Andy's Blog

From the Chorus Riser

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:17:00 PDT

IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE HEAVEN

Claudia Riiff Finseth

If you want to experience heaven, as in heaven is a green and watery place to refresh the world-weary spirit, sit in the midst of a chorus as it sings Eric Whitacre’s Water Night. As the song rises up, dividing from four and eight into fourteen parts on poet Octavio Paz’s deceptively simple line, “If you open your eyes . . .” it’s like a fountain raining down life-giving water on thirsty faces. Again the chorus divides into a polyphonic sound with Paz's “a silent and beautiful current fills you from within, flows forward, forward, darkens you . . .” and here rivulets run through marshland as the water table rises, making it a home for life once again. The heart cannot help but be filled with joy.

Or listen to the old Scottish folk song "The Water is Wide," as set for chorus by Rene Clausen; or the American folk song "Shenandoah," as arranged by James Erb. These old, old melodies about crossing rivers with or without one’s true love are beloved in part because they are familiar in an ancient, far-off way, as if they are pouring the waters of our ancestor’s lives directly into our souls. Listen and think of your great, great grandparents singing and loving these tunes.

Geoffrey Boers is a master at many things, and one of those is programming. At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 31 in First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, the Tacoma Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Dr. Boers and with the help of a small instrumental ensemble from the wonderful Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, will present a choral concert which, for me, is one version of auditory heaven.

It’s not only the melodies, but the poetry of this music that is exceptional. We will sing Morten Lauridsen’s “Sure on this Shining Night.” It uses lines from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Agee’s “Description of Elyssium” (the Classic Greek heaven) from Agee’s trilogy, Lyrics. “Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder, wandering far along of shadows on the stars.” It is my favorite libretto in all of song, having been set to music by other great composers, too. “High summer holds the earth. Hearts all whole.”

Mary MacDonald uses a familiar text--the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi--in her "Make Me An Instrument of Thy Peace." This newer version of Francis’ beautiful prayer is melodic and flowing. Francis’ words suggest that heaven, at least in part, can be created now by how we chose to sow life on earth.

The centerpiece of the concert is Gabriel Faure’s Requiem. This short, seven-part work has its own heavenly moments scattered throughout, from the Amen of the Offertory to the Lux Aeterna of the Agnus Dei, to the verdant sound of the incredible Tacoma Symphony Chorus sopranos singing the In Paradisum. In between are two of my favorite solos: the baritone (were that it were for an alto!) Hostias (Hear Our Prayer) and the soprano Pie Jesu, each a musical interpretation of the spirit longing to be filled until it is whole. Noteworthy is that Faure, like fellow-Frenchman Maurice Durufle, leaves out the frantic, terrifying musical vision of hell that is in most Germanic Requiems. Instead, here is a heavenly paradise. John Rutter, arranger of the version we will sing, writes, “Faure lay emphasis on the idea of rest and peace.”

Aye, rest and peace. And just when you feel lulled by those very qualities of this concert, it will rise into exquisite musical moments that will make your hair stand on end and have your spirit brimming over. On March 31st we promise to surround you so that you are in the midst of some of the most beautiful sounds made by the human voice. Please come and join us. Accept our songs as a cup of cold water: life-giving.

The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 31 in First Presbyterian Church. Tickets are $20, General Admission. To order, click here.

Tacoma City Admission Tax Update

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:15:00 PST

As I first reported last November, the City of Tacoma is considering implementing a 5% admission tax on all ticketed arts and cultural events in Tacoma – one of a number of ideas being floated to help close a $30 million budget gap in the general fund. I think it’s an unwise move. If you do too, I encourage you to write or call the City Council members and tell them. They will probably be taking up the matter next Tuesday, March 6 at their 5 p.m. City Council meeting.

The admission tax apparently looks good on a balance sheet, divorced from all its ramifications, if you’re a public servant trying to balance an out of control city budget. I’ve heard members of the City Council and Administration confidently touting the $600,000 figure as if it is a check just waiting to be written. It’s not. It’s a paper estimate based on year-old attendance figures.

And it’s already obsolete. Most arts groups are experiencing sluggish ticket sales, some more so than others. People are waiting until the last minute to purchase, and when they do they’re buying less expensive seats. The overall result: earned revenue is down. That $600K just got smaller.

The last thing any of us would think of under the circumstances is a ticket price hike. Most haven't raised prices since the economy tanked in 2009. If we thought we could raise prices without further eroding attendance we would have done so already.

Some say it’s not a price hike, not a tax on the arts organizations at all, but an assessment on arts patrons – a simple add-on fee that will pass from the consumer to the city, with the arts organization as the conduit. That’s hardly reassuring – do we really want to give the public an irritating 5% incentive to stay home?

Moreover, those who run arts groups with ticketed events know that it doesn’t work that way. You market the event as best you can, take in as much revenue as people are willing to fork over, pay all your bills and (hopefully) come out of it at or close to budget. Make no mistake: the admission tax would be a price increase for patrons, and another bill to pay for organizations.

At a recent committee meeting at City Hall, someone apparently made the comment, “we tax Hell’s Kitchen [a downtown Goth rock club], why not the Arts?” I am absolutely floored by such thinking. Whether the Symphony, the Opera or Fab Five, there’s a reason the performing arts are not-for-profit. They provide access to an art form that is non-commercial, educational and valuable to the quality of life in our society. It differs in impetus, origin and purpose from popular entertainment. And it almost always costs more to produce than is covered by ticket sales. Taxing tickets that only cover 45% of event expenses is counter-intuitive.

The city of Tacoma has invested a considerable amount in having a successful, thriving arts sector. Stand on the bustling corner of 9^th and Broadway on a night when there are events going on at the Broadway Center and you’ll see why. It’s a very different downtown than it was 20 years ago, and the performing arts and museums are the star attraction.

And it’s all incredibly fragile. The cultural ecology in Tacoma is still a work in progress, and the city has invested too much in it to weaken it for relatively small monetary gain.

Tell the City Council to vote nay on the arts admission tax.

The Classical 1%

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:08:00 PST

How many of these names are familiar to you?

A.) Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell

B.) Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Midori, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell

C.) Matt Haimovitz, Leila Josefowicz, Tzimon Barto

Most reasonably aware and educated Americans – whether or not they have an interest in classical music – recognize the names on Line A. If you’re looking for living classical music soloists whose names are widely known outside the industry, those three are pretty much it.

If your knowledge extends to the names in Line B, you’re probably a subscriber to a major orchestra or a fairly dedicated audiophile. If you know everyone’s name in all three lines, you’re either a professional musician or a real classical diehard.

OK, the levels here are somewhat arbitrary, the list of names is not exhaustive and you can argue with me about who belongs where. The point I’m making is that the number of solo artists whose name alone will provide significant box office draw is very small. So why do so many classical music organizations across the country invest so much in putting these artists – the Classical 1% – before the public?

The usual answer is because their artistic quality is so much higher than anybody else’s. Although many might say the folks on the A line are at the highest level, the letter designations in my illustration are intended to denote public profile, not necessarily artistic quality. The B and C level artists may not be as familiar to the average person on the street, but their artistry is of a very high caliber indeed. Regardless of what line they’re on, they have all earned their place on a relatively short list of top level classical artists. It is important both for the orchestra to collaborate with them, and for the audience to hear them – so the thinking goes.

Still, their fees are princely. I can tell you that the fee for one top level concerto soloist is twice the TSO’s entire annual guest artist budget. Most of the others would put a serious dent in it.

So are they really worth it?

The answer really comes down to four things: available financial resources, the size of your community, the relative proximity of other large urban centers – and above all, your organizational vision.

At the TSO, our booking practices are based on all four of these criteria, and they have led us to make decisions about who we bring in that might be different from other orchestras in other circumstances. But our practices are not strictly pragmatic either: I like to think they’re based on an organizational philosophy about what is most important, and where our resources and energy should flow.

At best, bringing in Classical 1% artists to perform with the TSO would clearly require financial resources we haven’t currently identified. Even if we assumed that the artist’s draw would result in one or even two sold-out houses, the capacity of the hall in which we perform limits the potential ticket revenue.

But beyond that, I would argue that celebrity artists, even if we could afford them, would be tangential to our Strategic Plan, which is about nurturing and growing our internal community of interest (orchestra and audience), as well as increasing our relevance to and engagement with the broader external community of locus.

To me, what makes the TSO special and compelling is our focus on the 99%: the musicians who are always onstage, and the mission of building an ensemble with a personality unique to Tacoma. Part of the concert experience is bringing in high quality guest artists as collaborators, and we will continue to do so. But the majority of our resources, emotional and financial, should be put behind building the orchestra that is here all the time, not behind importing celebrity guests who are here today, gone tomorrow.

In any case, my feeling is that bringing in these classical stars often has more to do with organizational ego than the artistic considerations advanced to justify it. Moreover, its box office effect is temporary. It does nothing to build your orchestra’s relationship with its audience; to the contrary, it reinforces the sense that the orchestra itself lacks appeal. Nor does it do anything to build your organization’s engagement with the larger community.

And I have a hard time justifying paying the Classical 1% more for one night’s work than most of the 99% of gigging musicians make in a year.

Worst Person in the World

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:25:00 PST

It’s been an interesting week in the classical music world, and because I can’t make up my mind what to write about, I’m going to comment on three occurrences – in a format borrowed from a certain liberal TV journalist (Cue Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor).

The first episode of note comes from a city three hours to the south, home of the Oregon Symphony, whose President, Elaine Calder, has decided to withdraw her institution from the League of American Orchestras.

The benefits of membership were outweighed by the annual fee of $17,000, Calder stated in an interview in The Oregonian. (The League calculates fees as a percentage of budget. The TSO is a member, but because our budget is so much smaller, our fee is a fraction of the Oregon Symphony’s.) Ms. Calder noted that they can no longer afford to send staff members to the League’s annual conference; that they don’t even have time to fill out the lengthy surveys the League sends out; and that she is tired of all the dispiriting talk about coming up with “a new model” for the industry.

I must say I’m in sympathy with some of what she says. I haven’t been to a League conference in some years due to cost, and when I opened up their most recent survey request and beheld its length, my reaction was “you’ve got to be kidding.”

Still, I think membership in the League is like many other things in life: you get what you give. It’s not just about paying a fee and receiving a service, it’s an investment in the future of an industry that, if it is to survive, will require all our combined best efforts. It’s hard for me to believe any thinking orchestra executive could view what is happening in the field today and not conclude that “a new model” is indeed badly needed. And I wonder why it was necessary to resign in such a public way.

The runner up: Paypal, the global E-commerce company, which, reports The Toronto Star, ordered the destruction of a violin acquired in an online sale after rumor arose that the instrument was counterfeit.

A Canadian woman purchased the alleged Maurice Bourguignon violin online for $2,500. Paypal has confirmed that the woman was asked to shatter the violin due to a company policy requiring the destruction of counterfeit goods.

“I am now out of a violin that made it through WWII as well as $2,500,” the woman wrote in an online post by blogger Helen Killer. “This is upsetting, but my main goal in writing to you is to prevent PayPal from ordering the destruction of violins and other antiquities that they know nothing about.”

But today’s winner is Indiana Senator Vaneta Becker, who has submitted a bill that would impose a $25 fine on anyone who fails to follow certain performance standards while performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at events sponsored by public schools and universities.

"It’s not like we’re going after anyone’s ability to sing," Becker said in an interview Tuesday. "It’s more that we just want them to respect the words and the tune as it was originally intended and we normally sing it."

Certainly many public renderings of our hapless National Anthem -- including 95% of those preceding baseball games -- rise to the level of felonies. Still, it is not clear from the interview who will set the standards, nor how they will determine when the line has been crossed. One wonders about the enforcement of such a bill, and the chilling blow to artistic freedom if it were enforced!

I remember attending a concert by Milwaukee's fine new music ensemble, Present Music, that began with a performance of the “Star-Spangled Banner” on the vintage electronic instrument known as the theremin. What a creative idea that was – I’ve never heard anything like it before or since. The theremin is a tricky instrument and the player was no virtuoso; the resulting performance would have inspired wrath from Senator Becker.

