Posts from — December 2006

I found this link via The Oregonian’s classical music critic David Stabler’s blog. Very interesting reading. Basically, Time Out New York put together a panel of critics to evaluate the major critics in New York City in all major areas, including classical music. Our own colleague in the blogosphere, Alex Ross, rated #1 in this survey - kudos, Alex! A number of the NYTimes critics were savaged, Anthony Tommasini and Anne Midgette in particular. I’d be inclined to agree with all of the results, though it is a very subjective thing to judge.

I’m not sure how this would go over, but maybe a minute for mission sometime in the concert. Churches do this and people still go to church… If not a direct solicitation for money, solicit for ideas on how to make more money.

I recently read a survey result that basically said that people really dislike too much “business” being taken care of during the concert experience. Maybe it would be different here in Portland, but it’s hard to do well - you’ve got to ride the line between keeping the dignity of the concert experience and appealing to a sense of philanthropy for someone who has just plunked down an average of $50 for a ticket for that evening’s concert. That being said, a gentle reminder never hurts…

What were the new attempts that didn’t work? Have you posted about these already on your blog?

I have not, and I might soon, I want to see if there are further changes coming down the pike. However, tinkering with the format is a dangerous game, and I can see why the management would want to take their time in making decisions that could have a potentially disastrous implications for the future in terms of lost revenue or attendance.

And, I’m not sure I have any good solutions. “Bring your child, grand-daughter, niece, great-nephew (no matter how old or young they are) to the orchestra for free” afternoon? A silent auction where major donors get to decide exactly what is played for an entire concert? Maybe an ensemble auction in which small ensembles pulled from the larger group, a quintet here, trio there, duet there (some standard and some non-standard; string quartet or tuba and piccolo), could be auctioned and sold for an hour or two (or even one piece for the small bidders, or one piece over their phone or answering machine) of music at either someone’s home, or, in the case of a bank or law firm, in it’s lobby, or at a holiday party.

These are all great ideas - especially the “bring a young person” idea. We certainly have enough empty seats that it would be possible to do, at least at the less expensive seating areas. I also think that auctioning off ensembles would be a very good idea and that there could be quite a bit of interest on the part of the musicians to do this as well.

Also, was the Pointer Sister’s concert one of these fancy attempts? I went and enjoyed it, and saw other people enjoying it though I would think the target demographic here was more like 40-50+. And, it was mildly amusing to me how pained and un-amused the members of the orchestra seemed from the balcony. (I recently saw a recording of a Sheryl Crow concert during which her string section rocked and jammed throughout the whole concert whether they were playing at the time or not.)

I don’t think so, at least not a ‘fancy’ attempt. I’m glad that the audience enjoyed it. The pained expressions on our faces may have had more to do with the sound levels on stage than the content of the program (I love the motown style). During concerts with pop performers we often have to resort to earplugs in both ears to safely deal with the sound levels which can sometimes exceed the OSHA standards. We have to save our hearing for our other concerts as well - and we hate to have to wear earplugs, and it’s often not possible to get the sound guys that travel with the acts to get the speakers that point our direction down to a safe level.

That being said, you have an excellent point. People come to SEE as well as HEAR live concerts, and a bored or unhappy looking orchestra doesn’t inspire repeat visits.

I’m not sure how to combat the not having a contract issue. I don’t know enough about business or corporations to know why they need CEO’s who get paid exorbitant amounts of money to do something like draw up a contract. Surely there’s a law firm or individual in the area who would be interested in season tickets and/or other perks for it’s partners/family members in exchange for legal services? Probably not as simple as that but I’d like to think I’m being helpful.

No way to combat this - it’s just a matter of bad timing down the line. It took (for a variety of reasons) an entire year to negotiate our last contract (known as a collective bargaining agreement, or CBA), and it expired just weeks after it was signed, because management didn’t want a multi-year contract put in place while they were involved in the search for a new president. So, we’re now playing with an expired contract, which means that the old terms are still in force until either a new contract is agreed to or until talks reach an impasse. It’s bad for us (and should be for management) because we can’t know what our future income/expenses will be beyond this year: will we be paying more for health insurance, or will our salary be cut? It’s not a morale booster, that’s my main point.

