Tag: greg sandow

The Cleveland Orchestra & the "Local Orchestra"

Matthew EilarLeave a comment
One of Portland artist Trixie Biltmore's impressions of Portland Opera's production of Hansel and Gretel. http://www.meencomics.com

 

Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal on Enrique Fernandez, the Cleveland Orchestra’s new “critic-in-residence”:

Despite his resounding title, Mr. Fernández is not a critic in the ordinary sense of the word. His blog, which you can visit by going to clevelandorchestramiami.com and clicking on “blog,” is an online magazine that runs feature pieces about the orchestra and its activities in Miami. In addition, Mr. Fernández invites concertgoers to post their own thoughts on the orchestra’s performances: “Online everybody’s a critic…. Comment on the concert you are about to experience. Review if you wish, if you must. Hey, it’s your ticket, rave on, pan on.”Mr. Fernández and the Cleveland Orchestra are clearly trying to come up with an institutional equivalent of the “online communities” that spring up around homemade blogs. This kind of blogging is still relatively new in the world of art, and to date the only institutions that seem to have embraced it wholeheartedly are museums (an especially good example is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Unframed,” which is at lacma.wordpress.com). Classical-music organizations, by contrast, seem ill at ease with the openness and interactivity of blogging, and even the best of their efforts, such as the St. Louis Symphony’s STL Symphony Blog (stlsymphony.org/blog), tend to be one-way operations that aren’t open to comments or email from readers.

As much as I usually disagree with Sandow, he’s absolutely right in questioning “new media” ventures that don’t engage in a thoughtful way with their audience. An orchestra blog without a personal perspective or engagement with commenters and other bloggers is nothing more than a glorified press release. It’s also true that only the biggest players in the game can afford–as in, “stop losing your audience” afford–to not participate (and it should be noted that the big players can get away with not directly engaging with their audience because there’s a cohort of bloggers who are willing to translate and comment upon press releases).
One of the best organizational efforts that I’ve come across trying to really understand a local audience and reach out a build a new audience is the Portland Opera’s Comic’s Night. From their press release (ok, sometimes this works):

In an effort to reach out to new audiences and new communities, Portland Opera is pleased to announce its first-ever Comic Artist Night @ the Opera on Monday, September 20.  Taking advantage of Portland’s wealth of comic talent, the Opera has invited 20 artists to attend a dress rehearsal and draw whatever inspires them about the production.  They’ll also receive a backstage tour prior to the show and front row seats during the show so that they can see every single operatic expression on stage.  The artists will share the results of the evening with their online communities and Portland Opera will share the artist’s work with our patrons at the theater as well as posting the work online at www.portlandopera.org.

I thought this was a fantastic venture, for a few reasons:

  1. It showed an understanding of the local audience. One of the most consistently frustrating things about regional classical music organizations is that there is often a distance between the organization and their city. Yet at the same time, we’re asked to support the local symphony, or opera house as a civic symbol and representation of our city. This was a real, genuine, smart play to one of Portland’s strengths.
  2. It attracted different press, therefore different readers. I actually read about Comics Night in comics blogs and the local alt-weekly (the same paper that will show classical listings on its music page, but would never promote a classical concert). That’s huge exposure to an audience–young, local, in to music–that classical organizations desperately want.
  3. It provided an entrance point for first-time operagoers. Opera is intimidating and weird. Many of the artists address that in their comics. Somebody whose curiosity is piqued by the comics will not be so discouraged by the newness of the experience.
  4. It solves the problem of promotional materials. On the internet, there’s an abundance of promotional materials that give some idea of what you’re getting yourself into if you want to see a live show. Curious about a standup comic? Check YouTube. What else has this artist done? Check the portfolio on their website. Band you’ve never heard of? You can be sure that any band getting started today has an online media presence before they play their first live show. At any point, these promotional materials can get picked up by other aggregators and go viral. Classical music doesn’t have that. This is partly a practical constraint; it would be impossible to have an opera trailer ready months before a performance, and orchestras have similar conditions. The comics produced by the local Portland artists, however, provide a subjective (in perspective) and objective (they are free to draw whatever they want) hook to draw in an audience. And this is mostly because…
  5. The comics produced were really cool. This is the most important part, and also the hardest to fake.

We now have a large population of people that grew up as the internet matured as a technology. The share of the population that grew up with internet access will only increase. This creates a new kind of media literacy, an intuitive sense that gets really excited by a group of artists invited to share their impressions of an opera preview, a sense that skips right by an astroturf-filled “blog” without even reading it.
More comics inspired by Hansel and Gretel can be seen in Portland Opera’s Facebook album.

