{"id":236,"date":"2007-03-09T17:16:18","date_gmt":"2007-03-10T01:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/09\/cant-lose-for-winning\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:03:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:03:07","slug":"cant-lose-for-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/09\/cant-lose-for-winning\/","title":{"rendered":"can’t lose for winning"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read this entry<\/a> from David Stabler’s blog with interest. It cites comments by OPB radio host (of the program Beats and Pieces<\/em>) Steven Cantor<\/a> about the new season of the Baltimore Symphony<\/a> in their first year with new music director Marin Alsop<\/a>. Presumably, Cantor (and by extension, Stabler?) is excited the huge amounts of both new music and composer-conductors conducting their own works and music of their contemporaries. He is also amazed by the all seats for $25 and wonders how they’ve made that possible.<\/p>\n

The $25 seats are made possible by a $1 million subsidy<\/a> – they’d lose their collective shirts otherwise.<\/p>\n

As for all the new music – I may have misread all of Stabler’s articles and reviews in the past, but it seemed to me that he wasn’t very excited by the significant amounts of new music (or even 20th century music) programmed by Carlos Kalmar and was making an effort to lobby the decision-makers of the orchestra to go in a different direction. He gave anecdotal evidence that concert-goers were unhappy about the programming and wanted something more traditional. I also remember him denouncing the conservative repertoire choices in the last years of James DePreist’s tenure as well.<\/p>\n

Well, which is it? Should we play less or more new music at the Oregon Symphony? Baltimore has had a long history of new music promotion under the direction of David Zinman, and after the ultra-conservative Yuri Temirkanov, a return to more adventurous programming might be desirable with the new tenure of Alsop.<\/p>\n

And why would light classics be a bad idea? I think there’s support for it both from within the orchestra and from audiences. People loved the Sunday matinees with Norman Leyden, which directly copied the format of concerts of the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler. They featured lighter classics along with more heavy warhorses as well as soloists drawn from the orchestra. There’s a lot of great lighter repertoire that would be fun for the orchestra to play (and much of it is very demanding, despite the light “feel”, believe me!) and for audiences to listen to and enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read this entry from David Stabler’s blog with interest. It cites comments by OPB radio host (of the program Beats and Pieces) Steven Cantor about the new season of the Baltimore Symphony in their first year with new music director Marin Alsop. Presumably, Cantor (and by extension, Stabler?) is excited the huge amounts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,86,55,3666,62,3656],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-classical","tag-conductor","tag-orchestra","tag-oregon","tag-symphony","tag-the-orchestra-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6888,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/13\/dawn-upshaw-cancels-concert-revamped\/","url_meta":{"origin":236,"position":0},"title":"dawn upshaw cancels – concert revamped","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Acclaimed soprano and breast cancer survivor Dawn Upshaw has cancelled her upcoming appearances with both the Oregon Symphony and the Eugene Symphony later this month. While no reason was given for the cancellation, given that Ms. Upshaw is a high-profile breast cancer survivor, one must wonder if her health plays\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Dawn_Upshaw-250x257.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":258,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/02\/abravanel-seats-iraq-invasion\/","url_meta":{"origin":236,"position":1},"title":"Abravanel seats = Iraq Invasion?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The uproar over the changes in seating at the Utah Symphony's Abravanel Hall continues, with some irate patrons going to the media and describing the arbitrary repricing and roping off of seating sections as the equivalent of the US invasion of Iraq. The orchestra decided that their attempt to close\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":243,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/14\/not-just-butts-in-seats\/","url_meta":{"origin":236,"position":2},"title":"not just butts in seats","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Utah Symphony is trying a new tactic to eliminate huge swaths of empty seats in their hall: they're blacking out seats in the back and upper tiers to pack concertgoers closer together to give the impression of a larger audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Read the complete story from the Salt Lake Tribune\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/19\/oso-ticket-sale-act-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":236,"position":3},"title":"OSO ticket sale – act now!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I was just alerted to this new offer from the Oregon Symphony's marketing department - I think it's a great way to get more butts in seats: If you join the OSO's Symphony in E-mail program, you can get specially priced tickets beginning Thursday, April 19th (one day before the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":728,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/01\/cheap-seats-the-oso\/","url_meta":{"origin":236,"position":4},"title":"cheap seats @ the oso","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks for generous support from Symphony sponsor Wells Fargo, now through February 8th, the Oregon Symphony will be offering all seats for the remainder of the season at either $20 or $50 each (except for the Eartha Kitt concert). There's lots of great stuff to grab tickets for, here are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":153,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/24\/oso-patrons-respond-to-consultant\/","url_meta":{"origin":236,"position":5},"title":"OSO patrons respond to consultant","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}