Other more famous versions abound, both from the pop and classical realms. The title song in the rock musical Hair contained a memorable quote (O say can you see / my eyes if you can / then my hair's too short) Jose Feliciano did a slow, bluesy version to lead off the 1968 World Series. Then there's Jimmy Hendrix’s famous rendering on electric guitar the same year. Marvin Gaye offered a soul version at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game.

And then there's my personal favorite, Stravinsky’s odd-sounding re-orchestration. Although (IMHO) a great improvement on the original, few orchestras play it because it sounds strange to unfamiliar ears – and well-meaning but unimaginative people like Senator Becker get offended.

With the possible exception of Hair, I doubt that any of these were intended to be irreverent. In any case, it is the height of irony to write a bill imposing set standards on the very anthem that extolls America as the “land of the free.” Senator Becker’s action is more in keeping with certain radical Muslim regimes, or with China during the cultural revolution, or with Soviet suppression of Shostakovich. What is she thinking?

Senator Vaneta Becker: today’s worst … person…. In the wo-o-o-o-rld…. (cue swelling of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor)

Why I'm Not Sick of Christmas Music

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:23:00 PST

So many people tell me that, by the time Christmas finally arrives, they're thoroughly sick of its music. What a shame.

I understand the feeling, but I suspect what they’re sick of is the stuff that passes for music that starts blaring out of PA systems in restaurants, malls, and big box stores -- seemingly earlier and earlier every year.

Madison Avenue knows that music is one of the most powerful mood influencers of all. Holiday muzak is like a drug they start pumping into our systems during the weeks leading up to Christmas, so they can get us to spend $450 billion on gifts.

I’ve dedicated my professional life to making sure people have access to good music. The idea of their being force-fed music to influence their buying habits is offensive to me. When it comes to Christmas music, it’s downright obscene.

Is there no sanctuary? How do you avoid this onslaught, short of staying in bed and pulling the covers over your head from Thanksgiving to New Years?

While I’ll admit that option doesn’t sound half bad, I’ve developed an internal filtering mechanism that tunes Christmas muzak out… like those fancy headphones that cancel out white noise. I intentionally avoid public places during Advent -- the four weeks leading up to Christmas, which are supposed to be contemplative and not yet celebratory. When I have to enter some place of purveyance, my sonic filter kicks into gear right away – almost as if I’m walking down the aisle with my fingers in my ears going “la la la” the whole time I’m there.

You see, I’m all about saving my ears. Music is what makes this time of year special for me. No ad executive is going to spoil it.

Listening to music is analogous to eating. What you listen to stays with you after it’s over, while your ears digest it and it absorbs into your system. Proper musical nutrition leaves you with no room for fast food.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I deliberately ignored all the Holiday muzak, filling up my ears with other things. I took off my internal filter long enough to enjoy the TSO's Sounds of the Season concert. And for me, Handel's Messiah is a piece of contemplative art that moves through Advent and gets me ready for Christmas.

Beyond that, I bought a new CD by Morton Subotnick of his very abstract electronic piece Four Butterflies. I worked my way through my double LP of the complete works of Edgar Varese. You can’t get less Christmassy than that.

Then suddenly on Christmas Eve, I disengaged my inner filter and broke out my favorite seasonal music – all fresh from the garden! In the past several days, I’ve enjoyed Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, the annual King’s College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Vince Guaraldi’s jazz piano music from A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Keith Emerson’s The Christmas Album.

Ever since moving to the Pacific Northwest, an important Christmas Eve custom for my wife and me is to bundle up in the car and head to the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Mark’s in Seattle for their annual Midnight Mass. Usually the Right Rev. Greg Rickel – who probably qualifies as the World’s Coolest Bishop – is the celebrant, and the organist and choir are among the best anywhere around.

The hymnody stemming from the great Anglican church tradition is an embarrassment of riches. My favorites include Of The Father’s Love Begotten, While Shepherds Watched, and O Little Town of Bethlehem (the Vaughan Williams melody, please – not the dreary Protestant tune featured most often in U.S. churches). I’m also partial to Hark the Herald (did you know this wonderful hymn is by none other than Felix Mendelssohn?), God Rest You Merry, and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (again, I prefer the old English melody Noel, not the sickly-sentimental Richard Storrs Willis tune).

My favorite of all is the now rarely-heard Venite Adoremus, harmonized by Leo Sowerby in 1941.

On the other hand, I can do without either version of Away in a Manger; for some reason, Joy To the World does nothing for me – and I find Silent Night the most boring Christmas hymn of all time. Tell me when it’s over.

You may find that scandalous, and that’s ok. Everyone has their own favorites that they cherish. I’d love to hear about your likes and dislikes.

But whatever they are, don’t let Madison Avenue wreck the Holidays musically for you. Don’t let them turn wonderful songs like Adeste Fidelis (or The Christmas Song, or O Holy Night, whatever you prefer) into the musical equivalent of a telemarketing call.

You can be intentional about the music you put into your head – and there’s no time of year when that's more important than Christmas.

City admissions tax would be a setback

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:26:00 PST

The City of Tacoma, faced with a shortfall in its general fund estimated at $26 million, is considering a number of new revenue-generating measures, including a 5% admission tax on all arts and cultural events.

I attended a study session several weeks ago that included discussion of the proposed tax. I left with an increased appreciation for the challenges the City Council is facing. I’m impressed with the thoughtful approach they are taking to solving this puzzle. These are dedicated public servants wrestling with a huge financial crisis.

That does not mean I support the proposed arts tax. On the contrary, I believe its potential revenue gain is outweighed by the blow it would strike to Tacoma's cultural ecology.

Although the measure would impact the whole cultural community, its effects would be different for different organizations. I can best speak to how such a policy might affect the TSO. Our concerts are the core of our mission; our 80 professional musicians are our bricks and mortar. While we present high quality guest artists, we don’t put our resources into bringing in major celebrity soloists. Serving an ever-widening group of patrons, music lovers, children and musically underserved members of the community is our whole focus. We don’t own a building, but perform at the city-owned Broadway Center for the Performing Arts as one of its primary resident arts organizations. We don’t tour or maintain residencies outside of Tacoma; every self-presented performance we offer takes place downtown.

As with many other performing arts, ticket revenue only covers a percentage of the TSO’s expenses. The balance is covered by a mix of contributions, grants and other revenue. What many people don’t realize is that earned revenue doesn’t even cover direct expenses for most concerts, let alone the TSO’s total operating budget. (They earn every penny, but think about it: 80 musicians is a lot of people to pay – I’ve been to plenty of recitals and chamber concerts with fewer people in the audience!)

The TSO is not unique among orchestras in this. No professional orchestra covers its expenses through ticket sales alone. If we were to price our tickets to cover all expenses, it would make the TSO inaccessible to all but the most financially affluent.

Instead, we have established a deliberately broad price range, and kept the majority of seating areas as low as possible so that they are accessible to people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. We haven’t raised our prices since the start of the Great Recession back in 2008. In fact, we’ve taken steps to make our concerts more accessible to the entire community.

Several years ago, in response to economic conditions, we created a $12 section of the hall. (Twelve dollars! You can’t even see a movie for that these days – except at Tacoma’s excellent nonprofit Grand Cinema.) We rescaled seating in the Pantages and Rialto this season to further expand this seating area. We give away a portion of tickets for virtually every concert to area financially disadvantaged via the Pierce County United Way.

During the study session, one City Council member commented that he had recently attended the Margaret Cho and Joan Rivers performances at the Broadway Center, and that a 5% tax to the city would not have prevented him from doing so. We can only hope that everyone is so enlightened – but there is a difference between buying tickets to a celebrity-driven event and buying tickets to a locally-based theater group, orchestra or chamber music group.

The venue where we perform, the extremely well-run Broadway Center for the Performing Arts, practices “event-based ticket pricing,” where tickets vary depending on the pull of the act. Bigger celebrity acts are priced higher. While this model makes total sense for them, the TSO’s business model precludes this. We’re not in the business of marketing out-of-town celebrities; our whole reason for being is the orchestra itself – the orchestra that is onstage for every concert. That’s our “product”; that’s what we exist to promote. And I imagine this is similar for our colleague organizations such as the theater, dance, and chamber groups.

Perhaps the councilmember is right: if you are sufficiently motivated to buy a ticket to see Joan Rivers, maybe a 5% admission tax won’t deter you. But the sales dynamic for resident ensemble arts organizations is very different. I happen to think the TSO is an exceptional orchestra – but there’s an orchestra in Olympia, Bremerton, Federal Way, and Auburn, not to mention Seattle. None of these has an admission tax to contend with. The TSO has made significant inroads in recent years attracting people from outside Pierce County, many of whom live closer to one of these other towns. An admission tax to the city of Tacoma is going to be a turn-off for these folks.

And let’s be frank: a big part of our challenge is selling people on the idea of going to a concert at all. Many start with all kinds of psychological barriers and mistaken impressions about orchestra concerts. Add to that the disincentive of a down economy, and an admission tax on top of that where none existed before, and the job has gotten that much harder.

We are fortunate in Tacoma to have the support of the city through the Tacoma Arts Commission, of which the TSO is an anchor organization. However, it appears likely that the arts commission budget will be cut. If that happens, the TSO and other anchor organizations could get hit twice – our grants reduced on the one hand, and a 5% admission tax on the other.

Our arts and cultural organizations are key to the revitalization of Tacoma. I’ve only been here four years, but everyone tells me what the city center used to be like. Even today, the amount of retail in downtown Tacoma – though growing steadily – is lower than in many comparably-sized cities. Collectively arts and cultural organizations bring thousands of people downtown, and generate critical business throughout the city.

And yet, as successful as Tacoma's arts appear, the cultural ecology strikes me as still a work in progress. Whether or not it will continue evolving in a direction that promotes healthy, sustainable arts and cultural organizations remains to be seen -- and depends on the choices we make along the way.

The city’s cultural organizations are already struggling in this economy with reduced attendance and contributions. If fewer people patronize these organizations, it will make that struggle worse -- and incidentally work against the city’s financial interests. For-profit businesses that cater to arts patrons -- restaurants, nightclubs, and parking garages – will feel the financial effects of reduced patronage – and there will be less tax revenue to pass along to the city.

Times are tough and the City Council is facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Having had this opportunity to watch them, and the City Manager's staff, in action, I am filled with admiration for the job they are doing.

So my message to them -- as a citizen of Tacoma, music lover and arts administrator -- is sent in a spirit of respect, and I hope it is received as such.

And that message is this: The admission tax on the arts would take Tacoma in the wrong direction. It would weaken the city's cultural ecology, and increase the fragility of a sector that is critical to its future.

It isn't worth the price.

If you're concerned, act now. This issue is coming to a vote in December. On December 6 there will be an all-afternoon study session of the City Council at the Municipal Building, starting at noon. Members of the public are welcome but are not permitted to speak. In the evening, starting at 5 p.m., there will be a public forum on the issue, and this is open for public comment. In the interim, write, call or email Mayor Strickland and the members of the City Council. If you're a Tacoma resident, contact your representative. This link will take you to the City Council webpage, where you'll find their names, addresses, phone numbers and email.

Some musings on Noise Pollution

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:40:00 PST

I know it pales in comparison to unemployment rates, the war in Afghanistan, and global warming, but noise pollution is on the rise and getting worse every day. With the noise constantly around us, it’s getting harder and harder to actually listen to anything. That includes music, and each other.

You want to know my theory of why more people don’t come to concerts? Because you have to actually sit and do nothing but listen. But the ability to listen requires the availability of silence in the world. And silence is an increasingly rare commodity.

It’s getting to where I want to follow the example of TSO Music Director Harvey Felder, and carry earplugs with me at all times. If only I could find the darn things.

Certain noises of modern urban life are necessary. The TSO office is two or three blocks away from a downtown fire station. The din of a five-alarmer is a minor annoyance, particularly when it disrupts my phone conversation with a donor from whom I hope to stimulate a contribution. Nevertheless, I realize that those whose house is on fire may consider the sound of approaching sirens more beautiful than, say, a Beethoven symphony.

And I find rather charming the crosswalks in downtown Tacoma that, for the benefit of the vision-impaired, chirp like a bird when the “walk” signal is activated.

