I heard a great quote on Talk of the Nation today. It was a quote from Peter Drucker, the great marketing guru of our time. He said (and I’m paraphrasing here):<\/p>\n
The decision to purchase is not about a product’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s about the consumer’s need to satisfy a want and how they anticipate the product fulfilling that want.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nIt makes me think about the orchestral concert and the experience it provides. What do you consumers want? Do you find it being met? How could we present ourselves (either onstage or via marketing) so that more people like you would make a point of attending concerts and supporting the symphony?<\/p>\nHere are my basic expectations as a concertgoer (and I used to go to a lot of symphonic concerts):<\/p>\n
\n
- Easy access to buying tickets, either singly or as a subscription.<\/li>\n
- Attractive, dynamic, and easy-to-spot advertisements of upcoming concerts.<\/li>\n
- Evidence that the orchestra is a vital and active participant in the artistic life of my community.<\/li>\n
- A comfortable, inviting concert hall with modern amenities and excellent acoustics.<\/li>\n
- An engaged and enthusiastic orchestra, performing an a par with the best orchestras in the country.<\/li>\n
- Interesting and stimulating new repertoire combined with old favorites.<\/li>\n
- Great soloists whom I’ve admired from recordings.<\/li>\n
- An engaging and charismatic conductor.<\/li>\n
- Social activities before and\/or after concerts.<\/li>\n
- A chance to meet some of the musicians.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I think that the Oregon Symphony has quite a few of these covered: we are a truly great orchestra – an undiscovered gem to the rest of the nation, but word is starting to get out here in the Northwest. Buying tickets is easy – the website and phone banks will get you a ticket in no time. The orchestra musicians are becoming more and more aware that just playing the notes won’t do – we’ve got to put some body english into it and engage our audiences, as well as go out to the lobby for meet-and-greets from time to time. Carlos is a dynamic presence on the podium, and we play very, very well for him.<\/p>\n
What haven’t we done well? We have dropped the ball on making the case for ourselves as an indispensible part of the community. We should have capitalized on the excitement of Carlos’ arrival four years ago, but we lost our momentum. The advertisements in the print media are often hard to spot, the OSO’s name is small and hard to spot, and they don’t really give an indication of why one should want to go to the concert in the first place. I know that they’re hard at work on this, and hopefully we’ll see some more eye-catching designs next season.<\/p>\n
The hall, well, it just isn’t the greatest. It’s not intended as a concert hall, and it was half adapted into one from the vaudeville hall it once was. Sitting under the balcony is absolutely the worst way to get to know what we sound like – don’t ever sit there, ever! Bring binoculars and sit in the cheap seats at the top of the balcony – it’s the best blended sound of the ensemble. Detail is lost, but the detail you get elsewhere in the hall leaves much to be desired, especially in matters of instrumental balance.<\/p>\n
The programming is coming around – we’ve not done a lot of super standard repertoire with Carlos – his tastes run towards the less-traveled path, which I love, but I miss some of the repertoire that audiences already know and love. Next season really looks like a good balance of the old and the new (though I wish we could present more new commissions).<\/p>\n
Same thing for soloists and guest conductors – bigger names are coming to play in front of us next season, and that will be a boon for us, I think. The orchestra really responds to having a great, established soloist on stage, and the audience really picks up on the energy we generate in that situation as well.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I heard a great quote on Talk of the Nation today. It was a quote from Peter Drucker, the great marketing guru of our time. He said (and I’m paraphrasing here): The decision to purchase is not about a product’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s about the consumer’s need to satisfy a want and how they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[2],"tags":[86,55,3666,62,3656],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","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-48","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":132,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/04\/the-value-of-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":256,"position":0},"title":"the value of radio","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":2887,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/21\/all-quiet-on-the-orchestral-front\/","url_meta":{"origin":256,"position":1},"title":"all quiet on the orchestral front","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the middle of the summer.\u00a0 The dog days, one might say, at least here in Portland, where the mercury is expected to top 90\u00b0F again today.\u00a0 There is little going on, classical musically speaking in Portland right now, except for the final concerts of Chamber Music Northwest's summer festival\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"son_lynx_a","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/son_lynx_a-400x612.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6188,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/04\/16\/great-concerts-ahead\/","url_meta":{"origin":256,"position":2},"title":"great concerts ahead","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 In just two hours the Oregon Symphony will play the first of three subscription concerts in Portland that may be a high point of our season thus far. I think Carlos arrived at the hall on Thursday with a burning desire to show that he's still a relevant and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/james-ehnes-4507-5x7.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":75,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/10\/orchestral-inheritance\/","url_meta":{"origin":256,"position":3},"title":"orchestral inheritance","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I read the most recent issue of Senza Sordino (the journal of ICSOM or the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians) at work yesterday, just before our second of two Garrison Keillor concerts (great fun, and absolutely worth the money if he's coming to an orchestra near you soon\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":426,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/09\/03\/thoughts-about-san-antonio\/","url_meta":{"origin":256,"position":4},"title":"thoughts about san antonio","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As reported by preeminent arts blogger Drew McManus, the San Antonio musicians and management have narrowly averted a strike by settling on a tentative contract (which will be voted on by the musicians today). What is most interesting about this settlement (aside from the typical brinkmanship which characterizes the poor\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":14784,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2018\/07\/31\/summer-catch-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":256,"position":5},"title":"summer catch-up","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I can't believe that it's been nearly two months since my last post! Lots of stuff has been happening, musically. In early July I was at the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, Oregon. I played three orchestral concerts there, and two chamber music concerts. The orchestral concerts were a mixed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/IMG_4363-e1533020147432-500x376.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","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=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}