The Cleveland Orchestra & the “Local Orchestra”

Matthew EilarLeave a comment
One of Portland artist Trixie Biltmore's impressions of Portland Opera's production of Hansel and Gretel. http://www.meencomics.com

 

Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal on Enrique Fernandez, the Cleveland Orchestra’s new “critic-in-residence”:

Despite his resounding title, Mr. Fernández is not a critic in the ordinary sense of the word. His blog, which you can visit by going to clevelandorchestramiami.com and clicking on “blog,” is an online magazine that runs feature pieces about the orchestra and its activities in Miami. In addition, Mr. Fernández invites concertgoers to post their own thoughts on the orchestra’s performances: “Online everybody’s a critic…. Comment on the concert you are about to experience. Review if you wish, if you must. Hey, it’s your ticket, rave on, pan on.”Mr. Fernández and the Cleveland Orchestra are clearly trying to come up with an institutional equivalent of the “online communities” that spring up around homemade blogs. This kind of blogging is still relatively new in the world of art, and to date the only institutions that seem to have embraced it wholeheartedly are museums (an especially good example is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Unframed,” which is at lacma.wordpress.com). Classical-music organizations, by contrast, seem ill at ease with the openness and interactivity of blogging, and even the best of their efforts, such as the St. Louis Symphony’s STL Symphony Blog (stlsymphony.org/blog), tend to be one-way operations that aren’t open to comments or email from readers.

As much as I usually disagree with Sandow, he’s absolutely right in questioning “new media” ventures that don’t engage in a thoughtful way with their audience. An orchestra blog without a personal perspective or engagement with commenters and other bloggers is nothing more than a glorified press release. It’s also true that only the biggest players in the game can afford–as in, “stop losing your audience” afford–to not participate (and it should be noted that the big players can get away with not directly engaging with their audience because there’s a cohort of bloggers who are willing to translate and comment upon press releases).

One of the best organizational efforts that I’ve come across trying to really understand a local audience and reach out a build a new audience is the Portland Opera’s Comic’s Night. From their press release (ok, sometimes this works):

In an effort to reach out to new audiences and new communities, Portland Opera is pleased to announce its first-ever Comic Artist Night @ the Opera on Monday, September 20.  Taking advantage of Portland’s wealth of comic talent, the Opera has invited 20 artists to attend a dress rehearsal and draw whatever inspires them about the production.  They’ll also receive a backstage tour prior to the show and front row seats during the show so that they can see every single operatic expression on stage.  The artists will share the results of the evening with their online communities and Portland Opera will share the artist’s work with our patrons at the theater as well as posting the work online at www.portlandopera.org.

I thought this was a fantastic venture, for a few reasons:

  1. It showed an understanding of the local audience. One of the most consistently frustrating things about regional classical music organizations is that there is often a distance between the organization and their city. Yet at the same time, we’re asked to support the local symphony, or opera house as a civic symbol and representation of our city. This was a real, genuine, smart play to one of Portland’s strengths.
  2. It attracted different press, therefore different readers. I actually read about Comics Night in comics blogs and the local alt-weekly (the same paper that will show classical listings on its music page, but would never promote a classical concert). That’s huge exposure to an audience–young, local, in to music–that classical organizations desperately want.
  3. It provided an entrance point for first-time operagoers. Opera is intimidating and weird. Many of the artists address that in their comics. Somebody whose curiosity is piqued by the comics will not be so discouraged by the newness of the experience.
  4. It solves the problem of promotional materials. On the internet, there’s an abundance of promotional materials that give some idea of what you’re getting yourself into if you want to see a live show. Curious about a standup comic? Check YouTube. What else has this artist done? Check the portfolio on their website. Band you’ve never heard of? You can be sure that any band getting started today has an online media presence before they play their first live show. At any point, these promotional materials can get picked up by other aggregators and go viral. Classical music doesn’t have that. This is partly a practical constraint; it would be impossible to have an opera trailer ready months before a performance, and orchestras have similar conditions. The comics produced by the local Portland artists, however, provide a subjective (in perspective) and objective (they are free to draw whatever they want) hook to draw in an audience. And this is mostly because…
  5. The comics produced were really cool. This is the most important part, and also the hardest to fake.