And of course, you don’t have to explain yourself to me, but I don’t understand where you are coming from. I’m sure it’s not my place to say this, but even though things are crummy, you are getting paid a living wage to play music, aren’t you? When you say that you’re playing without a contract, does that mean they aren’t paying you?

Just a brief note about a living wage - we’re not paid enough to be able to buy a house in the Portland market, with a base wage (which many of the string players make) of around $39,000 per year. With the median price of around $250,000 for a house in Portland, no mortgage broker is going to approve you for a loan with only that income. Add to this the fact that many of us are providing for families and paying off very expensive instruments ($15,000 and up, up, up for string instruments) as well as student loans and, sure, it’s better than a minimum wage job, but we’ve trained for this profession from an early age, and most of us have advanced degrees from prestigious schools. It’s not so much the bare amount of pay, but how we compare to other professionals who begin with much higher base salaries with similar amounts of training and excellence in what they do.

Again, I’m not sure that I completely understand where you are coming from, but maybe the “knowledgeable” donors and board members are part of the problem. Instead of people who are willing to appreciate, support, and give you unconditional artistic license, they have their own ideas of what is best based on their, perhaps, limited knowledge and background.

What I meant was that board members, donors and audience members with at least a little practical musical education are more likely to give, attend and support orchestras. With the educational system continually devaluing the arts in their curricula, it’s going to be harder and harder to draw in or find people who have this practical experience, and who will bring in others who lack it. We find that these knowledgeable patrons do nothing but good for the orchestra and arts in the community in general. The fact that they’re getting scarcer and scarcer is disheartening to those of us in the arts community.

As for the recording issue, we have a very complicated and long-negotiated national agreement that governs the use of recorded material. Right now, there is much disagreement amongst players and administrators (as well as between them, too) as to how much compensation should be given for various uses, and the advent of downloads has only complicated the issue. I agree that recordings should be viewed mainly as a marketing resource rather than as a revenue source, at least until we understand this rapidly shifting marketplace of ideas and technology. Many don’t share my view, however, and it will be some time before this issue gets resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. My main point was that we should at least be recording our concerts at broadcast/recording quality so that we have these excellent performances “in the can” for future use.

Thanks so much for your response - it was gratifying to see your level of interest and passion for the symphony - I know that many out there share these qualities, and I’m confident that we can make it through this difficult time that all orchestras and arts organizations are facing.

I received this thoughtful response from an OSO subscriber - I very much appreciate her comments, most especially about the lack of post-concert interaction between patrons and musicians.

1. How can we motivate those with the deepest pockets to see the orchestra as a community asset which helps the greater good of the community in which it resides?

Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I do know that people, whether they have money or not, don’t like being badgered, especially on the phone, no matter how worthy the cause. I noticed on the symphony website (months ago) a position open for someone in subscription sales. I can’t remember the exact percentages; however, a large percentage of the job description was phone sales.

I could financially afford to get a subscription and so I did. If for some reason I couldn’t next year, it would be painful and irritating to get calls from the symphony office asking me to defend my logic for not renewing. I have heard that arts organizations in this area are somewhat known for intense phone solicitation which I find distasteful.

And, I’m not sure I have any good solutions. “Bring your child, grand-daughter, niece, great-nephew (no matter how old or young they are) to the orchestra for free” afternoon? A silent auction where major donors get to decide exactly what is played for an entire concert? Maybe an ensemble auction in which small ensembles pulled from the larger group, a quintet here, trio there, duet there (some standard and some non-standard; string quartet or tuba and piccolo), could be auctioned and sold for an hour or two (or even one piece for the small bidders, or one piece over their phone or answering machine) of music at either someone’s home, or, in the case of a bank or law firm, in it’s lobby, or at a holiday party.

I’m not sure how this would go over, but maybe a minute for mission sometime in the concert. Churches do this and people still go to church… If not a direct solicitation for money, solicit for ideas on how to make more money. Also, when people give extra, more than the price of a ticket, they kind of want to get extra. Better perks for orchestra society members? Calendars? Cook books (ie the orchestra’s favorite recipes)?