I love the foghorns of a big car ferry. The dirty old coal-burning railroad ferries on Lake Michigan would blast you right out of your deckchair when they blew for departure. I wish the ones in Puget Sound would let rip occasionally. They’re much more… polite.

At the risk of offending motorcycle aficionados, I dislike the noise of a Harley-Davidson. The only thing I dislike more is a pack of Harley-Davidsons. I applaud the law that says I will be ticketed for driving my car without the benefit of a muffler and tailpipe. I don’t understand why the same law apparently doesn’t apply to Harleys.

Or to personal water craft, more popularly known as jet-skis. When the solitude and peace of my afternoon sail is interrupted by these, what little Christian charity I possess deserts me.

Among my other pet peeves: pop music played at an intrusive volume in a restaurant where I am trying to enjoy dinner; leaf-blowers of any kind, at any time (what’s wrong with a rake?); orchestra websites that, when you open them, automatically start playing some symphony or other; people talking at elevated volume into their cell phones in the middle of a bookstore; bus-persons seemingly intent on breaking every dish in the restaurant; flight attendants on the cabin intercom who are either inaudible or at ear-splitting volume; and my neighbor’s yappy little dog.

One person’s noise may be another person’s music. I love my Minimoog Voyager analog synthesizer. It can produce any sound of which my imagination can conceive. My wife tolerates it out of her affection for me. My retired concert pianist father referred to it, somewhat ungenerously, as a “giant kazoo.” (He also said Peter Frampton's talk-box guitar solo on "Do You Feel Like We Do"-- circa the 1977 Frampton Comes Alive album -- sounded like Donald Duck, which I thought rather a good description.)

Some composers have actually incorporated modern noises into music – the best known perhaps being Gershwin’s use of actual taxi car horns in his orchestral work An American in Paris. The French composer Edgar Varèse employed sirens, along with a battery of percussion instruments, in his work Hyperprism of 1923. In the 1940s, a group of composers used magnetic tape to capture and modify various sounds, natural and mechanical, to form a kind of music that became known as Musique Concrete. This was really, in the words of one, “the reunification of music, noise and language.” Three decades later, the rock group Pink Floyd incorporated barking dogs (presumably not my neighbor’s) into a song titled, appropriately, Dogs.

But there is a time and place for everything. I can appreciate the car horns in American in Paris. I don’t appreciate them coming from the jackass in the car behind me who blasts out merely because I have the temerity to parallel park, thereby subjecting him to a 15-second delay. I like quite a lot of different kinds of pop music, but not when I’m trying to enjoy a nice dinner out with my wife. The howling and barking on Pink Floyd’s Dogs is eerie and mysterious, but there is no mystique or charm in my neighbor’s runty canine. And I love symphonic music, but not when it unexpectedly blares at me from the website of some orchestra (who of all on Earth ought to know better).

I remember Bobby McFerrin remarking to a group of schoolchildren, “your ears are precious; they’re an entrance to your mind. Be careful what you let in there.” I don’t think I fully understood that at the time, but perhaps I do now. Bobby thinks music is as important to humanity as food. So do I, or I wouldn’t be doing what I do for a living. Becoming better at listening to music is something I’ve been working at for years. Having access to silence helps. Noise Pollution doesn’t.

They Get No Respect, Part II

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:29:00 PDT

It’s been about a year since I wrote a blog post about the lack of respect afforded to musicians in today’s society. This manifests itself in many different ways, from people walking past an invisible-because-out-of-context Joshua Bell playing in a subway station, to the begrudging of actually paying musicians for their services. But one of my pet peeves is the treatment of classical music as wallpaper (nice wallpaper, to be sure) at public events, and classical musicians as potted plants, decorative items to be set in a corner for ambiance and then ignored.

Time for another installment.

I recently attended a nicely catered, elegant social event held by an organization that supports nonprofits. One of their causes is a successful and nationally respected youth orchestra; another is a dynamic organization providing underserved inner city youth with creative outlets and training in various urban arts media. The youth orchestra had provided a string quartet and the urban arts organization sent a group of hip-hop dancers.

Following the opening program speeches, the guests (numbering about a hundred) all gathered in a huge circle for a 15-minute performance by the hip-hoppers. The talented young dancers treated us to some really impressive (and in several instances downright terrifying) routines accompanied by recorded music from a portable CD player, while the guests clapped and cheered wildly.

The young musicians in the string quartet, who were about the same age, were situated in an overhanging floor one story above the rest of the event. They played for 20 minutes to a half hour, while the guests ate, drank, talked, and largely ignored their presence.

The young caterer who moved through the crowd with hors d’oeuvres received more attention.

This is a fairly typical scenario for classical musicians, but the double standard was particularly evident on this occasion. Student artists from one genre were treated with respect while those from another were treated with indifference – literally within minutes of each other.

I don’t begrudge the student urban artists their moment in the spotlight. They were excellent, exciting, and captivating. Nor is it my intent to criticize the guests or the event coordinators. Treating classical music as background music is commonplace in this day and age. And I'm guessing neither the students nor the youth orchestra administrators who sent them expected anything else.

What I would like to do is raise people’s awareness.

Music in modern society has become, by and large, background for other activities. We plug in our ipod or living room stereo or desktop radio and then we do other things while the music plays – whether it’s to classical, jazz, or pop.

And I get it that classical music is, for many people, less immediately accessible than hip hop. Appreciating its beauty, power and energy requires concentration and attention. Much of the time it is not visually exciting; the musicians are concentrating on the sound, blending with one another, and going inside the music, so they don’t move around very much. But while the physicality that goes into it may be less obvious than that of hip hop, it is no less real and rigorous.

There is a time and a place for music to be ambient. I like listening to Jimmy Smith on my ipod while I wash the dishes, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a bit.

But when it’s being created before our very eyes by live human beings – especially young people – let’s not treat it as background music. Let's take the time to be quiet, listen, and give it our full attention.

After all, you never know when you might be hearing the next Joshua Bell.

Collaboration starts at the shallow end

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 22:35:00 PDT

“Collaboration” is a word that gets a lot of air time in this day and age in the philanthropic sector. Every foundation wants to know what you’re doing to collaborate with others, and evidence of collaboration has become a standard metric of organizational effectiveness.

Unfortunately, not-for-profits resist collaboration as heartily as foundations insist on it. This is no different whether you’re an orchestra, an opera, or a group in the social service sector. Our funders increasingly want to see us collaborating with one another, and most of us don’t seem to be getting it. (There are exceptions; if your organization is one of them, good on you!)

What’s going on here? If collaboration is the dance of the age, why do nonprofits seem to have two left feet when it comes down to it?

The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation decided to do something about it. They’ve been holding a series of presentations under the title “Authentic Collaboration,” facilitated by Seattle consultant-poet Ted Lord. A group of executive directors from various not-for-profit organizations met initially a month ago for an overview session, followed by what Ted and the GTCF are calling the “deeper dive” series. We’ve held one “deeper dive” session already; a second takes place this week. Already the discussion has been candid and probing.

Collaboration is difficult for us not-for-profits, I believe, because it goes against the grain of our tradition and training. No trustee ever joined a nonprofit Board because the organization was collaborative. No individual donor gives money to an organization because it is collaborative. Board members join, and donors give, because they find something unique and special about the organization, its mission, vision and values, and its contribution to society.

Executive Directors are all about making sure their organization remains unique and special. Our Boards hire us to devote ourselves full time to the advancement of our organization. For most nonprofits, this has never been about collaborating with other groups. It’s been about fulfilling our mission richly, standing out with a brand that captures community mindshare, generating financial resources and using them wisely, and governing with integrity and transparency.

Since foundations are pretty much the lone voice among our supporters calling for collaboration, it’s a message sometimes given short shrift by harried executive directors. This has nothing to do with a lack of ability to play well with others; it’s not only counter-instinctive, it’s one more thing to add to an already intense workload. I’m running as fast as I can to keep my organization solvent; now on top of everything else I have to be collaborative too? Moreover, pressure to collaborate does not come from our Boards, to whom we report. They often have little direct contact with foundation donors and so don’t hear the call for collaboration, except as it filters through us.

So given all this, why do foundations keep emphasizing it?

Most communities, including Tacoma, have a plethora of nonprofits to address a plethora of needs. Some may be duplicative and inefficient; many are effective, well-run organizations. But historically, most nonprofits evolved as basically closed systems, operating from within their own silo and their direct constituents, rather than as part of an integrated sector.

Contemporary societal needs are epidemic and systemic, and most good foundations don’t want to simply support causes – they want to have a real impact on their community. This is "grantmaking 2.0." With many more nonprofits applying to them for funding than they can possibly support, they want to see greater efficiency within the nonprofit sector. This has given rise to viewing the nonprofit sector as a system. And most communities, according to this way of seeing things, are “program rich but system poor.” Impact is isolated and random rather than aligned. In today’s day and age, so the thinking goes, collective impact requires a systematic approach.

At the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, we are working to infuse a collaborative spirit into our organizational DNA. In our values statement, we define our community stance in this way:

“The TSO is a collaborative, respectful organization and promotes an atmosphere of service to our community. We work in partnership with the larger arts sector and beyond to address local needs. We seek innovative ways to make the TSO a nimble resource for the community.”

We put this in our Values Statement, not because we think we’re already adept at it, but because it’s important and we want to get better at it. We try to operate this way every day, not just in projects we have defined as “collaborative.” That’s one reason I’m participating in this “Deeper Dive” series.

But any organization that has really tried hard to be collaborative knows it’s not easy. The theme of the Deeper Dive series is “authentic collaboration,” and the devil is in the adjective here. Authentic collaboration is hard. It doesn’t come naturally at first. It has to be learned. It takes time and commitment. It involves humility and a willingness to surrender ego and pride. And sometimes it plain doesn’t work.

So while I understand where the desire for collaboration comes from, I hope our funders have realistic expectations. (And if their praise of our initial halting steps is any indication, fortunately, they do!) Collaboration may well eventually result in a more effective nonprofit sector, but spectacular results may be elusive. Like any worthwhile endeavor, getting the sector to operate as a cohesive system will take time.

Before taking that deeper dive, we may need to learn to dog-paddle -- starting from the shallow end of the pool.

Is Music Political?

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:00:00 PDT

Should music be held as a purely abstract art form, or is it sometimes inherently political?

It depends on the context.

Last week, the BBC yanked a live broadcast of the Israel Philharmonic’s Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall after the performance was repeatedly disrupted by an organized, vociferous group of pro-Palestinian protesters. Several times, distinct groups of protestors stood up and began chanting anti-Israeli slogans. When they were ejected, another group took up the torch.

Coincidentally, this was the second time this summer that the Israel Philharmonic made headlines for political reasons. In July, the orchestra broke with an 85-year unofficial self-imposed taboo when it performed Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll at Bayreuth, Germany, the historic site of many of the 19^th century composer’s original performances. Although some would argue there are plenty of artistic reasons not to perform Wagner (Mark Twain famously quipped that the German composer’s music was “better than it sounds”), Jewish musicians have long eschewed his works on deeply painful historical grounds. Wagner was a favorite of Adolf Hitler, who admired his music and drew on anti-Semitic elements in the composer’s philosophical writings. The Phil’s decision to perform his music drew praise from some, intense criticism from others.

All of which begs the question: when is a concert just a concert? And when is it a political statement?

To me, the protests at the BBC Proms concert – purely on the grounds that the orchestra performing was from Israel – were distasteful and bigoted. Its name notwithstanding, the Israel Philharmonic is not a state-owned orchestra. It does not represent the government of Israel and it makes no more sense to hold it responsible for that government’s policies than it would to blame the TSO for, say, potholes in Tacoma. Besides, what is the point in shouting out a musical performance? If the protestors wanted to use the occasion to denounce the policies of the state of Israel, why not distribute leaflets outside the concert hall? Assuming they believed their concerns to be compelling, they could have been much more persuasive. Moreover, this would have shown respect for the art form and courtesy toward the rest of the audience who were just there to hear a good concert, not to express solidarity with Israel.

