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pink weekend December 30, 2006

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I’m playing as a member of the Harvey Rosencrantz Orchestra with Pink Martini this weekend. Tonight was a private event for Standard Insurance, and tomorrow we’ve got two New Year’s Eve shows (7:00 and 10:30 p.m.) I’ll take my camera tomorrow, but for now you get to see my access badge.

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a violist you should know about December 28, 2006

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I got to know Naoko Shimizu at Tanglewood in 1994. We were both fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center. I did not know her well, but there were only 12 violas there that summer, and so everyone knew each other at least a little. One of the 8 weeks we were there, Samuel Rhodes (violist of the Juilliard Quartet and faculty member at the Juilliard School) gave a masterclass. Naoko got up and played the Bartók concerto - and I mean PLAYED! She knocked it out of the park. Before then she hadn’t sat principal of the section in the orchestra and was very quiet and kept to herself. We had no idea who we were dealing with. Come to find out, she was a student of Nobuko Imai, one of the world’s leading violists and teachers, studying with her in Germany. The next five summers she went on to play at the Marlboro Festival and tour with Musicians from Marlboro.

I didn’t hear anything about her for a while, then I happened upon a blurb about her winning the ARD Competition in Munich in 1997 and the Concert Artists Guild competition in 1998.

Then, in 2001 I heard about her from a fellow Tanglewood alum - she’d won a Principal viola position with the Berlin Philharmonic. I was floored - this is like hearing that someone you’d gone to a summer program with had been elected president or senator.

Anyway, a couple of months ago I was doing one of my periodic Google searches for people I’d once known, and found links to a company which was producing recordings of Naoko’s. So, if you’re game, buy one and hear some truly phenomenal playing.

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OSO patrons respond to consultant December 24, 2006

Posted by Charles Noble in : the orchestra world, add a comment

The Oregonian received some letters (judging by the fact that they printed three of them, there must have been a lot of letters received) in response to David Stabler’s interview of Elaine Calder, the consultant hired by the symphony to evaluate and fix what ails it. Here is a link to the letters.

I’ve selected some of the more interesting points of the letters below:

Elaine Calder could easily drive away my kind of subscriber with her “niche” presentations. I agree the balance of music could be better, but it seems sensible to me to, first, hang on to the audience you have and, second, seek ways to add to it without losing the faithful — who also are contributors. Do those who buy tickets to “niche” concerts contribute to the symphony’s deficit? . . . However, I strongly agree with Calder’s criticism of weak outreach efforts. I don’t know what was done in Spokane, but our seats were next to some that were sold separately each performance, and they never were empty. Almost always, they were filled with someone from out of town: Trail, B.C., Libby, Mont. — which meant spending the night — or Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, or Ritzville, Wash. — which meant a long drive home. If Spokane can reach out to its hinterland, why can’t Portland, which has a larger and better orchestra and better programs?

To those of us who have been attending Oregon Symphony concerts for some decades now, your article in Sunday’s paper is no surprise. The days of financial viability through the passionate support of a select audience in any entertainment field are over . . . “Weak efforts at broadening audiences” is, I think, the major problem. . .
The last time I read about the problem of dwindling attendance, the response was a year of more Beethoven, more Brahms, and even more Tchaikovsky, with the Mendelssohn violin concerto and Rachmaninoff’s second concerto thrown in, in case one didn’t get the point. “You don’t do cartwheels on a precipice,” was Maestro (James) DePreist’s rationale.

But you do if you wish to attract attention, and attention by other than a handful of diehard graybeards like me, is what classical music sorely needs.

I am a longtime subscriber and donor to the Oregon Symphony. I just wish for once that David Stabler would write something positive about the orchestra. While his recent article about the arts consultant (Elaine Calder, Sunday O!, Dec. 17) deserves circulation, it seems that all we hear from The Oregonian about the orchestra is negative. There is a lot to be positive about at the symphony these days. The orchestra is playing at a superb level and is energized under the imaginative leadership of music director Carlos Kalmar, who is responsible for turning the symphony into a first-rate orchestra. Why can’t we have a story about the amazing artistic growth at the symphony?

As for Calder’s ideas, I feel that, if implemented, they could be a disaster for the orchestra. Calder cites an alleged imbalance of music, apparently believing that Christian soft rock and playing only what audiences want to hear is the way to proceed. It seems to me that this leads to “dumbing” down of classical music and to concerts consisting mainly of war-horses being played yet another time. This is a recipe for artistic stagnation, bored musicians and orchestral mediocrity.

At the risk putting words in people’s mouths, I’ll make some observations on these peoples’ comments. The overall theme seems to be “don’t fix what isn’t broken, but please do fix what is”. Clearly, these patrons all believe in our music director and his vision, and value the artistic progress that the orchestra has made under his tenure. You don’t want to alienate your core constituents while you try to get the (seemingly mythical) new, younger audience members in the door. If you mess too much with (and I hate this word to describe what we do) the product, it confuses everyone: both your loyal supporters and those whom you intend to woo.