2. Since fancy new attempts to attract the 25-40 year old “golden” audience demographic seem not to work here in Portland - how do we appeal to people who are indifferent to classical music in practice (but in favor of it in theory) in a cultural landscape that favors the hip and cutting edge without alienating our primary base audience which sticks with us through thick and thin?

What were the new attempts that didn’t work? Have you posted about these already on your blog? I think my brothers fall into this category; in favor in theory, but don’t attend concerts. I’ll talk to them. Also, was the Pointer Sister’s concert one of these fancy attempts? I went and enjoyed it, and saw other people enjoying it though I would think the target demographic here was more like 40-50+. And, it was mildly amusing to me how pained and un-amused the members of the orchestra seemed from the balcony. (I recently saw a recording of a Sheryl Crow concert during which her string section rocked and jammed throughout the whole concert whether they were playing at the time or not.) I wonder how easy it would be to collaborate with some of the local up and coming artists, jazz, hip-hop, rock, whoever, in the Portland music scene. OPB really likes “Pink Martini.”

3. If we alienate our base they won’t come back for years. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the public flap about the non-renewal of our former principal flutist has led to negative feelings about our music director and that those who are feeling badly are very reluctant to return to concerts, regardless of who is on the podium.

The best I can come up with right now is perhaps a moderated forum with the music director during which the public can ask him everything they want to ask and more. Of course, that could come across as a hokey antic and if many people are truly sore and tired of the discussion, it’ll just sicken them even more… maybe you could just ask them with an ad in some local papers or on the radio, “How can we get you to come back?”; unfortunately, that takes more money and may not be fruitful. (In relation to the end of my answer to question 4, maybe you just have to be upfront when you talk to people. “Do you know anyone who has stopped attending our concerts? How can we ever get them back?”)

4. How do we reconcile our low level job satisfaction with our need to project positive and involved personas on-stage?

I’m not sure how to combat the not having a contract issue. I don’t know enough about business or corporations to know why they need CEO’s who get paid exorbitant amounts of money to do something like draw up a contract. Surely there’s a law firm or individual in the area who would be interested in season tickets and/or other perks for it’s partners/family members in exchange for legal services? Probably not as simple as that but I’d like to think I’m being helpful.

And of course, you don’t have to explain yourself to me, but I don’t understand where you are coming from. I’m sure it’s not my place to say this, but even though things are crummy, you are getting paid a living wage to play music, aren’t you? When you say that you’re playing without a contract, does that mean they aren’t paying you?

Easy for me to say, but put your woes aside, give a jolly good concert, and rush out after the concert to greet and thank the people who do attend before they leave. (If they swarm you backstage, maybe you could suggest, “may we continue this conversation as I make my way to the lobby?” or encourage people to come backstage if it’s too hard to make it to the lobby.)

I see the signs that say that orchestra members will be in the lobby to mingle and I never see any—ok well never say never; I didn’t see any at the last concert I went to 3 weeks ago. Now maybe I’m not looking hard enough and maybe I’m not doing my part, since I don’t wait around at all to see if any will show up. But I climb down from the upper balcony. Is that trek time consuming enough to give orchestra members time to get to the lobby? Maybe the herd I rush out with goes faster than it seems.

So to answer part of your question: a hearty performance of everything on the program, and a “thank you for attending” afterward. Making the evening more personal to the people who attend might get them to tell their friends about it. And then maybe their friends will want to go to see which orchestra member talks to them afterwards? how about free food after the concert? Cookies and coffee, perhaps, donated by a local bakery?

5. Given that studies have shown that the vast majority of major donors and/or board members of symphony orchestras have studied music earlier in life for at least a couple years, do we really have a chance to reverse the trend when arts programs are among the first to be cut and the last to be reinstated due to budget shortages?

Again, I’m not sure that I completely understand where you are coming from, but maybe the “knowledgeable” donors and board members are part of the problem. Instead of people who are willing to appreciate, support, and give you unconditional artistic license, they have their own ideas of what is best based on their, perhaps, limited knowledge and background. “Reversing the trend”—meaning keeping knowledgeable people on boards given that fewer and fewer people will be knowledgeable? If almost 60% of the funds are expected to come from private foundations, companies and individuals, I would think the organization would tank before you have unknowledgeable board members.