The issue of performing Wagner is more complicated. He certainly wasn’t the only composer Hitler enjoyed – his favorite was actually Bruckner. Nor was he the only great classical composer who espoused anti-Semitic beliefs: so did Tchaikovsky. Nobody is calling for a ban on their music. Moreover, Wagner’s great art exerted a tremendous, far-reaching influence on classical music. It is important that it be heard.

Some argue that we must “separate the man from the music,” in the words of the Israel Philharmonic’s conductor, Roberto Paternostro (himself an Austrian Jew). But is this possible? Maybe with, say, Bach or Mozart. But by his own design Wagner was a composer whose ideas and music were closely intertwined. He was a philosopher and advocate for racial supremacy, and his chosen language was music. It was no accident that his music became the soundtrack of the Nazi deathcamps. It evokes agonizing memories for Holocaust survivors that I believe the rest of us can never understand.

Classical Music critic David Goldman, in Tablet magazine, writes that art “does not reside in the clouds of Mount Parnassus. It has consequences in the real world in which ordinary humans live and suffer, and society in extreme cases must draw a line. Wagner may not have been the only anti-Semite among the composers of the 19th century, nor even the worst, but he did more than anyone else to mold the culture in which Nazism flourished. The Jewish people have had no enemy more dedicated and more dangerous, precisely because of his enormous talent.”

So while I would oppose a ban on Wagner’s music everywhere, I understand why it is rarely performed in Israel, and why many Jewish musicians feel, at best, conflicted about it.

In a strange way, I think the whole issue is a testimony to the power of music. No, it is not a purely abstract art form (if there is such a thing). It has the power to express a wide variety of ideas and feelings – and therefore it is indeed political.

What is steak without sizzle?

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:40:00 PDT

One of the most interesting aspects of the TV program America’s Got Talent is that the acts are judged not only for their artistic quality, but for showmanship as well. After all, they’re trying out for a million dollar prize and the chance to play in Las Vegas. On America’s Got Talent, you can be the most gifted virtuoso in the world, but if your act doesn’t hold the audience’s interest, you’re going to get “buzzed.” The sizzle is as important as the steak, and sometimes it’s hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins.

This emphasis on showmanship and visual elements, so common in the world of pop entertainment, is in stark contrast to the performance practices of symphony orchestras and other classical music organizations. Although we strive to serve up a marvelous cut of meat, we are largely devoid of “sizzle” – much of the time by conscious choice. The art form should stand on its own, we say. We don’t want to do anything to distract from it. What you hear is what you get. Classical musicians are arguably the most thoroughly trained and technically virtuosic instrumentalists in the world -- but very little of that training dwells on showmanship or stage presence.

The appearance of the orchestra is the same wherever you go, at every concert, every orchestra, in every city – and it hasn’t changed much since the ensemble was invented in the early 19^th century. The musicians, dressed in black formalwear, perform sitting, torsos straight, faces expressionless, eyes on the music in front of them. At the end, when the crowd gives the obligatory standing ovation, the players usually stand facing the podium, mostly unsmiling and making little or no eye contact with the audience.

(Of course, there is the European custom -- observed by the TSO, as a matter of fact -- of turning to face the audience. And our musicians do frequently crack a smile. We try to be more approachable here in Tacoma, reflecting the relative lack of formality in our home town. )

Traditions are a little better in the soloist world, where overtly quirky stage personas began to appear about 25 years ago. An early pioneer was then-controversial violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who was criticized for her onstage histrionics and gyrations. Violinist Nigel Kennedy, arriving on the scene about the same time, attracted as much attention for his punk rocker attire as for his virtuosic playing. Awadagin Pratt came soon afterwards with his dreadlocks and lamp table in place of a piano bench. Today we have hot young rock star pianists like Lang Lang, and Yuja Wang, whose miniskirted appearance caused a sensation earlier this month at the Hollywood Bowl.

Still, an occasional surplus of skin or a funny haircut are a far cry from the assaulting visuals in popular entertainment. Acts that start out visually benign on America’s Got Talent – a guitar-strumming singer, a stunt yo-yo nerd, and the like – get tarted up with scantily clad dancing women and laser light shows by their second audition. The producers know what the orchestra world apparently doesn’t – that today’s audience needs continuous visual stimulation to hold its attention.

It may sound as if I’m being critical of the orchestra industry, but I’m really just trying to draw a picture of the stark contrast between the experience we provide and what audiences are used to throughout the popular entertainment world. 20 years ago it was just younger audiences – but it’s rapidly becoming all audiences. It’s a picture we better pay attention to in any serious discussion about how to bring new patrons in to our concerts.

A few orchestras, including the TSO, have started to experiment with occasional visual elements. For example, we have added modest use of colored lights and the occasional patterned gobo during our season opening concerts, which intentionally blur the lines between the Classics and the Pops series. When we perform at Puyallup Fair the concert always features closed-circuit video screens on either side of the stage, which project close-ups of the orchestra. And we’ve occasionally projected images on the back of the stage in the Pantages, like the Superman graphics several years ago during Michael Daugherty’s Oh Lois.

Many other orchestras are experimenting in like manner. A few years ago there was a package making the national rounds that paired Holst’s The Planets with digitized scenes from Mars and Venus. Photographer James Westwater has made a career by promoting his “video choreography” of images timed to go with specific symphonies. One orchestra, the former Irving Symphony in Texas, has actually rebranded itself as Enviso, “symphony you can see.” Every Enviso concert features visual elements, from video screens to light shows, dancers and acrobats.

I must confess to mixed emotions about all this. As an executive director, it’s my job to explore different presentation styles and work with the music director to suggest new things that might bring new people into the hall. For myself as a concertgoer, I tend to find things like video projections distracting and unnecessary. And while I’m filled with admiration for the courage and creativity of trailblazers like Enviso, I'm not advocating a similar rebranding for the TSO. Frankly, I wonder about the shelf-life of such presentations once the novelty wears off.

But I do think it’s important for us in the orchestra industry to give a little more thought to how we present ourselves visually. We live in an age where people have a high need for visual as well as aural stimulation, and if we don’t even try to meet those needs we’ll have only ourselves to blame if they pass us by.

Maybe the steak and the sizzle will remain distinct in classical music. Maybe the music needs to remain the “meat” of our offering. But just maybe we can devote a bit more attention to the sizzle – and to the flavor and spice it adds.

Great artists don't always come with slick packaging

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:51:00 PDT

The great Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer caused a bit of a sensation recently when he abruptly canceled his appearance at the annual Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland in protest of its air of “sensationalism” and emphasis on celebrity status.

“Let’s admit – all of us have something to do with the poisonous development of our music world, in which ‘stars’ count more than creativity, ratings more than genuine talent,” he wrote in his cancellation letter.

His withdrawal from the festival prompted a dialogue among musicians and music aficionados about the role and prevalence of celebrity in the classical music world. Most people seem to come down on the side of this great artist and his resolution to “leave it to those… who have overwhelming capacities to please crowds, but who are often themselves quite EMPTY and artistically lost.”

I must admit to some sympathy with this viewpoint myself.

On the one hand, certain great performers have deservedly earned celebrity status through their outstanding artistry. It is appropriate and natural to celebrate (which, after all, is the root word behind celebrity) their talent and achievements. And sometimes a little more emphasis on celebrity would benefit our industry. (At least a few of these artist management firms could make sure their stable artists have some decent PR materials – good color photos that newspapers would be interested in running, for instance?) On the other, it seems the emphasis on celebrity often vaunts the beautiful but artistically shallow to the forefront in place of those with more artistic depth.

I asked Maestro Felder for his thoughts on the matter. He emailed back:

“What I have found is yes indeed there are ‘superstars’ populating the ranks of classical musicians. Many have been arbitrarily crowned a ‘superstar’ and many have earned the moniker as a result of years of hard work and sacrifice. It is important in any discussion of ‘superstardom’ that we acknowledge the fact that within the ranks of the latter are thousands who will never be written about in the national media, will never receive the astronomical fees, nor have a ten year long list of future engagements. However, they are consummate artists, offering performances infused with passion, artistry, and breathtaking technical prowess.”

As I read this, I thought immediately of my own father. He developed the same distaste for the “music business” as Gidon Kremer, but as a much younger man. He turned aside in his early 20s from his career track as a concert pianist and chose instead the vocation of a teacher. Established as a professor of music at a midwestern university conservatory, he led a successful but largely unheralded 30-year career as a leading member of the rich musical community that grows up around a vibrant music school. In that time he remained active teaching private lessons, theory, history and pedagogy, performing throughout the community and state, and composing prolifically.

A vivid memory is watching him play the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto a few years back with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra. The depth of artistry in that performance surpassed nearly everything I have heard before or since, and I’ve heard many of the great pianists in concert over the years of my career.

We do right to celebrate the Joshua Bells, Yo-Yo Mas and Itzhak Perlmans. But let’s remember that what we’re celebrating is the example of their artistry – and that this should enable us to recognize, appreciate and celebrate talent wherever we encounter it -- even when it isn’t slickly packaged and endorsed by a big-name New York management firm.

It Takes a Village

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:02:00 PDT

Michael Tilson Thomas was right when he observed that “great music only happens when a great many people want it to happen.” June 30 saw the end of the 2010-2011 Season; and I would like to take a few moments to celebrate and say “thank you” to the many, many people who wanted great music to happen in Tacoma – and stepped up to the plate to make it happen.

Each of them helped the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra to once again finish the season in financial harmony.

Nearly 400 people made donations ranging from $8 to $50,000, and nearly every chair in the Orchestra has been sponsored, with a few left to go. We also had many businesses – ranging from small local entrepreneurs to large regional corporations – support our concerts, Gala and Simply Symphonic education program. Foundations both public and private were also generous.

Thank you to each and every one of you. You are wonderful, and we love and appreciate you!

I’d also like to thank our Board of Directors for their leadership. Every one of them makes a leadership contribution – no exceptions. But they contribute much more than their money. Most people don’t understand or fully appreciate what a Board does, but I can tell you, this one works hard. The other day I arrived at the office at 9 a.m. to find a message list including calls from three Board members – and that’s typical. They’re out there shaking the bushes for the TSO, and questions arise. This donor wants to underwrite a violin chair – is there one left? That prospect wants a pledge form right away – can I make sure one is emailed? Would I be available to meet with a donor at Tully’s this afternoon? My Board keeps me hopping.

My staff is amazing. They’re wearing four or five different hats on any given day. None of them ever says “that’s not my job.” Saul’s responsibility is to manage the orchestra itself, but he takes subscription orders when no one else is around to answer the phone. Denise keeps the books, but also helps orchestra members who show up looking for their music. Laura writes our grants and manages fund raising “moves”; but she orders our stage flowers and when things get too complicated backstage she helps Saul out by filling in as the guest artist coordinator. Rick feeds Board members pizza while pushing, prodding and coaching them during our phone-calling marathons. Our music librarian Mary is a bit like the tooth-fairy: she's here at night after all of us are gone, and the music magically appears in the morning. They do it all without complaining and with humor. I’m the world’s luckiest ED.

Our office volunteers Elizabeth and Brent help out when things get too crazy for the staff to handle. Among many other things, Brent is our media archivist and Elizabeth does everything from filing to data entry to helping out with front-of-house at the concerts.

The musicians and chorus members are right there with us. Orchestra players donate their talent to perform at house parties, send thank-you cards to their chair sponsors, and serve on Board committees. Chorus members do everything without being paid, not only performing, but even putting on the most amazing dinner parties for patrons and offering these up as auction items.

Finally, we’re housed in an incredibly supportive environment: the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts. Executive Director David Fischer and his staff are busy running their own concert series, not to mention the entire theater complex, and they’ve got their own challenges and problems just like we do. But they always take great care of us. They provide the best performance environment possible, with a highly professional stage and house crew and a box office that gives consistently excellent customer service.

The TSO is blessed and surrounded on all sides with good people: donors, sponsors, program advertisers, subscribers, musicians, Board members, volunteers, staff, landlords and colleagues.

It takes every one of them to make the music happen.

We’ve all read about the crises many orchestras are encountering elsewhere, some not very far off. At the TSO we’re not immune from trouble, and there’s no room for smugness or complacency. Orchestras are incredibly fragile institutions and are only kept stable by constant, unrelenting vigilance.