The dilemma is that Portland (and Oregon as a whole) is a funny animal. We’re at a population level that doesn’t really support some programs like late morning coffee concerts or rush hour concerts, because we don’t have (yet) enough people who live in the central downtown region to support such concerts (try getting people in from Wilsonville or Lake Oswego for a 5:00 p.m. rush hour concert!).

I think one possible answer might be trying two strategies:

First, charge admission for open seating for all open rehearsals (except for subscribers and donors, who could have a pass for the Dress Circle section) - it needn’t be much, around $10. People will pay $10 for something new, and they might even come back for full-price offerings (whereas studies show that if you give something away for free, no one will want to ever pay for it) and it would build buzz for concerts. The way Carlos rehearses, we don’t often do a complete run-through in the dress rehearsal, so people might come back for the same series once they’ve heard what’s on offer.

Second, sell discount rush tickets one hour before every concert. They could be a block of seats in the upper balcony (where the sound is best, but you need binoculars) or they could be randomly distributed by the ticketing computer (this week you got row Z, but next week you might get Dress Circle). How much for these tickets? I’d say around $20 - 25. It’s cheaper than anything but student rush tickets and you might get an incredible seat. People in Portland love a bargain and the unknown. As for losing money - we’re losing a ton with the empty seats, and as the letters show (if you read the entire text at the Oregonian’s web site) sitting amongst a lot of empty seats is a big turn-off to those patrons who are already enthusiastically supporting the symphony. Plus, a line around the block for the rush tickets builds excitement and buzz (Hey - what’s going on at the Schnitz, I’ve never seen a line like that before for the symphony, we should check it out!)

happy holidays, all! December 23, 2006

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happy holidays, all!

happy holidays, all!,
originally uploaded by nobleviola.

Happy Holidays to all of our friends and family around the country and the world - here’s to a more peaceful and loving 2007.

OSO violinist in Venezuela December 22, 2006

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OSO violinist Inés Voglar is from Venezuela and was educated through the huge “system” of music education that encompasses the entire nation. She went down during our Christmas break to play the Bruch Violin Concerto with her old youth orchestra. You can see a clip here.

watch out for that first step… December 21, 2006

Posted by Charles Noble in : the orchestra world, add a comment

Just caught the first salvos of blogosphere responses to the Oregonian interview with Elaine Calder, the consultant hired by the Oregon Symphony. The responses so far are not good, and how could they be, given the headline presented in the Playbill Arts story on the interview:

Consultant Suggests Oregon Symphony May
Play Too Much Classical Music

I hope beyond hope that the impressions given (and taken) by the dissemination of the interview from The Oregonian are the result of attempting to cram too much information into too few column inches. I don’t want to comment on any of the information in the article at this time, but I do wish that we in the orchestra had heard some of these thoughts from Ms. Calder before we awoke to the Sunday Oregonian’s coverage in the arts section. Candor is one thing that we sorely need, but clearly it can also cut both ways.

Without further ado, here are the excerpts from the postings that convey the basic takes of the various blogs on this story (click the links for full text at the individual blogs). I’ll keep looking for more comments, if there are any positive ones, I’ll update this post.

Oh, dear God. I’m all for pops concerts that boost the bottom line, but not pops concerts that are straight-up religious pandering. (How about some klezmer concerts and visits to the temple? An oud soloist and a trip to the mosque? Nah—it’s not like those people will ever assimilate. Besides, there aren’t enough of them to make pandering financially worthwhile!) If I were a patron of the Oregon Symphony, I’d be downsizing my donations by the exact amount they’re paying this blowhard.

So from what I’ve read so far, we should probably be doing “Christian soft-rock”. OH PLEASE SPARE ME! That music … I’ve heard a lot of it, trust me … is frequently low quality, wanna-be-pop-but-not-quite, lame stuff. (I’m a Christian, so please understand I’m not mocking the faith. Only the music.) And some is even right up there with the pop stuff. But since when does a symphony orhcestra want to play pop music? AND, when we actually do play that music, we get mocked and laughed at. And we are embarrassed. To be quite frank, when we play that sort of stuff I feel like we’ve turned the symphony hall into an extremely large elevator. Or dentist office. Muzak? Yep.

The Oregon Symphony is in the hands of a fool named Elaine Calder, whom the Portland Oregonian describes as “a straight-talking Canadian arts consultant who spent the past five years turning around the continent’s northernmost professional orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony.” Not only is she stupid; she’s dangerous, because she’s giving bad advice to a troubled orchestra.

But that utter contempt notwithstanding, no marketing type could, in actual, real life, possibly be as imbecile and clueless as the marketing type who is the subject of Mr. Reel’s piece; ergo, my conviction that Mr. Reel is in fact engaging in a clever bit of satire.

