Keeping The Passion Alive While I am Away

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Because the conversation on my last entry has been so active, I have been reluctant to make any more entries and remove it from the top of the page. The fact that I was making entry sized responses contributed to the lack of additional material as well.

Now that things have calmed down, I am on vacation and don’t have time to write much. I don’t want things to settle too much in my absence so I am providing a link to some of my “best of” entries. The first, appropriately enough entitled “Rousing Passion.”

Neill Archer Roan gave a speech, unfortunately no longer available on line, where he talked about his experiences presenting Bach’s St. John’s Passion and the complications surrounding the work’s perceived anti-Semitism.

There is a lot to think about.

Enjoy!

http://www.insidethearts.com/buttsintheseats/2005/04/19/rousing-passion/

Question For My Inside The Arts Family

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Here on Inside the Arts, I am surrounded by orchestra professionals (or professionals closely related to orchestras). There are two conductors, a consultant, three musicians, some radio broadcasters and an opera administrator. I figure this is a good cross section of views and experience. There has been a question lingering in my mind for some years that I have wanted to ask so I thought I would toss it out there for some cross blog discussion, if my confreres are so inclined. (Certainly, readers are always welcome to chime in.)

My question is this- Orchestras have some of the best trained and skilled musicians around. Why do they primarily confine themselves to a certain genre and periods of music? Why aren’t they playing all the best music out there? I know most groups have a pops series, but that still barely scratches the surface of the available material and it is separate from their main product. And really, why are the pops separate?

This is my thought- Have an evening of music around some theme like romance. One of the pieces is Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” (or some other selection, I am just trying to stay away from the obvious “Stairway to Heaven”), maybe there is another contemporary rock/pop/blues/jass piece as well and interspersed between them are pieces of the regular repertory (or vice versa.) I am not suggesting getting rid of the current programming, just enhancing it with other works. The concept of great music being part of a continuum of excellence that didn’t stop at a certain year.

The only compelling reason I can think for not doing this is artistic unity of an evening. But I wonder, does it really matter to audiences? If you do the beginning of Hamlet set during 1920s flapper days and then shift to steampunk, audiences will find it jarring and perplexing. Would there be the same problem going from orchestrated classic rock to a baroque piece of a similar energy in the same evening?

Since many potential pieces weren’t written for orchestras, I imagine there would be some cost involved in arranging songs for a larger number of instruments. That could certainly prove an impediment for some organizations, as might royalty payments where required. It might prove a boon for lesser known ensembles if one group’s arrangement was recognized as superior to another’s. Given that the music may be more widely known, a larger segment of the population would have the discernment to make that judgment.

I know that not every piece will lend itself to adaptation for orchestra performance. Those who do not recognize that may shout “Play Freebird!” or the equivalent. But I have to believe there is potential in a lot of works.

I guess there would also be a concern that things were being dumbed down or compromised to fill seats. I have heard of symphonies playing video game themes and integrating cell phone rings into the performance. There is much more potential for a quality experience in this idea –and an interesting educational one too boot! You can have a blues guitarist perform Lead Belly’s version of “Gallis Pole” and talk about the centuries old history of the folk song and then have the whole orchestra play Led Zeppelin’s “Gallows Pole” as a comparison.

Talks about the composers might be a lot more interesting to audiences because some have lived recently enough that the circumstances that influenced their writing are more familiar to audiences. Then there are the controversies over song writing credits.

I know that it is easy for people on the outside to criticize and say they could do better. What I have described here has sort of been my idea of how I would program things if I were in charge.

But to a degree, I am.

I have a lot of under employed symphony musicians running around my community right now. What is to keep me from going to them and asking them to put together a program that mixes a few of the standard pieces with arrangements of more contemporary works for a performance some point in the future? Given my financial resources, I wouldn’t imagine I would get the whole orchestra, but 1/4 might sound impressive enough to determine if the basic concept is sound.

Any success I may have wouldn’t necessarily imply similar promise for orchestras. I do not run an orchestra so expectations of my events are much different than for theirs. While I would love to have this idea succeed and an orchestra schedule these events at my space, real success in my mind is when a change like this becomes the primary practice, not separate from it.

Just Leave Those Barriers Intact, Eh?

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Well, I am actually happy to confess that upon review, there aren’t as many artists being promoted by trite phrases as I implied at the end of my post yesterday. I get 40-50 emails a week from agents and artists during the off-season and close to that a day during the conference season. Even if only 1% contain trite phrases, I am seeing them with enough frequency that it feels like an epidemic.