But there’s hope -- as long as we are surrounded on all sides and nurtured by good, caring people who want to make sure that great music happens in Tacoma, now and in the future.

Artistic Terrorists?

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:01:00 PDT

This composer’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, composer to the Queen of England and one of the most venerable composers alive today, engaged in a public tirade after a chorus of ringtones took place at a London Sinfonietta concert last weekend.

Maxwell Davies called the perpetrators “artistic terrorists” engaging in “acts of vandalism” and suggested they should be fined.

At least he doesn’t propose water-boarding.

I understand his irritation – but equating sonic distractions at a concert with driving airplanes into skyscrapers is in poor taste, like the trend in American political discourse today which uses the term “Nazi” to describe anyone with whom one disagrees.

Sir Peter’s tantrum reminded me of a similar (though more understated) outburst by conductor Andreas Delfs at a Milwaukee Symphony concert years ago. That was in the mid-90s during the digital watch beeper craze, when it seemed everyone’s watch just had to make a little chime on the hour. In this case, “the hour” coincided with the quiet ending of a movement of one of the Beethoven symphonies. Cue the watch-chime chorus! The resulting cacophony shattered a powerful artistic moment. Delfs was furious, but he held his temper, turning around and politely but firmly asking all those who had “sinned” not to do so again.

My wife will tell you how surly I can become over another –involuntary and arguably more excusable – form of “audience participation”: incessant coughing. The satirical booklet A Musician’s Dictionary [Barber & Donald, published 1983 by Sound and Vision] defines the term “audience” as “a group of individuals who when afflicted with a cold go not to a doctor but to a concert – where they hack and wheeze to their heart’s content.” My pet peeve is the person who waits until just before the end of a beautiful movement and then lets out a big juicy harrumph – couldn’t they have waited one or two more seconds?

Definitive solutions to the phlegm solo are elusive. But unless Brits are just more wired than Tacomans, the cell phone chorus seems very easily silenced by a regular announcement such as we do before TSO concerts. We work it in after the sponsor thank-yous and before the concertmaster tuning, and it works every time. There should be no need to resort to water-boarding.

In Tacoma last December, a group of people at a sold-out Messiah concert clapped and cheered between every recitative and aria. They were obviously happy to be there (though unfamiliar with concert etiquette), but the interruptions got on the nerves of some of the more seasoned listeners. In this case, conductor Geoffrey Boers chose not to address the issue. I agreed with him, feeling that it was an honest, heartfelt response that should not be dashed. Afterwards, we had a lively discussion on this blog; some suggested we should have nipped it in the bud, while others told them to “get over it.”

It’s all a balancing act, I think. On the one hand, those of us who love and strive to share classical music must create a welcoming environment for the neophytes. This is a concert hall, not a holy temple before which greater silence must be observed. On the other, there are few places and occasions left in the world where one can concentrate, contemplate and deeply listen, and the concert hall should be one of them.

What do you think? Was Sir Peter over the top? Was Delfs right in calling the audience “sinners”? Was Geoffrey overly tolerant last December?

Most importantly, can we create an environment at concerts that welcomes people from all walks of life and levels of experience – without sacrificing the needs of the seasoned listeners who are our bread and butter?

Light, more light!

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:57:00 PDT

This week we welcome back our guest blogger, Tacoma Symphony Chorus alto Claudia Finseth. Claudia is a gifted freelance writer whose articles are featured periodically in The News Tribune and other publications.

Light. Light. Light. Shed a little light on me. Let me feel its warmth. Let me see its truth. Let it fill me on up. Let it shine on out. Light, precious light. Let it shine.

Here at the end of a long, long cold winter we are so ready for the season of light and the warmth it brings! Tacoma Symphony Chorus will shed a little light in song on June 11th at Urban Grace Church in our last concert of the season.

Director Geoffrey Boers has put together a program that celebrates the light by setting up the contrast with the darkness. Winter teaches us to love spring. Cold nudges us to love warmth. Loneliness creates in us desire for friendship and community. War and strife make us long for peace and justice, and peace and justice are at the very heart of the light.

Oh, the lows of the dark. We’ll find them in the lyrics: Now the world outside is such a cold and bitter place. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. If I had stopped to listen once or twice; if I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes; if I had cooled my head and warmed my heart, I’d not be on this road tonight.

Oh the joy of the light. We’ll hear it in the lyrics: When I look at open gates and see a garden full of life, of good health, and smiles of glowing faces, it ignites my spirit and I have never been more excited to be alive . . .

O let us recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the earth. Ties of hope and love, of sister and brotherhood. That we are bound together, we are bound and we are bound.

Light, light, light. We’ll feel it in the music. We’ll feel it dawn in John Rutter’s Requiem. We’ll feel it blossom with James Taylor. We’ll feel it rock the house as it is expressed in the music of Moses Hogan and U2 and Latin and African rhythms.

Teach me to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes. I think on the things that made me laugh, made me dance, made me sing. I think on the things that made me grow into a being full of pride. Full of light.

Oh, yeah, shed a little light on me. Bring it on up! Send it on out. Pass it along. This little light of mine; I’m gonna let it shine.

Dedicated to Geoffrey Boers on his 10 Anniversary as director of Tacoma Symphony Chorus

A Sound Investment

Fri, 13 May 2011 10:52:00 PDT

At the TSO, we’re currently focused on our spring Annual Campaign to balance the budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. We’re having good success, and most people are being very generous and supportive. (If you'd like to be one of them, click here.) There are always those who decline their support, of course. Not every cause appeals to every donor, and that’s fine.

But in many cases, I am struck by how little people understand about the impact of the Arts in the community. It is critically important for those of us who care about the Arts and advocate for its support to understand that impact ourselves, and take the time to communicate it to prospects, even (and perhaps especially) the most skeptical.

Did you know that by supporting the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra you are not only investing in community quality of life and helping to bring music and the arts to area youth, but also effectively contributing to the local economy and a safe and vibrant downtown?

Let me share with you some fascinating numbers about Tacoma’s Arts sector as a whole, recently revealed by the new Arts & Economic Prosperity Survey completed by Americans for the Arts:

- Annual expenditures of Tacoma’s arts organizations and their audiences exceeds $36,700,000
- Tacoma’s arts support nearly 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the community
- Tacoma’s arts generate $1.5 million to local and $1.8 million to state government
- Tacoma’s arts have a total annual attendance of nearly 872,000

With the departure of The Russell Company, the Arts are the third largest industry in downtown Tacoma. Since I work downtown and put in a lot of evening and weekend hours, I see its impact all the time. On those now rare nights when the Broadway Center is dark, the Theater District and Pacific Avenue are deserted. When its three theaters are all presenting simultaneously, the area is bustling with life. Clearly, in the words of Mayor Marilyn Strickland, “The arts are embedded in what we do as a city.”

I’m a relative newcomer to Tacoma, but people are constantly telling me what the downtown used to be like. By all accounts, the change that has taken place is dramatic. What amazes me, however, is how little credit the Arts receive in this transformation. On the south end of downtown, the Museum of Glass, Tacoma Art Museum, and the Washington State History Museum – together with UWT – have been the catalyst for one of the most remarkable turnarounds of a downtown anywhere I’ve been. The revitalization of the Theatre District area to the north, although more gradual, is no less impressive. But without the Broadway Center and its menu of resident arts organizations – of which the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra is the largest – the area would still be catering to a very different clientele!

If you’ll forgive the pun, the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra is a sound investment – as are all Tacoma's Arts. No, we're not going to be everybody’s cause to support. But those of us who work to sustain the Orchestra should do so with boldness and pride – and make sure that everyone who has a stake in this community fully appreciates the role the TSO plays.

Felder fans share their appreciation

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:52:00 PDT

Maestro Harvey Felder’s recent announcement that he will step down as Music Director at the conclusion of the 2013-2014 season came as a shocker to his many friends and fans here in Tacoma.

Rosemary Ponnekanti broke the news on the “Go Arts” blog on the TNT website last Thursday, and this was followed up by an article in Friday’s News Tribune. Maestro Felder explained that his decision was driven by a desire to move forward with a number of musical initiatives he has begun, including a national chamber orchestra. “The role of a music director is all-consuming, leaving little time for other serious endeavors, and for the past 17 years, that has been something I’ve willingly done,” he noted. “As I approach my 20-year anniversary though, I now wish to take the time and energy to breathe life into a few other musical endeavors.”

Having experienced at close hand the work of four music directors over the past 24 years, I can attest to the intensity of the commitment s/he must bring to the job. The public only sees the tip of the iceberg. The work of planning seasons, selecting repertoire and guest artists, being mindful of audience preferences and balancing that with the needs of the ensemble – these alone are daunting responsibilities. Add to that the role an American music director must play in marketing, public relations, planning, and fund raising on the one hand, and constantly dealing with the limiting factors of the budget (guys like me saying “no we can’t afford that Mahler symphony”), and it is remarkable how they retain their energy, passion and humor over the span of decades.

I first met Harvey when we were both at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra more than 20 years ago, and he has kept all three of those qualities. Although in a few instances music directors at professional orchestras have maintained tenures of several decades or more, this is the exception rather than the rule. Harvey’s tenure at the TSO – now at 17 years – has been a fantastically successful run.

And it’s not over yet. We have several more years to celebrate his legacy, concluding with his 20^th Anniversary Season in 2013-2014. Between now and then, with his help and guidance, we will ensure his legacy is a lasting one by positioning the TSO for success in the years and decades to come.

Let’s start the celebrating now. The announcement last week resulted in an outpouring of goodwill and gratitude toward the Maestro on the “Go Arts” blog. In case you missed it, I will end this post with a few examples. It’s especially remarkable to note how each writer picks out a different aspect of Harvey’s leadership to highlight.

PLUViolin writes: “The City of Tacoma has completely transformed itself since the early 1990s with the creation and renovation of museums, trade centers, concert halls, residential and retail space. Everybody knows that the arts have been central to Tacoma's Renaissance and Maestro Harvey Felder has played one of they key roles in the revival of Tacoma's downtown core through the Arts. The entire City of Tacoma owes Harvey a debt of gratitude for transforming the Tacoma Symphony in much the same way that the City has transformed itself. Thank you for all you have done for the Arts and for Tacoma, Harvey!”

Hope writes: “My first exposure to the Tacoma Symphony was not at an evening performance, but at a Simply Symphonic education concert. Along with hundreds of fifth grade students I 'saw' the music for the first time. I watched Maestro Felder captivate his young audience with the magic of not only 'hearing' the music but 'watching' how the music was made. The effect that the Maestro has had on our community goes well beyond the amazing concerts he conducted. His impact can not fully be measured without considering how he changed the way people think about symphonic music. His 'conversations' with the audience helped us all 'see' the music, understand it and fall in love with it. He brought the music to life in Tacoma as the city transformed itself. TSO’s first Conductor Laureate is a well deserved tribute. Harvey, thank you for all you have done for our city and especially our youth. You will be a hard act to follow and I wish you the best.”

Rickles writes: “For me, Harvey Felder is the embodiment of the words professional, creative, outreach, education, humor, honor, precision, inventive, inviting, informing, encouraging and so many more. His music sensibility could only be outdone by his warmth from the stage. Maestro Felder’s ability to draw us into the music so we can begin to understand the emotions, the pressures of the era in which the music was written, and the wonderful stories that are bottled up inside the great works, actually make classical music come alive for many of us in the audience.

“Thank you Harvey for loving Tacoma and putting everything you have into choosing the music, interpreting it and adding the Technicolor shadings that only you can see and feel in your soul to create such memorable concerts.

“Like many others, I would venture to say, my wife and family will not miss a concert nor waste a moment as we look forward to the next three years and what Harvey will bring as his final creations for our enjoyment. Harvey, you will be missed. I hope you will bring your next endeavors on tour and make sure that Tacoma is on the list of cities. We will look forward to every concert.”

What about you? I invite you to share your thoughts below.

To read the original Go Arts blog that includes all of these posts, click here.

From the Chorus Riser

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:42:00 PDT

This week we are honored to welcome a guest blogger: Tacoma Symphony Chorus alto Claudia Finseth. Claudia is a gifted freelance writer whose articles are featured periodically in The News Tribune and other publications. On Friday, April 15, the Tacoma Symphony Chorus will perform Mozart's Requiem at Christ Episcopal Church. Dr. Geoffrey Boers will conduct the sold-out performance. Below, Ms. Finseth shares her personal insights into the significance of this work -- directly from the chorus riser.