We now have a large population of people that grew up as the internet matured as a technology. The share of the population that grew up with internet access will only increase. This creates a new kind of media literacy, an intuitive sense that gets really excited by a group of artists invited to share their impressions of an opera preview, a sense that skips right by an astroturf-filled “blog” without even reading it.

More comics inspired by Hansel and Gretel can be seen in Portland Opera’s Facebook album.

The Cleveland Orchestra & the "Local Orchestra"

Matthew EilarLeave a comment
One of Portland artist Trixie Biltmore's impressions of Portland Opera's production of Hansel and Gretel. http://www.meencomics.com

 

Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal on Enrique Fernandez, the Cleveland Orchestra’s new “critic-in-residence”:

Despite his resounding title, Mr. Fernández is not a critic in the ordinary sense of the word. His blog, which you can visit by going to clevelandorchestramiami.com and clicking on “blog,” is an online magazine that runs feature pieces about the orchestra and its activities in Miami. In addition, Mr. Fernández invites concertgoers to post their own thoughts on the orchestra’s performances: “Online everybody’s a critic…. Comment on the concert you are about to experience. Review if you wish, if you must. Hey, it’s your ticket, rave on, pan on.”Mr. Fernández and the Cleveland Orchestra are clearly trying to come up with an institutional equivalent of the “online communities” that spring up around homemade blogs. This kind of blogging is still relatively new in the world of art, and to date the only institutions that seem to have embraced it wholeheartedly are museums (an especially good example is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Unframed,” which is at lacma.wordpress.com). Classical-music organizations, by contrast, seem ill at ease with the openness and interactivity of blogging, and even the best of their efforts, such as the St. Louis Symphony’s STL Symphony Blog (stlsymphony.org/blog), tend to be one-way operations that aren’t open to comments or email from readers.

As much as I usually disagree with Sandow, he’s absolutely right in questioning “new media” ventures that don’t engage in a thoughtful way with their audience. An orchestra blog without a personal perspective or engagement with commenters and other bloggers is nothing more than a glorified press release. It’s also true that only the biggest players in the game can afford–as in, “stop losing your audience” afford–to not participate (and it should be noted that the big players can get away with not directly engaging with their audience because there’s a cohort of bloggers who are willing to translate and comment upon press releases).
One of the best organizational efforts that I’ve come across trying to really understand a local audience and reach out a build a new audience is the Portland Opera’s Comic’s Night. From their press release (ok, sometimes this works):

In an effort to reach out to new audiences and new communities, Portland Opera is pleased to announce its first-ever Comic Artist Night @ the Opera on Monday, September 20.  Taking advantage of Portland’s wealth of comic talent, the Opera has invited 20 artists to attend a dress rehearsal and draw whatever inspires them about the production.  They’ll also receive a backstage tour prior to the show and front row seats during the show so that they can see every single operatic expression on stage.  The artists will share the results of the evening with their online communities and Portland Opera will share the artist’s work with our patrons at the theater as well as posting the work online at www.portlandopera.org.

I thought this was a fantastic venture, for a few reasons:

  1. It showed an understanding of the local audience. One of the most consistently frustrating things about regional classical music organizations is that there is often a distance between the organization and their city. Yet at the same time, we’re asked to support the local symphony, or opera house as a civic symbol and representation of our city. This was a real, genuine, smart play to one of Portland’s strengths.
  2. It attracted different press, therefore different readers. I actually read about Comics Night in comics blogs and the local alt-weekly (the same paper that will show classical listings on its music page, but would never promote a classical concert). That’s huge exposure to an audience–young, local, in to music–that classical organizations desperately want.
  3. It provided an entrance point for first-time operagoers. Opera is intimidating and weird. Many of the artists address that in their comics. Somebody whose curiosity is piqued by the comics will not be so discouraged by the newness of the experience.
  4. It solves the problem of promotional materials. On the internet, there’s an abundance of promotional materials that give some idea of what you’re getting yourself into if you want to see a live show. Curious about a standup comic? Check YouTube. What else has this artist done? Check the portfolio on their website. Band you’ve never heard of? You can be sure that any band getting started today has an online media presence before they play their first live show. At any point, these promotional materials can get picked up by other aggregators and go viral. Classical music doesn’t have that. This is partly a practical constraint; it would be impossible to have an opera trailer ready months before a performance, and orchestras have similar conditions. The comics produced by the local Portland artists, however, provide a subjective (in perspective) and objective (they are free to draw whatever they want) hook to draw in an audience. And this is mostly because…
  5. The comics produced were really cool. This is the most important part, and also the hardest to fake.

