our instruments and get paid, AKA “why doesn’t the Board just raise more money?” This has led to a culture of dependency. Without playing a truly active role in fundraising and decision making, and instead taking the whole “we are Artístes!” approach, we musicians have lost contact with the greater society, the society that we were once a part of.
If you have a job in any of the top orchestras in this country you’re making a decent living, and in many cases a damn good one. Compare the salary of a starting musician in a top 30 orchestra to that of the average middle class family and you’ll see what I mean. Most musicians working in the USA don’t make that salary, but the perception is that we are part of that elitist strata, and no matter if you are a back section member of the upper podunk community orchestra, Mr. Joe Average thinks you’re overpaid. Then he comes to the obvious conclusion: why support a bunch of overpaid, whining, classical musicians at all? After all, Mr. J.A. doesn’t go to any of the concerts! Why should he? There seems to be precious little Tim McGraw or Reba McEntire, so why should he care?
Of course back in the day, the great civic Powers That Be looked upon it as their civic duty to support such institutions as the local orchestra. Musicians became dependent on this funding structure, and we put ourselves in a position where we 1) relied on the PTB to pay our ever expanding salaries and benefits; and 2) spent the rest of the time excoriating their fundraising laziness and inability to understand what we do, complete with the “how dare they suggest we do any fundraising! We are Artístes!!!”
We have allowed this culture of dependency to foster in the orchestral world to the point where instead of being proactive (lousy word, but lacking another one) it has become too easy to blame the Board or blame the administration or blame everyone except ourselves for whatever deficits crop up, or whatever goes fiscally wrong. The Ives petition is a perfect example: “Dear President Obama, please save the Ives house for us because we’re too lazy to do it ourselves.”
Nowadays, most of those Powers That Be are from the Paul Ryan “Let Them Eat Cake and Screw Social Security” tradition. The first instinct by these Neo-Cons when confronted by the fiscal dynamics of an orchestra is to immediately bloviate that the peons are being paid too much. It’s the same approach Caterpillar is taking with their workers except in a non-profit setting – “record profits & record bonuses for the white collar, but we’ve got to give our workers the shaft to make sure said record profits/bonuses continue for those of us on the inside” turns into “we’ve got a $7 Million dollar orchestra but our city can only afford a $5 Million dollar one; time to slash salaries or declare bankruptcy – whichever is more drastic.” There is no discussion of a different approach because it’s all about the Almighty Dollar and keeping the workers in their places.
Consider the list of orchestras that have found themselves in this position recently: Philadelphia; Detroit; St. Paul Chamber; Minnesota; Jacksonville; Atlanta; Colorado; etc… The story is essentially the same from one to the other. During the good times the warning signs are ignored. Then the bubble bursts and guess what? The most wretched reaction is the open letter to the Board of Directors, a heartfelt yet essentially wasted plea that accomplishes nothing except to highlight the fact that we have ceded responsibility for the very institutions that are the flagships of our business to people who prefer the self-centered ramblings of Ayn Rand over the sweet music-making of Artur Rodzinski.
Instead of relying on this new generation of Neo-Cons we need to change our own culture of dependency and start relying on ourselves. There are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of musicians and music lovers in the world today and we have at our disposal the most powerful tool ever created by mankind: the internet. Instead of continuing with these hopeless petitions, letters to the Board that will be summarily ignored, and overwrought whine-fests in general, why don’t we band together and put our money where our collective mouths are?
Back to the Ives house. One colleague I know has already met with a lawyer with the goal of forming a non-profit to facilitate raising money to buy the Ives house. Asking price is a mere $1.5 million, and if some watch maker who hasn’t so much as delivered a prototype can raise $10 million on Kickstarter in a week then musicians and music lovers from around the world, acting together, should be able to fund this campaign. I hope to be able to publicize his efforts on this blog, and I shall certainly put in as much money as I can.
Here’s the important thing – the whole effort will require a fundamental shift in the mentality of classical musicians. No more relying on the PTB, no more useless petitions to a distracted President, no more panicked letters to the Board – it’s time to create a culture of D.I.Y.
We need to band together, much like the people of the Civil Rights movement of the ’50s/’60s did, and put our money towards what counts. Black folk shopping at black stores and boycotting white ones turned out to be one of the most effective methods the movement had at their disposal. Why don’t we do the same? Why don’t we support each other’s endeavors by harnessing the power and connectivity of the internet? Enough whining about the Board or the administration or whomever. Let’s start by raising the money to preserve our beautiful past and buy the Ives house. Once that’s done let’s work on creating a new future, a crowd-sourced micro-funded artists-led future for classical music.
Go big or go home. No more whining. Leave the whining to European soccer teams.
Oh come on! This isn’t whining, it’s pointing out that making a national park or historic site out of this house is appropriate, so somebody doesn’t buy it and make it a Bed Bath and Beyond. There can be both pubic and private fundraising. Ives is important! Obama should be approached, and every level of government down to dog catcher. It’s not either-or!
With all due respect, Lindsay, you have missed my point. I have categorically stated that I would love to see the Ives house preserved. What I am unwilling to pretend is that this petition will make one Concord sonata’s worth of difference. It’s too easy. It’s a panacea for those who don’t want to actually help but feel guilty about it.
The suggestion of a national part or an historic site would prima facie seem like a good one, but we have the example of the Coltrane house to warn us of those pitfalls. And in fact, by this suggestion we are substituting one panacea for the other – instead of relying on a Board of Directors we shall rely on the largesse of the National or State government to do the right thing. I have even less faith that a government, any government, in today’s toxic political world would be willing to cough up $1.5 million to buy (and another however much to maintain) a site such as this. I’d be willing to bet my last dollar on it, actually.