-- Andy

Perhaps no music speaks reassurance to the heart like the choral requiem. On April 15th the Tacoma Symphony Chorus will sing Mozart’s Requiem and several other works of rest and blessing in the aurally beautiful space of Christ Episcopal.

Requiem: literally “extra quiet or rest.” Written as a liturgy for the dead--made up of an Introit, a Kyrie, an Agnus Dei, a Pie Jesu and so forth--requiems have always provided solace to those still living, as well. In the 20th Century they gathered even greater meaning as they also came to represent hope for peace in the world.

On the first anniversary of 9/11 the Mozart Requiem was sung around the world in such a gesture. The “Rolling Requiem” began at exactly 8:46 am--the time the first plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York one year earlier. As that time circled the world, Mozart’s Requiem reverberated in the round across the earth.

I have two CDs of the Mozart Requiem, one which I bought in Salzburg Cathedral, a lovely small cathedral not far from the house in which Mozart was born. We were there at Christmas, visiting our daughter in college, and the sound of Mozart’s music in live performance was in every church and concert hall and even on street corners throughout the Old City. It was magical.

The writing of his requiem will forever be associated with Mozart’s early death at age 35 of rheumatic fever. We even know the last stanzas he penned as he lay on his death bed. They are in the midst of the heart-rending Lacrimosa movement, “That day of tears and mourning . . . .” Franz Xaver Sussmayr, a fellow-musician to whom Mozart explained his musical themes as he lay dying, finished that movement and others.

Each movement in the Requiem has its own beauty and power, and it is hard to pick one as a favorite. I love the Rex Tremendae, “King of tremendous majesty, who freely saves . . . .” It is truly a song of tremendous majesty (and the altos have a chance to sing the lead.) But dearest to my heart is the musical theme that bookends the Requiem in both the Introitus and Communio, “Grant them eternal rest, Lord, and let perpetual light shine on them.” Somehow in that piece Mozart achieves a musical blossoming of light. Listen for it.

The Tacoma Symphony Chorus last sang the Mozart Requiem in 2002. It is time to sing it again. This year is the tenth anniversary of Dr. Geoffrey Boers directing us. He has picked some exquisite music to round out this program. The chorus will process singing the warm verses of The Kontakion by Rupert Lang from the Eastern Orthodox Memorial Liturgy. Kontakion refers to the stick that holds a rolled scroll, perhaps the scroll of each life, the story of each life. Then there is the remarkable In Paradisium, written by 21 year old music major Eric Sayre of St. Olaf College on the death of his father. A combination of Jewish and Christian memorial words from Sayre's own mixed heritage, it is so very tender with it’s “May the angels lead you into paradise . . . .”

Christ Episcopal Church, with its cathedral acoustics and spare decoration, will be the ideal place to let this lovely music fill your soul and speak to your heart. In your busy and hectic life let it be a moment when you surround yourself with music that can bring you rest and peace. “Give rest unto your servants with your saints, O God, give rest, give rest.”

Claudia Finseth

Alto

Liking modern music

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:03:00 PDT

Last month, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra audiences surprised themselves by really enjoying a brand new composition.

The occasion was the premiere of Gregory Youtz’s new Double Percussion Concerto, commissioned by the TSO and funded by a grant from Boeing Corporation. It’s well known that audiences are cautious about modern music, and sometimes find it strange, unlovely and alien. To some people’s apparent surprise, this piece was interesting, varied, humorous, and visually and sonically exciting. Even more importantly, to my mind, it occasioned a “growth moment” for our TSO musical community’s receptivity to the exotic and unfamiliar.

I would like to suggest that listening to music is a lot like being a gourmand: what one likes and appreciates evolves over time. Like acquiring a taste for different foods, you can learn to appreciate composers and styles that did nothing for you formerly. Let me share a few examples from my own evolving musical diet, and what it has taught me about appreciating different styles.

Like most people, I’ve always enjoyed Debussy. I heard La Mer as a young boy and fell in love with it. Debussy’s music is regarded as the jumping-off point of modernism. This is where composers began to shed the straitjacket of traditional tonality, harmony, and rhythm that had reigned supreme for 200 years. From Vivaldi to Wagner, Western Music was based on the diatonic or major-minor tonal system (the familiar do, re, mi, fa, sol…). It served us well in providing a common language and framework for all kinds of fantastic art. Late in the 19^th century, however, the enfante terrible Debussy came along and deliciously bent, but did not break, this system. He opened the door to a freer, more experimental approach to composing.

If Debussy opened the door, Igor Stravinsky pretty much kicked it in -- with his groundbreaking 1913 ballet score, Rite of Spring. Pierre Monteux, who conducted its premiere, recounted that when Stravinsky first played the score for him on the piano, "I was convinced he was raving mad." It was so unlike anything heard before that it literally caused a riot at its premiere.

The first time I heard Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, I didn’t riot, but I didn't get it any more than those members of its first audience. It sounded like an orchestra noodling before a concert. This was music? Why would anyone want to listen to such seemingly wanton cacophony?

My ears opened up to it a few years later in a music history class in school, when the professor (my father, as it happened) explained what was going on – how it was about rhythmic rather than melodic development, how the actual melodic content was incidental, how the treatment of the melodies changed with every repetition. This gave me a new context for listening to it, and suddenly – aha! A whole new world of listening opened up for me. You mean music doesn’t have to be pretty? It can be gritty and edgy instead? How cool is that??

Not only could I then appreciate Stravinsky, but also Bartok. One of my Emerson, Lake & Palmer albums had an adaptation of Bartok’s Allegro Barbaro. Curious to hear the original I bought Gyorgy Sandor’s recordings of the complete Bartok piano music. Allegro Barbaro treats the piano as a percussion instrument (which it actually is, by the way, but no one had previously had the guts to treat it as such). The other interesting thing about it is that the left hand plays predominantly on black keys while the right hand plays on white. This technique is known as bitonality -- music that's (more or less) in two keys at once. Now there’s something you don’t encounter with Mozart!

Beyond Barbaro, I came to appreciate the strange mixture of Central European rural ethnic folk melodies crossed with Bartok’s cerebral, musicological compositional style. All sorts of odd chords, modes and rhythms, yet somehow still recognizably tonal. Even today, Bartok does for my ears what a strong cup of black coffee does for my palate.

Then I got curious about Arnold Schoenberg. I knew that he had pioneered an odd-sounding compositional technique known as “Twelve-tone.” The idea was an extension of Wagner’s music, which stretched the diatonic system to the breaking point with its chromaticism (use of all 12 notes instead of just the 8 notes of the diatonic scale). With Wagner, it is often difficult to tell just what key the piece is in. Schoenberg, however, took things a step further.

He came up with a system that did away, not only with diatonicism, but with tonality altogether. As its name suggests, instead of just an eight-note scale, Twelve-tone features all twelve notes of the chromatic scale (every white and every black key). The composer organizes them into a “row” that functions as the basic motif or theme around which the piece is built. Unlike the diatonic system, in which one note is “home plate” (i.e. whatever key the piece is in, such as C major), all notes are created equal in Twelve-tone – there is no “home plate.” The result is some of the world’s most unsettling music. You may find that a little goes a long way. I have a Maurizio Pollini CD of Schoenberg piano music, and it’s great when I’m in the mood for something bitter.

Schoenberg’s two pupils, Berg and Webern, took the Twelve-tone system in different directions. Berg actually made it fairly listenable. I bought a copy of the Lulu Suite and found it intriguing. It sounds like someone took a Wagner score, cut it up with scissors, and rearranged the segments in random order. This is the musical equivalent of Munch’s The Scream. Webern’s approach was even odder – he loved to strip every ounce of flesh and muscle off his scores, down to the bare bones, so you have these long stretches where just a single instrument is playing, or maybe several. Webern’s music is like a really dry martini – it tastes so bad it’s good.

My point is this: anyone who has seriously stretched their food palate knows that some tastes come easily; others are acquired. But you have to experiment. I didn’t like mussels the first or even the second time I tried them, but eventually my taste buds had an aha moment. The same thing is true with music. I used to detest Stravinsky; now I love Stravinsky. I may never acquire a taste for certain things. I can’t make myself like oysters, at least not so far, and Philip Glass’s music does nothing for me. Maybe that will change some day – and it’s actually fun to keep trying.

Here’s the other great thing I’ve discovered along the way. The more I listen to Stravinsky, Berg, Varese and the other pioneers who stretched Western Music beyond the diatonic system, the more my appreciation of the old masters grows when I return to it. I can hear things in Beethoven and Bach I never noticed before. For their time, they were both as radical as Schoenberg!

Just because it's classical doesn't mean it's great

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:43:00 PST

Do you ever get tired of all the emphasis in the classical music world on how sublime everything is?

“Epic music… intimate sound” goes the tag line for one major orchestra’s season, while the conductor stands, arms raised like a prophet, head thrown back, transfixed by his own greatness. So-and-so’s performances have “captivated” audiences “around the world,” we are told on another orchestra’s website. Such-and-such symphony has “thrilled” generations of listeners. Every concert gets a standing ovation.

It's enough to give you a complex. If you don’t walk out of the hall every time in a blissful trance, on the verge of speaking in tongues, you must be a cretin.

Now I love a transforming concert as much as the next guy. But sometimes a concert is just a concert. If I'm honest, one Haydn symphony sounds pretty much like another to me. Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss kinda bore me. Some classical music is great, some is really good, some is okay, and some is just plain snooze material.

Sometimes the emperor’s just wearing jeans.

Listen to classical radio for a while and you’ll hear a Top 40 hit parade of longhair music by dead white guys. (A station manager once told me, “I’m not in the classical music business, I’m in the radio business.”) The emphasis is on the peppy, frisky, and happy. Lots of sewing machine Baroque and early classical – and nothing that doesn’t quickly resolve! Good stuff, mostly – but is it all sublime? Not by me.

And not everyone is going to agree on the sublime and the mundane. For example, I happen to think Beethoven really is sublime (usually) and Tchaikovsky really isn’t (usually). Beethoven’s music is multi-layered, a subtlety that unpeels like an onion layer by layer, an appreciation that grows and evolves with each listening. With Tchaikovsky, the epic comes in a can. As Aaron Copland once observed, it’s basically the same experience every time you listen.

Don’t get me wrong; I finally came to appreciate Tchaikovsky, after disdaining him for years. He’s a far better tunesmith than Beethoven, really. I love Swan Lake, R & J, Sleeping Beauty, and even Nutcracker (though I avoid it at Christmas). I just don’t think it qualifies as sublime. And that’s okay.

Wagner, to me, belongs to the same ilk, only more so. It’s canned sublimity, but what a can! When I listen to Wagner, I know I’m being emotionally manipulated; I just don’t care.

Mahler? Now he’s the real thing. Harvey Felder said Mahler is his favorite composer. My wife adores him too. In my youth I found him ponderous and long-winded. As an adult I’ve come to appreciate his genius… though once in a while I wish he’d just mellow out and go have a beer.

Brahms? I’m not a big fan. Maybe my ears haven’t discovered him yet, but I suspect he’s one of those composers whose music (like some kinds of jazz) is way more fun to play than to listen to.

At the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, we recently played Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, the “Great” C Major. I listened to a recording of it a few weeks in advance of the concert cycle, to help get my ears around it. I knew the coda very well, from an old Boston Pops album of my father’s, but didn’t remember the rest of it at all.

In all honesty, after listening to it I still liked the coda, but the rest of it didn’t live up to the “Great” subtitle. After hearing the TSO perform it live in February, I like it better, but I haven’t revised my opinion. I’m certainly glad we programmed it, and I thought the TSO played it extremely well. But what I hear is a painfully self-conscious composer who couldn't get Beethoven out of his ears (perhaps not surprisingly, since Ludwig van had just completed his Earth-shattering "Choral" Symphony). Schubert may well have written some great pieces, but for me, the 9^th wasn’t one of them.