The general area of offense I had in mind when I mentioned it yesterday is of the “ground breaking, barrier shattering, break through” ilk. I found quite a few of this type in my review. It appeared in emails, two cold call resumes I received in the last month and at least one radio advertisement I have heard lately. The closest to the truth any of these people seemed to get was the label experimental. I see the claim made a lot in reference to dance, but theatre and music make their share.

If you do modern dance with ballet, hiphop or jazz influences, you really aren’t pushing the envelop. Employing Hopi Indian influences gets intriguing. Getting the women of al Qaida to do modern dance is breaking all sorts of barriers. As is a ballet company doing something other than Nutcracker for their Christmas show.

Performance art pieces doing strange things in strange costumes that may or may not be a reference to the alienation of the individual by some force may be entertaining and thought provoking, but the ground was broken and has been pounded back down by many who have come before.

Taking a classic rock tune that appears fairly often on soft and light rock stations, turning it into an easy listening tune and calling it a break through crossover hit is just plain evil.

I have harped on the annoying overuse of “what it means to human” before. I am happy to see that phrase has moved to the fringes. I did see it used two weeks ago, but there had been a very welcome gap in our encounters. (I do pray it isn’t experiencing a revival.) I am hoping that the barrier breakers either find some other ways to talk about themselves or become involved with some legitimately innovative activities.

Use of trite marketing language generally doesn’t have any relation to the value of the performance or audience enjoyment. It does form a first impression so it definitely impacts the likelihood of being considered as a performer.

I’ll be the first to admit that writing effective copy is tough and if I am not, I will be among the first to shout Amen! Staying away from the trite stuff makes it harder but you ain’t gonna get any better allowing yourself to default to those word choices.

Artist, Promote Thy Self!

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Ah summer! When a young theatre manager’s thoughts turn to…collecting promotional information for the upcoming season.

I have been trying to collect information to promote our upcoming season on the web, season brochure, press releases, etc, etc. Much of my motivation is to have most of this into my graphic designer and web person’s hands before I go on vacation so I can come back and review what they have done.

It really astounds me that so many artists are ill prepared to promote their works. I can understand not having images upon my request, especially for works in progress or when an ensemble has had some significant change over. It can be tough getting everyone together and turn around from a photoshoot in a short time.

But there are a couple groups that seem unable to verbalize what is attractive about their work. All I need is 4-5 short sentences at this juncture folks! How hard is it to formulate something to get me excited!

One group I wrote up a blurb of the general sense I would be going for and asked them to fill in some blanks. My blanks even had suggested answers along the lines of – Mitch is a well regarded musician for his virtuosity in (bluegrass, classical, rock). All that they needed to do is clarify what was unclear.

That was over a week ago. I still haven’t heard back from them.

Another group is reviving a masterwork. For two weeks I have asked them for some simple clarification about the program being revised. I saw the principal performer two weeks ago at a theatre and he assured me I would get something (along with the contract) soon. I did receive a blurb this week about the last time he worked together with a guest artist appearing in the revival–but nothing about the revival itself. I finally emailed the organization which secured the grant for the revival asking them for some general information. Their deadline for materials was a few weeks ago so presumably they have something more than I do.

Something I noticed. With one exception, the groups I do have materials for all have agents. I have started to wonder, if not for the agents sending out a standard packet of information, would most of these other groups been in a position to communicate about themselves so clearly? The one exception is a young group without an agent which sent me two fantastic pages dense with great information.

If it comes to pass that agents either sever or reduce their involvement with their less than marquee performers and artists are left to fend for themselves in some manner, it might be a bad situation for many groups.

I don’t have any illusions about my role in things becoming redundant if artists really focused on managing their own business. Yeah managing the business end saps your energy for making art.

Just like anyone associated with an arts organization should be able to passionately extemporize on the value of what they do, every artist should be able to dash off an email or a make a phone call to give a short spiel on why they are worth seeing.

Notice I say extemporize. It is a maneuver that not everyone can do but with enough practice, people can sound unpracticed doing it.

If I have the time to ponder over lunch tomorrow, perhaps my next entry will be on some of the trite phrases being bandied about in promotional messages these days. In this, neither agents nor artists hold the high ground.

Lord knows, some of them do a better job than the publicists for arts organizations. Just take a look at Greg Sandow’s rants from 2005 (read from May 25 through June 15)