We now have a large population of people that grew up as the internet matured as a technology. The share of the population that grew up with internet access will only increase. This creates a new kind of media literacy, an intuitive sense that gets really excited by a group of artists invited to share their impressions of an opera preview, a sense that skips right by an astroturf-filled “blog” without even reading it.
More comics inspired by Hansel and Gretel can be seen in Portland Opera’s Facebook album.

The Future of the Orchestra: Part Two

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

Finding a place for classical music in a new social and technological era.

Part One.

Before I begin, I want to point out that I am not an authority on this subject. I have never run an arts organization or worked as an orchestra administrator. All I am is a student and a young person that feels like classical music is his vocation. If I didn’t think that the music was worthwhile and that there is unexplored territory within it, I wouldn’t be studying it. On the other hand, I’m still trying to figure out what I think. These are my thoughts now.

One thing that I hear a lot when I talk about the future audience of classical music (classical in the vernacular sense) is the idea that the classical music audience will always refresh itself because as people mature, they look for music with more “substance.” I don’t know if that has been ever true (I suspect that there is some truth in that, as the median age of classical audiences has been old for longer than it should be if it were a single population), but I do know that if people are looking for serious art music that builds on tradition and rewards experience, there are plenty of other avenues available to them apart from classical.

This has to do with an idea that I’ve been puzzling over for a while: the idea that music falls in a spectrum between functional and art music. There is clearly some music that is purely functional: think dance music. This is completely independent of musical idiom or style; a Donna Summer extended mix might be in the disco style with disco form conventions, but musical decisions are made to make people’s bodies move. A great dance mix is one that facilitates a good time. On the other hand, there is a lot of music that is purely non-functional (“art” for lack of a better term). It’s not trying to make its audience move, or happy, or even entertained. Perhaps it’s an intellectual experience. Perhaps it’s exploring a spiritual theme. The best part about music is that there is everything in between those two extremes (in fact, probably all music is).

There’s a couple of strategies that we can extrapolate from looking at music this way. The first is: any argument about the relative merits of art and functional music is a waste of time. If I’m looking for people to have a good time at my party, I’m not going to put on Mahler. Conversely, if I feel like exploring new musical ideas, or hear a new musical perspective, I’m going to listen to an artist or composer that operates more on the art music side of the spectrum. This is what I mean on a practical level: laptop created music, death metal and hip-hop are not going to kill music, just as swing and rock and roll did not kill music. I am not trying to strawman here; I don’t know any prominent cultural critic or music critic that will claim that, but I have heard that kind of thing from devotees of classical music, the exact people who might reinforce negative stereotypes about the closed nature of classical music audiences. If you badmouth a whole style of music, you reinforce an antagonistic relationship between the audiences, and makes them feel like they are not welcome to listen an explore your music. That is not the way to grow your audience.

The second thing that we should realize about this spectrum between functional and art musics is that you can find it in many types of musical idioms. Jazz may have started as a street music, a functional music, but spend five minutes with a devoted fan and you’ll encounter music as experimental as any modernist composition. I think the indie explosion of the 2000’s is a sign of rock’s transition into an idiom with a substantial experimental branch. There’s a discussion going on right now at PostBourgie about the parallels between Jazz’s trajectory and hip-hop. As time goes on a musical idiom amasses a substantial body of work, and a new generation explores it and reinterprets it, changes it, and often takes it into a more arty direction.

I think that anyone who doubts me should look at some of the different forms within classical music itself: mazurkas, sarabandes, minuets, waltzes were all dances that actual people actually danced. Over time, these forms became more stylized, and the masterpieces that bear those names might be far removed from the music that people danced to.

The point that I’m trying to make here is that if people want experimental, or spiritual, or “substantial” music, they have options other than classical music. If classical music administrators and marketers assume that mature or curious listeners will inevitably make their way to classical music, they are sorely mistaken.

I’ve been talking about what orchestras and classical audiences shouldn’t do, now let me talk about what they should do. One of the ideas that I most agree with Greg Sandow about is that orchestras need to be more deliberate about their programming. If classical music is going to align itself towards a musically and intellectually curious audience, then they need to make sure that every concert tells a story or explores an idea. Much like a good playlist, an imaginative program can amplify the pieces within it. If you can sell your concerts as an evening long musical and intellectual journey, you can tap into a whole new audience.

In my next post, I’m going to discuss why orchestras need to start expanding their arts programs now to have a prayer at being viable in 15 years.