On the other hand, one of the New York Times critics recently rated it one of the top pieces of all time – so there you go.

The long and short of it? Just because it’s classical doesn’t mean it’s great. Just because someone else says it’s great doesn’t mean you have to like it. Not every concert has to be a mystical experience. Sometimes it’s just entertainment.

When terms like “sublime,” and “great,” and “thrilling” get tossed around as if they apply equally to all classical music, I think they lose their meaning. We risk turning off those who come to our concerts and don’t experience it that way. Worse, we might even prevent them from trusting their own ears and valuing their own tastes. And there could be no bigger disservice to them, to us, and to music.

Yes, sometimes the emperor is dressed in ceremonial robes, and sometimes -- like the one in the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale -- he’s wearing nothing.

But sometimes, he might really just be wearing jeans.

Saint Paul's Epistle to Orchestras

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:57:00 PST

In a recent address to symphony stakeholders of another city, orchestra guru Bruce Coppock noted: “There is a simple, axiomatic progression: exposure to great music leads to involvement; involvement to engagement; engagement to passion; passion to philanthropy. And philanthropy leads to all kinds of good things.”

A veteran administrator in the field, Coppock made waves recently as the chief architect of a new business model while serving as CEO of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. The model places audiences and relationship building, rather than artistic excellence, at its center.

Sounds a little like heresy, doesn’t it? After all, in the orchestra industry our resources and energy have always focused around artistic excellence: growing the orchestra so that it is capable of producing the highest quality performances for the community.

However, in the Saint Paul model, the emphasis on artistic excellence doesn’t change one whit. It’s not a change in mission, it’s a change in the business model for achieving that mission. And although it delves down to a far level of complexity, the gist of it is laid out simply in the quote above.

It’s about the audience, stupid.

Saint Paul’s Epistle (as we’ll now call it) grew out of an effort by their leadership to address the SPCO’s inability to conform to the industry’s “best practice” business model, which called for a level of earned revenue (primarily ticket sales) corresponding to 45-55% of budget expenses. They determined that this was essentially impossible in Saint Paul due to the market and organizational structure, and that even with perpetual sellouts the best they could achieve was 35%.

My interest was perked by the Saint Paul Epistle when I crunched the numbers and realized that, for slightly different reasons, a similar budgetary constraint exists for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra.

As a result of their conclusions, the SPCO rejected the traditional “three-legged stool” business revenue model that breaks out different percentages for Contributed, Earned and Endowment revenue, with the orchestra and artistic excellence as the center-seat.

The Saint Paul model can also be thought of as a stool, but with a new center-seat: the audience, patrons and the community. It is the orchestra’s mission to serve these constituents with its mission of artistically vibrant performances and other offerings, and it is from this service that the majority of sustainable revenue will come.

In this model, whether or not that revenue is classed as “earned” or “contributed” is beside the point. The real point is that it comes -- in whatever form -- from the people who are served, touched and affected by the orchestra’s mission. The degree of support generated is in direct proportion to the orchestra’s impact on its stakeholders.

In effect, this model is already at work at all “mission-healthy” orchestras, whether they know it or not -- including the TSO. The most significant stakeholders of an orchestra, with seemingly unlimited growth potential, are the individual people who patronize it: its audience and donors. At the TSO, for example, subscribers and individual donors today account for fully 42% of our revenue. Expand that to include single ticket buyers and gala attendees and the amount rises to 60%.

This is consistent with what they found in Saint Paul, leading them to conclude (as Coppock wrote in Symphony Magazine several years ago): “if we think of ourselves as being in the concert production business, with ticket revenue as our core revenue, we severely limit potential income. However, if we think of ourselves as being in the patron-development business and think of producing concerts as our mission, new horizons appear.”

One of the key concepts in the Saint Paul Epistle is that of sustainability. Orchestras need revenue that is sustainable over time. Corporate and foundation contributions, though important and necessary, tend to fluctuate considerably due to economic conditions and other factors beyond the organization’s control. Revenue from individuals, whether subscribers or donors or both, however, is largely dependent on the value the individual places on the organization. And that perceived value can be cultivated and grown.

As an example, three seasons ago we began focusing on growing our Symphony Chair program, in which donors have their name assigned to specific musician “chairs” in the orchestra. Since 2006-2007, the number of individual donors has increased 40% and the amount of individual gifts nearly 60% -- and this in one of the most severe economic downturns in our national history.

If these things are done in a dry tree, what might happen when it is green? What if we consciously commit ourselves to these principles at the TSO, as they have done at the SPCO? What if we too forego selling artistic excellence as our principal commodity, replacing it with engaging patrons and serving community as the center-seat of our business model? Who knows where it might lead us?

To repeat Bruce Coppock’s words: “Exposure to great music leads to involvement; involvement to engagement; engagement to passion; passion to philanthropy. And philanthropy leads to all kinds of good things.”

What good things? To answer that, we’ll end this blog post by holding our proposed new business model up to the light of the Vision Statement in the TSO's new Strategic Plan:

The Tacoma Symphony Orchestra seeks to change lives through music’s power to communicate. We will capture the imagination of the community with extraordinary performances where the combined energy of the orchestra and audience creates magic. We will foster effective education programs and meaningful community partnerships that bring diverse people together. We will thereby be recognized as an artistic leader and a vital resource. The community will support our patron-friendly, fiscally-sound organization by purchasing tickets regularly and donating generously.

No Free Arts

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:33:00 PST

Last month the local daily ran a series called “Free Arts Month.” The premise behind it was that only the rich can afford to attend paid arts, and so on behalf of ordinary folks the reporter devoted an entire month of columns to sniffing out and promoting free events.

I must confess that I groaned inwardly when I first ran across it. It’s not that I think people should never be able to see an arts event for free, and if the series got more people out experiencing the arts, that's a good thing. But many Americans already believe the Arts are only for the wealthy (with one hand); while horribly undervaluing the services of artists and musicians (with the other). I hope that such writings don't help to perpetuate this.

I would rather have seen a series on the many inexpensive opportunities to attend professional arts events in Tacoma; for example, the TSO offers an entire section of the hall for just $12. And yes, we do give away tickets – but only to those who would otherwise truly be unable to afford it, via our Community Ticket Program administered in cooperation with The United Way of Pierce County.

But ultimately, there are no free arts events. Trust me, someone is paying for it even if you’re not – either the sponsor, the host, or the artists themselves.

This post comes in the middle of a series of blogs (here, here and here) about orchestra finances stretching back into December, as we have explored both the specifics of the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra’s business model and the generalities of business models throughout the American orchestra industry. It's a timely subject due to the many orchestras experiencing financial hardships across the nation. (The TSO remains stable due to exemplary community support; yet all orchestras are fragile institutions, and constant vigilance is the price of financial stability.) But let's also remind ourselves of the human aspects of all this. Why does it matter whether orchestras survive or perish?

In November, I blogged about the effect of TSO concerts on a new subscriber (read it here). Today I want to write a bit about the view from the musician’s seat. Because ultimately, when we talk about a sustainable business model, we’re talking about being able to pay musicians to practice their art form for the benefit of the community.

The orchestra musician I know most intimately is actually a member of a different TSO: the Traverse Symphony Orchestra in the middle of Michigan’s north woods. She is my Aunt Judy, who has spent the last 57 years performing and teaching viola and piano – nearly half of that time as a member of “TSO East” (as I now must call it!). You can read more about Judy’s life here.

Aunt Judy was my first piano teacher. I remember my first lesson with her vividly. It was a hot August afternoon; I was six. She sat me down, legs dangling, at an old upright piano. The setting was my father’s music studio, a converted ice house in a grove of hemlock, cedar and pine just a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan.

That was 43 years ago, and I think my hands have touched a keyboard most days since then. I’ve never had the single-minded focus of my father (an incredible musician), and I never wanted to be a concert pianist (although at age 17 I wouldn’t have minded being Keith Emerson). But the piano has been my friend and companion ever since – partly, I think, because of Judy’s soft and loving approach to teaching children.

How many young musicians have benefited from Judy's gentle first musical push over the years? It must be in the thousands by now in a career spanning the Louisville, Atlanta and Traverse orchestras, coaching student ensembles in the schools, at all times maintaining a large private studio.

There’s not an ounce of pretension or elitism in Judy. To her, classical music is as natural as the woods, water and critters that are nearest neighbors to her snug little cabin. It hasn’t made Judy financially wealthy (though she would say she is rich in other more important ways), but she’s been able to carve out a living doing it all this time. Musicians get good at making a little go a long way.

This is one reason why I believe so strongly in the value of paid professional musicians in our midst. When you see them onstage at a symphony concert, you’re seeing the visible tip of the iceberg, but the vast underpinning of what they do is invisible to most people. The next time you sit before an 80-piece orchestra, try to picture not only the individual musicians onstage but also the unseen classrooms, school bands and orchestras, and dozens of individual students each of them touches. That's a major impact on the community, and it all happens outside the concert hall. Stable institutions like symphony orchestras, operas and ballets provide the anchor that makes it possible. Believe me, none of those players are getting rich doing this, and they earn every cent they make.

It’s fine to enjoy an occasional free outdoor summer concert, but you can feel especially proud the next time you buy tickets to a local arts event. Every ticket you buy – whether box or balcony; and every donation you make – whether estate bequest or widow’s mite – helps keep these unsung musical heroes -- like my Aunt Judy -- working in our midst.

Business as Unusual: in search of a new model

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:35:00 PST

In a recent forum in Seattle, consultant Alan Brown challenged arts leaders to think beyond artistic excellence – implying a static, externalized vision – to artistic vibrancy, a phrase connoting the shared experience between musicians and audience when a great performance occurs. He further proposed replacing the concept of audience development (getting bodies in seats) with audience engagement (building sustainable relationships). Diane Ragsdale, formerly of the Mellon Foundation, merged both ideas in a speech last year titled “The Excellence Barrier,” suggesting that “to attract and retain new audiences, arts organizations may need to stop selling excellence and start brokering relationships.”

Both artistic vibrancy and audience engagement are key concepts in the TSO’s burgeoning new Strategic Plan. Part of our vision statement reads, “capture the imagination of the community with extraordinary performances where the combined energy of the orchestra and audience creates magic.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But how does all this tie in with creating a new, sustainable business model – the subject we began exploring last month?

The answer may be coming from forward-thinking organizations like The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. At the SPCO, the term “business model” doesn’t just refer to budgets and ratios of earned-to-contributed revenue. If the Strategic Plan is the body of the vehicle, at Saint Paul the business model is the chassis. Several years ago they set out to create a new model that would sustainably fund the achievement of their Vision. They were wrestling with a similar problem to the TSO: how to sustain the orchestra over the long-term if its earned income ratio remained at 30 percent or less.

Their answer was surprising, in that they have essentially rejected the traditional “three-legged stool” business model that breaks out different percentages for Contributed, Earned and Endowment revenue. “Best practices” thinking about this model has varied over time, with some advocating 40% earned and others as high as 50%. In St. Paul they realized it was a moot point, because there was little possibility they would ever go beyond 30%.

Then-president Bruce Coppock put it succinctly: “The SPCO’s low ticket-revenue percent was in large measure a result of our structure… by virtue of artistic mission, size, and geographic circumstance, the SPCO is a boutique shop, and can only increase the percentage of revenue derived from tickets to a maximum of 30 to 35% -- if every ticket is sold at full price. In previous years, we tried to increase ticket revenue by maintaining or increasing prices… this only resulted in smaller audiences.” [Symphony Magazine, Jan/Feb ’08]

The TSO’s situation is analogous. Although we are a symphony orchestra, not a chamber orchestra, we too are situated in a “shadow city,” a medium-sized community located less than an hour’s drive from a major metropolitan market. But geographic circumstances make our situation even more challenging.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are two large cities in the middle of the Minnesota prairie, with the usual surrounding suburbs and exburbs, but no other cities of comparable size within several hours’ driving distance. The Twin Cities are the hub of culture and commerce in central Minnesota. Their combined gravitational pull is irresistable.

Tacoma is the second largest in a string of cities clustered along the eastern shores of Puget Sound from Lynnwood to Olympia. Virtually every one of these communities has its own volunteer or semi-professional orchestra, sometimes more than one. I-5 is the sole transportation artery, and unfortunately it’s an engineering nightmare of perpetual traffic snarls. Culture and commerce are de-centralized. People recreate in their own community; audiences are thus “siloed” off into many small organizations.