About recording performances, why not have orchestra members place personal recorders amongst the group and record what it sounds like from their perspective and sell those, maybe for not very much…$5? Or allow audience members to audio record performances and encourage them to share their recordings? Even if these people turn around and sell them, if you’re not recording anyway, then the group isn’t losing money; and it’s still a form of free publicity.
I’m surprised that the orchestra doesn’t have it’s own recording equipment though, I can’t even fathom how much truly state-of-the-art technology costs. Some people revere old recordings of famous conductors, groups, and soloists. While some of these have been re-mastered, there are people quite content to listen to their scratchy, old LP’s, though that technology was probably state of the art in it’s time.

My last crazy left-field idea on how to get an extra dollar out of people like me: have a raffle for audience members to sit on the stage among the players in the orchestra for one piece of one concert. Or a raffle amongst people who are members of the orchestra society? Or both? I hope I haven’t started writing in circles and that at least some of my thoughts make sense.

I’d gotten a couple really good responses to the semi-rant that I posted a couple days ago, and one of them came back to having orchestra members coming out to the foyer after concerts (it’s a practice that we instituted a few years back, but the number of players going out has diminished to nothing in the past couple months).

Now comes this article from the New York Times which talks about a new Juilliard program to make graduates effective outreach participants as well as top orchestral players. This is an excellent idea in theory, but I’d love to see a program that could be offered to currently employed or post-graduate musicians as well. It’s something that we really need to leverage for greater connection with our audiences.

My problem with this article: the best player doesn’t get the job, at least that’s what is suggested in the article’s first three paragraphs. Hiring shouldn’t solely rely upon one’s verbal skills or ability to help fundraising efforts, should it? I’d rather see a program to train new hires in how to do outreach than make it a prerequisite to hiring which has more import than one’s standard of musicianship and playing. Period. Discuss.

I was perusing the 2002 Audience Insight study (presented by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) on orchestral audience segmentation when I found this paragraph (which was used as a pull-quote in large type on the first page of the study findings). It makes the pulling of the plug on Oregon Symphony radio broadcasts and broadcast-quality archival recordings seem all the more a move that was made in desperation and very much requires revisiting by all members and stakeholders in the symphony family (emphasis mine):

Radio is the dominant mode of consumption of classical music, followed by recordings and then live concerts. Six in 10 orchestra ticket buyers listen to classical music on the radio daily or several times a week. The typical orchestra subscriber owns 105 records, tapes and CDs, compared to 63 for single-ticket buyers. While some consumers think of classical radio programming as a substitute for live concerts (particularly those with modest levels of knowledge about classical music), most do not. Generally, classical consumers sustain and enhance their interest in the art form through radio and recordings.

You can download a complete copy of this report here (Adobe Reader required).

Derek Bermel is one of America’s hottest and most admired young composers, with high profile commissions and performances all around North America. On his blog I found one of the most concise descriptions of how a composer finds their voice - here’s the crucial excerpt:

The following morning I returned to the darkened microfilm room and remained for an hour, then another hour. Nothing new. I spent several days trekking to the library, waiting in vain. One day, at long last, I managed to achieve a kind of thought vacuum. No material entered or left my brain; it was a mental zone akin to meditation. After a seemingly interminable period during which the ‘nothing’ manifested itself, a sound wandered into my head. It was not what I had expected. It was a beat. I attempted to push it away, but it remained stuck in my consciousness. So I began trying to divine where the rhythm wanted to go, in which direction it tended to grow. It was in this moment that I began discovering my ‘voice’ as a composer.

You can find the rest here.

Much has been written about how composers find their voices, their individual means of expression, but not much has been written about how instrumentalists or singers find theirs. I suppose it’s much the same, in a way. Composers begin by studying the works of those who have gone before them, and try to emulate what they find to be novel or interesting or good. Those composers who have the “right stuff” eventually reach a point where these borrowed methods or devices no longer suit them and their own sound begins to emerge - the pastiche ends and the pure line begins.

With instrumentalists, we study with private teachers for years until we begin our professional careers. Our teachers give us fingerings for tough passages, school us in basic and advanced techniques, and get us through the “standard” repertoire so that we have a basis on which to go on our own after school is done. Good teachers help their students to learn how to teach themselves - forcing the student to figure out the form of a piece and how to deal with new technical demands.