1. Why did Ms. Calder present her ideas to The Oregonian before presenting them to the board? Wasn’t she hired by the board in the first place?
2. Why does she list a problem of the orchestra as being too “Portland-centric” when she is also recommending the orchestra get into the community more?
3. Ms. Calder’s comment that “the balance of power has shifted to the consumer.” Really? Didn’t the balance of power always lie with the consumer in arts organizations? Maybe she should be saying that the Oregon Symphony needs to find their market.
4. Notably missing from the list of fixes is the desire to find more possible donors. It worked for the COC and it worked for Tapestry (as seen with their hearty surplus this year).
5. Why change the musicians’ contracts? Putting their livelihood on the chopping block might sound good on paper but they’re the ones that do the playing and really bring the audiences in. Rather, why not focus on excellence in performance?

I think there is some wisdom in what Calder advocates. While it’s important for the classical tradition to continue, in order for that to happen, the institutions that are responsible for that must survive financially. And who knows–perhaps those people who come to hear Michael W. Smith might come back some time to hear Hilary Hahn?

December 21, 2006

Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, 1 comment so far

Alexander Markov-Paganini Caprice nr 5

This is just amazing - check out the up-bow and down-bow staccato mid-way through the piece. Cheesy production, but phenomenal playing!

December 21, 2006

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Hagen Quartet plays Ravel

One of my favorite quartets playing one of my favorite quartets (1st mvt).

December 21, 2006

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Gilles Apap plays Mozart

The cadenza to the third movement of the G major concerto. Must be seen/heard to be believed. Wonderful, someone we should get to the OSO one of these days.

whither the future of corporate giving December 19, 2006

Posted by Charles Noble in : the orchestra world, 2comments

First, take a look at this excellent blog entry by composer Matthew Guerrieri concerning the recent news that Bank of America is pulling its funding for Boston’s Bank of America Celebrity Series which includes the venerable classical series at Jordan Hall. Then come back and let’s talk.

This is the paragraph I find most telling, and the most applicable to what’s happening here in Portland, Oregon and with the Oregon Symphony:

. . . the Celebrity Series is getting dumped not because it’s less efficient than other arts organizations, but because it’s more poorly suited to ancillary advertising benefits. It doesn’t have its own building; it doesn’t get a lot of “passers-by” to glimpse a corporate logo as they walk through; it isn’t big enough (as, for example, the MFA or the BSO) to warrant the kind of civic boosterism exemplified by those ubiquitous streetlamp banners.

Matthew makes excellent points about the fact that corporations are doing what they should in order to make their returns to their shareholders. What’s missing is a moderating influence on the bottom-line mentality. Boston is one situation, where there are more than a few Fortune 500 corporations in residence (whereas in Oregon we have just one: Nike, in the Fortune 500, and three others in the Fortune 1000: Precision Castparts, Lithia Motors and StanCorp Financial), yet they are facing the problems that come from large corporations which have traditionally been funding sources, but which now are headquartered several states (and states of mind) away. [1]

This makes me worry, as Bank of America (headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina) sponsors our Pops Series, and US Bancorp (headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota) holds our line of credit which keeps the orchestra afloat year to year by financing our yearly deficits over time. They have been great partners with the symphony and many other arts organizations in Portland, and for that I’m very thankful, but I wonder when the other shoe will drop, and priorities will move away to other organizations.

How do we, as an organization which presents classical symphonic concerts, make ourselves a highly visible part of the artistic fabric of our region? We aren’t open all the time like an art museum. We don’t bring in huge amounts of revenue like a sports team. We aren’t imported from New York City like a touring Broadway show. As such we don’t have the marquee value for corporations wishing to get more bang for their philanthropic buck.

The answer clearly isn’t “dumbing down” what we do, but we can make what we do relate more to people’s everyday lives, or at least the everyday lives that they wish they had. Coming to a concert is a special event - it should never seem routine. People should have a sense of mystery when they come into a concert hall: what is this young soloist going to show us? what is this newly commissioned piece going to be like? what will the new young conductor do with Beethoven’s Fifth? Pops concerts should show the best of contemporary entertainment - top line actors, singers and musicians without peer, all stepping outside of their usual zone to work with a full, professional symphony orchestra.

Clearly, we at the Oregon Symphony are at a crucial juncture in our history. The life of the institution hangs in the balance. James DePreist once said “You don’t do cartwheels on a precipice”, an astute observation as only he could utter it, but neither should one fiddle while Rome burns.
Perhaps as we as an institution think about ways to make our mission more relevant to our community, we ought also to think about how our mission might make us a prime target for philanthropic giving. I might be naive in thinking this way, but I think that the two issues are related in a very deep and meaningful way.
[1] Source: April 17, 2006 issue, Fortune magazine.