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oregon bach festival saga continues

The saga of the seeming disintegration of the Oregon Bach Festival reached what might be called the early end-game this past week with the news that executive director Janelle McCoy was being laid off and that her position was being eliminated due to budget cuts by the University of Oregon.

Former Berwick Chorus member, OBF board member, and volunteer, Amy Adams had some thoughts that she posted on her Facebook page several days ago. I reached out to her and she agreed to let me reprint them here. Comments welcome.

I’m not currently privy to virtually anything related to the Oregon Bach Festival. When I sang in the chorus, however, I was invited to join the board of directors and immediately was placed on the long-range planning committee. This became the search committee for the new artistic director, a search that resulted in the unanimous selection of Matthew Halls to replace the founding director, Helmuth Rilling. I was pretty well placed to observe the transition as a musician, a board member, and a resident of Eugene. 

1. I’m not currently privy to virtually anything related to the Oregon Bach Festival. When I sang in the chorus, however, I was invited to join the board of directors and immediately was placed on the long-range planning committee. This became the search committee for the new artistic director, a search that resulted in the unanimous selection of Matthew Halls to replace the founding director, Helmuth Rilling. I was pretty well-placed to observe the transition as a musician, a board member, and a resident of Eugene. 

2. I was pretty well placed to observe the transition from Helmuth to Matthew – as a musician, a board member, year-round resident of Eugene and an alumna of the university. It went well. Some musicians reacted with angst, dissatisfaction – this was related more to the sadness of “no one is like Helmuth Rilling, and all things change.” And other musicians remarked, putting their instruments back in cases after a rehearsal…”I like him. That was fun!” I remember a particularly hot day in Portland that by all rights should have been full of very cranky musicians. Hot, crowded. Concert black. The mood was happy, buoyant. It was “A Child of Our Time.” (Tamara Wilson shone.)

3. A couple of summers later, I received a call from the festival saying there would not be a place for me in the chorus, in the upcoming season. Unsurprised, I thanked the administration, staff and board. I grieved. I kept the friendships. I reflected on what was permanent and what wasn’t. I learned as the months went by, what I had gained by long association with Helmuth Rilling and the high level of musicians who ran! to work with him. The moments, those jewels of everlasting joy. Mine, forever. 
And I continued to admire the hell out of Matthew Halls. 

4. When Janelle McCoy took the helm of the festival, I assumed it was the latest in Ways Things Change, and saw no reason from my outsider position for concern. I attended concerts, hugged those I love, schmoozed like I do, went to dinners and parties. Then this debacle unfolded. The festival had let Matthew Halls go.
When I’m interested in a story, I dig. I dug. The more I learned, the more something looked really wrong. Pushing back on all the usual salacious reasons a (popular, successful, valued) conductor might be fired…produced nothing. Nothing.
His character stands up. His work is great. People like him, respect him.
He does not club baby seals for amusment. (Any longer.) #thatwasajoke

5. And the University of Oregon released a statement, which said (in part):
“The transition is a strategic decision, made by OBF administrative leadership and the University of Oregon, and will keep the festival relevant in the ever-changing classical music industry. “There’s an emerging trend,” explains OBF executive director Janelle McCoy, “to plan a season from the perspective of a guest curator from a different field or genre and then invite conductors to participate, rather than programming from a single artistic voice. More and more organizations around the country, such as Ojai Music Festival, are using this model to expand the choices available to their audiences and participants. These choices may include disparate visions from a choreographer, stage director, or jazz musician, for example. We are eager to bring this approach to university students and faculty, as well as our patrons, musicians, and education program participants.” The change also comes as part of the ongoing process to integrate OBF more deeply into the UO community and align itself more strategically with the university’s goals. “We look forward to a wider range of programmatic choices, community events, and cross-departmental relationships with UO faculty, staff, and students – from the UNESCO Crossings Institute, the Department of Equity and Inclusion, and the UO museums, to traditional academic units such as the School of Music and Dance, food studies, classics, humanities, history, and planning, public policy and management. These partnerships,” says McCoy, “might include lectures, public seminars, classes, publications, interactive programming, and so on.” 

This was, in a word, utter bullshit. The Oregon Bach Festival had been sabotaged for this visionless vision of….public policy…where were the words about Bach and Concerts. I was not alone in recognizing this as utter nonsense.

6. I continued to dig. I wrote an editorial which was published in the Eugene Weekly. I was invited to speak on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” and share my concerns. I commented on public forums, using my real name.
What emerged over the next year was a portrait of a woman who inflates her own accomplishments (fluent? in four languages?!Well, that’s uncommon….) and skillfully places herself adjacent to the accomplishments of others (Pulitzer Prize in Music) (this is, I guess, much like the Grammy I won in 2001 for my recording of the Penderecki “Credo” right? Me and about 175 other people…) And reports of odd, brittle behavior. A firing of an absolutely beloved longtime festival artist liaison, with no apparent reason. Volunteers drifting away, not interested anymore. Board members leaving. Others staying, puzzled, sad. 

7. I couldn’t, in good conscience, attend events at the festival last year…or at any rate purchase tickets. I was too sad about the shape it’s in, its rudderless heading. 
Thing is, you see…good musicians still want to make good music. Good scholars still come together and do their professional best. Good people come and listen to it. Other good people make a hard decision and let it go, because they can no longer support it.

But the soul, the unified vision of an artistic director, was gone. This is how a festival-by-committee was going to look.

I went so far as to attend pre-concert events in the lobby, as there were dozens of old friends to see, and went to the same parties and dinners I always had. We talked, shared observations. Toasted what was. 

8. There things sat, really…until this spring, when a flurry of recent events occurred (if bureaucratic decisions can be described as a flurry.) These aren’t in chronological order, but they were announced closely together, which is interesting:

– Longtime OBF donors, Phyzz and Andrew Berwick give $5 million to endow the deanship at the UofO School of Music and Dance. (In the post-Halls festival reorganization, OBF is placed under the authority of the music school dean.) Phyzz Berwick commended Dean Sabrina Madison-Cannon on her “wise way of dealing with situations.”

– The same week, it is announced that the UofO Provost Jayanth Banavar was stepping….down…to join the physics faculty. Banavar signed the letter terminating Matthew Halls from the festival. 

– The Berwicks also underwrote construction of the festival’s home on the UofO campus, Berwick Hall. The investment there is deep and meaningful….and ongoing, it would appear.

9. Two last things, from my perspective as an outsider with opinions:

– The Oregon Bach Festival is headed officially in the exact opposite direction claimed by executive director Janelle McCoy in the widely derided public statement of August, 2017. Link: https://around.uoregon.edu/…/oregon-bach-festival-looks…

Rather than proceed as “guest curated” – they’re searching for an artistic director AGAIN, to replace the one they regrettably cut loose in Matthew Halls. (His conducting career is proceeding quite nicely, by the way.) The newly-endowed dean of the music school herself reports to the university provost…who is himself stepping down from HIS position, during the Bach festival on July 1. (!!!) A true “lame Duck” provost, if you will. *buffing my fingernails over that great line*

– I thought, during my time on the board, that the executive director and the artistic director were true partners. I thought there was an equivalence and balance to what they did. And with Royce Saltzman and Helmuth Rilling there was. 
But the truth is that the AD is a mere contractor at the university of oregon, with no more protections than “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” And no one could have imagined an executive director skillfuly collecting (curating!) thin excuses to cast a shadow on his employment. In a healthy organization, an executive director does the opposite of what’s been happening at OBF. 

Maybe….it’s not too late for the Oregon Bach Festival. 
I dearly hope so.