I remember the process during my four years of study with Roberto Diaz (formerly Principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and now President of the Curtis Institute of Music). There came a time where I stopped listening to recordings of various famous violists playing the repertoire I was working on, and when I became less needy of in-studio demonstrations by my teacher. I found that I was formulating my own ideas about sound and interpretation, and these were at odds with what Roberto was proposing. This seemed unreal! How could I possibly have ideas that were “good” enough to stand up to one of the great violists of the world? And he took my ideas in and allowed me to make my own mistakes and learn why some things are done certain ways, but also recognized when something which was not his way was a way that could work for me. The main process at work was that I could do anything I wanted to, but it had to have a foundation in reason, in other words, I had to be able to walk the talk. It was tough, but I think that this process is essential to one finding their own voice in any art form, be it drama, comedy, literature, poetry, singing, etc.

Finding the voice of an ensemble can me even more of a tortuous journey. Orchestras take decades to find their sound, or the sound that their music director envisions. I think that’s why many orchestras sound the same these days. The MD’s rarely stay for much more than a decade and the orchestra is left with a half-formed concept of sound and style. String quartets are perhaps the ideal example. With around ten years of the same personnel, a distinct sound emerges, and no quartet sounds the same. If you listen to recordings of quartets with different personnel, they sound markedly different, regardless of which player has been replaced. In this case, you have four people who are learning the quirks of the others and who are learning the repertoire while also trying to find a common approach to it at the same time.

That’s my half-formed post for today - my posts of late have been a bit scattered, and certainly have no claim to any organization or logical structure. I too am only just beginning to find my blogging voice.

Thanks for the many comments in response to my last post. As I read it again I’m finding it rather whiney in tone and I’m not sure what to do about that. I’m almost ready to just delete it and forget about ever writing it.

Tonight, if you’ve got nothing else going on, come down to the Oregon Symphony concert and see the amazing mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó performing three incredible opera arias by Handel. The arias are from his operas Ariodante and Alcina, and they stand up to anything written since, simply and unimaginably beautiful.

I just had a long discussion with some colleagues at a lunch break yesterday, and it revolved around the fact that we’re playing without a contract (since last June) and progress right now is painfully slow because we don’t have a full-time president of the association (the management CEO) due to immigration work-visa problems (the person in question is Canadian).

I think that there is a high level of frustration with the fact that we don’t feel valued by the community in which we live and perform. It might not be true, but it feels about true to us when we look out into a half-empty auditorium for many of our concerts. We’re up on stage, working hard, making music to standard that is the highest in the orchestra’s history. However, the orchestra is unable to meet fund-raising goals which would make financial security viable, while less people each season seem to want to attend our concerts.

We’ve had some vanity gifts which have enabled our previous music director to record anything he wanted, but nothing that would enable recording anything with our current music director. On that front, we cannot even afford to record our concerts at broadcast or recording quality due to budget constraints - and these performances will be lost forever for future use. It’s not that we can’t afford to produce the recordings, but that we can’t even afford to hire the engineer to record, rent equipment and edit the masters.

So, this leads me back to the larger questions/thoughts:

1. How can we motivate those with the deepest pockets to see the orchestra as a community asset which helps the greater good of the community in which it resides?

2. Since fancy new attempts to attract the 25-40 year old “golden” audience demographic seem not to work here in Portland - how do we appeal to people who are indifferent to classical music in practice (but in favor of it in theory) in a cultural landscape that favors the hip and cutting edge without alienating our primary base audience which sticks with us through thick and thin?

3. If we alienate our base they won’t come back for years. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the public flap about the non-renewal of our former principal flutist has led to negative feelings about our music director and that those who are feeling badly are very reluctant to return to concerts, regardless of who is on the podium.

4. How do we reconcile our low level job satisfaction with our need to project positive and involved personas on-stage?

5. Given that studies have shown that the vast majority of major donors and/or board members of symphony orchestras have studied music earlier in life for at least a couple years, do we really have a chance to reverse the trend when arts programs are among the first to be cut and the last to be reinstated due to budget shortages?

I’d welcome your thoughts on these questions - I’m stumped, and I think that the industry as a whole is, too.

You can contact me directly here.