Even if we had a 2,200-seat concert hall, at the moment Tacoma’s Theatre District lacks sufficient gravitational pull to attract audiences to fill it. Downtown Tacoma is vastly improved over what it was a decade ago, but it’s still a work in progress and has yet to achieve a critical mass. Our average percentage of house sold is rising by increments, but we’re still leaving 25% on the table even in the Pantages Theater, with its capacity of 1,200. And even if the TSO sold every ticket at full price for every concert, we would only raise our earned revenue ratio to a maximum of 33-35%.

I don’t mean to paint a bleak picture; I’m actually very optimistic and excited about the TSO’s future prospects. We’ve got a dedicated Board team, a wonderful orchestra, my staff is the best I’ve had anywhere, the Broadway Center administration is a strong partner, and our donors are steadfast in their support. But solutions will only emerge to the extent that we face our challenges squarely and honestly.

In the next post, we’ll continue our look at the new business model created at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and how it is already affecting practices at other orchestras in America. It is my hope that this will stimulate fresh thinking here in Tacoma, among the TSO Board, musicians and patrons. Our new Strategic Plan is taking shape, and our future direction is beginning to emerge, like a custom vehicle lovingly made in our own shop. And in order to really make this new vehicle go, we need a custom chassis!

What might this look like? It will be different from St. Paul’s. The whole point their team emphasized was that every community is unique, and the typical industry one-size-fits-all business model only works for a few large metropolitan orchestras. We can’t simply graft the St. Paul model onto Tacoma. But we can learn from their process, and we can take inspiration from other thought leaders like Alan Brown and Diane Ragsdale.

Artistic vibrancy. Audience engagement. Stop selling excellence and start brokering relationships. Could it be that the answer lies in these concepts?

Clapping between movements? The nerve.

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 03:43:00 PST

Weightier matters like the future financial model of the symphony orchestra industry will be put aside in this week’s blog entry in favor of a more timely topic: the phenomenon of clapping between movements.

Why is this timely? Because we just performed a sold-out concert of Handel’s Messiah at St. Charles Borromeo church and the enthusiastic audience not only clapped between every movement (a considerable accomplishment in the case of Messiah) but even made up a few extra movements where none before existed.

During intermission I endured the wrath of one indignant, seasoned patron who complained that the applauders were ruining the performance and wanted to know why we hadn’t printed “do not applaud between movements” on the program page. (I restrained myself from pointing out that the program page already enjoins “no photography” and “turn off cell phones” to only modest, occasional effect.)

The rage and contempt provoked by clapping between movements at classical events has always mystified me. Yes, I too found the clapping mildly disconcerting for a while, but then I inwardly shrugged and decided to go with it. My concentration isn't so fragile a thing that it's shot by a little misplaced applause -- and it was still far less than your average jazz concert.

In my misspent youth, my idea of high culture was attending a rock show with a decibel level comparable to a Concorde jet revving for takeoff. Patrons not standing on their seats screaming their heads off were liable to incur the wrath of the performers onstage (which was ill advised at such events). And besides, I have always been under the impression that the custom of observing silence between movements is of relatively recent origin: say, around the turn of the 20^th century.

After Friday night’s concert, I looked this up and discovered I was mistaken. In fact, the enjoinment against clapping between movements became endemic less than 50 years ago.

New York Times critic Alex Ross wrote the definitive blog on this topic several years ago, which you can read here. But the Reader’s Digest version is that the custom originated in 19^th-century Wagnerian opera. It didn’t hit the concert hall until Leopold Stokowski introduced it in the 1920s, and was adopted only gradually, attaining universality not before the late ‘50s or even early ‘60s.

Ross pins its origin not on reverence for the music, as we have been led to believe – but squarely on the Cult of the Maestro. “It’s not surprising that conductors were intent on stamping out spontaneous clapping,” he writes. “To refrain from applause heightens focus on the personality of the conductor. Silence is the measure of the unbreakable spell that Maestro is supposedly casting on us. A big ovation at the end salutes his mastery of the architecture of the work, or whatever. Whereas a burst of applause after a first movement or a Scherzo is probably inspired by a soloist’s brilliant playing, or by a powerful collective effort by the musicians, or by the infectious energy of the music itself.”

About a third of the audience at last Friday’s concert apparently never got the memo about not applauding between movements. It’s probably not a coincidence that this occurred at our first sold-out Messiah in four years. I’m guessing there were a lot of people at the concert who don’t attend the TSO – or any other classical events – on a regular basis.

It’s a natural human reaction to want to respond with joy to the music. To not applaud this music is itself anomalous – an example of the restrained, repressive attitude toward classical music that has made people avoid our art form like castor oil.

So I’m overjoyed that those people clapped at every turn on Friday night. First, it means we had a lot of new friends in the house, and we should welcome them. Second, apparently there are people out there who don’t know about the prim and proper school of classical music, but still believe it is meant to be a joyful, participatory group experience. Maybe we can learn something from them.

Maybe there’s hope for our art form after all.

No room for lard!

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:50:00 PST

Last week I blogged about the Not-for-Profit model and how such organizations exist to provide a needed service, not to make money. In most cases, Not-for-Profits not only don’t make money, but can’t possibly break even without outside contributions. This doesn’t mean they’re badly run, as some people think. It’s just that the cost of fulfilling their mission exceeds its earned revenue potential.

The most obvious example of this is the Church. No one would suggest that the local congregation start charging $15 admission; if it did, it would quickly go under. In the case of most churches, anyone can attend, and although a freewill offering is taken, no one is under obligation to contribute. Thus most of a church’s revenue is contributed rather than earned.

The formulas are different for different types of organizations. Some not-for-profit hospitals and academic institutions are sustained primarily by earned revenue. Even within the performing arts industry there are significant differences. For example, volunteer community ensembles raise 60% or more of their budgets from earned revenue – including ticket sales, program advertising, concessions, and musician membership fees (it is common for musicians of such organizations to pay a modest annual sum for the privilege of belonging and playing). Educational ensembles like youth orchestras and community ballet schools, largely supported by student tuition fees, raise from 70% to 90% of their budgets from earned revenue.

Since professional orchestras pay their musicians, their budgets look very different from community and educational ensembles: what is a revenue line for the latter is an expense line for the former! (Please, nobody misconstrue: I’m a strong believer in paying professional musicians. I’m simply stating facts.)

Professional orchestras may be able to command higher ticket prices than community ensembles, but it is rarely enough to make up the difference – and the more the musicians are paid, the more this is true. No matter how you slice it, earned revenue as a percentage of budget is going to be lower for professional orchestras.

In recognition of this, the League of American Orchestras established what has long been considered the “best practice” model, the one to which professional orchestras should aspire. According to this model, the most sustainable budgetary practice calls for operating revenue in the following configuration:

40% from earned revenue
30% from contributed revenue
30% from endowment earnings

A disclaimer is in order here: few orchestras actually achieve this model on a regular basis. But it is seemingly a sensible one. 40% earned revenue is a stretch goal but one that is deemed realistic and achievable. And because raising the remaining 60% of your budget solely from contributed revenue is challenging for a Board to muster year in and year out, the League recommends working to build an Endowment capable of generating sufficient earnings to offset 30% of the organization’s budget.

How do endowments work? There are a few basic rules: you’re not supposed to eat into your endowment principal, and you should leave a little of your earnings alone so that your investment pool keeps growing. Accordingly, the general rule is to limit annual distributions to 5% of the value of the Endowment. Thus an organization with a budget of around $1 million would need an endowment capable of generating $300,000 a year: in other words, about $6 million.

Unfortunately, not every organization has an endowment of this size, and you can’t raise one overnight – it’s the most time-consuming kind of fund raising there is. The TSO’s endowment, though growing, is still small (under $500,000). This isn’t an indictment of our management practices; the TSO has only been a professional orchestra for 17 years, and endowments take decades to build.

The issue is compounded by the fact that the TSO has not been able to reach the 40% earned revenue goal (we’re consistently at about 30%). The reasons for this are largely market-driven, and we’re working to improve it, but solutions are not simple. For example, we can’t simply raise ticket prices because we’d price ourselves beyond many people’s reach. Moreover, the size and nature of our performance venue, the Broadway Center, would actually make it nearly impossible to reach 40% earned revenue.

We could shrink the expense budget down to size, but this would likely leave us without the resources to support our mission, so revenue would diminish as well – thus potentially starting a downward spiral that would eventually imperil the mission.

The result of all this? The TSO is raising 69% of its budget annually from contributed sources.

The good news is that the TSO’s vision is robust, its governance is conscientious, and its donor base is loyal, enthusiastic and growing. Moreover, many other orchestras are struggling with this Rubik’s cube of a problem, and some have begun to question the League’s old “best practice” model and develop new ones.

This came out of the current recession when, ironically, some of the orchestras who were closest to fulfilling the “best practice” model ended up in the worst financial trouble. Their endowments diminished in value to the point where they couldn’t make their budgeted annual draw, and they didn’t have a large enough donor base to make up the difference. The TSO was actually in a better position because, although we weathered some downturns in corporate and foundation giving, we were used to raising a lot of money every year!

So although our model isn’t perfect, we’re working to improve it. We decided early on in this recession to focus most of our attention on cultivating our individual giving program; national studies demonstrate that individual giving is the least affected by economic downturns. Indeed, gifts from individuals to the TSO have increased 65% in the past three years!

And currently there are some interesting new models being pioneered in cities like St. Paul and Cleveland, which we’re looking at closely. Will elements of these new models translate to Tacoma? We don’t know – but tune in again next week, and we’ll take a look.

"Not-for-profit" does not equal badly run

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:16:00 PST

I was going to write about some of the new ideas on ticket pricing and financial models in the orchestra industry right now, but as I sit down to it I find myself wanting to begin with a few words about what “not-for-profit” means and why American orchestras are “not-for-profit” organizations.

Why is this important? The readers of “Backstage Pass” come at it from different places; some are subscribers, some are volunteers, some are musicians. What we have in common is our passion for the shared experience of live orchestral music. Think of how the Orchestra sounded last month playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, or October’s concert with Copland’s Billy the Kid. I want to make sure people in Tacoma are always able to experience this, and I bet you do too!

If you pay attention to orchestra news regionally or nationally, you know that many orchestras are struggling in this economy. To date, the TSO has remained relatively stable, a testament both to the hard work of our Board and the support of our donors. It is important that everyone who cares about the orchestra understands that constant, unremitting vigilance is the price of continued stability.

The new visioning taking place at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and elsewhere is of interest because there are elements relevant to Tacoma that might affect our future planning. But in order to appreciate why these new ideas are important, we need to first understand the existing model.

Many people misunderstand the nature of not-for-profits and the reason why they are always asking for donations. There is a misperception that we are all rather badly run, that we’re always out “begging” for dollars, and that if we would just operate “more like a business” we wouldn’t need outside support.

This is why our sector stopped calling itself “nonprofit” and adopted the phrase “not-for-profit.” These organizations exist not to make a profit but to provide a needed community service – one that is not provided by either the government or for-profit sectors. Most aren't sustainable by “earned revenue” alone (for the TSO read “ticket sales”) but cover a portion of their operating expenses through “contributed revenue” (donations).

In our society, economic progression is a constant factor, and to remain competitive for-profit businesses continually evolve ways to increase their productivity and efficiency – to produce more for less. Those that do this well succeed; the rest fail. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, for example, the jet airliner made possible cheap, fast air travel and the interstate highway system made possible cheap, fast auto travel. Passenger rail service, by comparison both labor- and time-intensive, had no hope of competing with this new transportation economy and rapidly disappeared.

My purpose is neither to denigrate nor defend this system, but to point out that even the best-run symphony orchestra has zero prospect of keeping up with the economy in the way of a well-run for-profit organization. It takes as many musicians to perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 today as it did in 1812. The result? Over time, expenses rise more quickly than revenue. 200 years ago concerts were largely sustained by ticket sales; today it covers only a fraction of the cost (in the TSO’s case, about 30%).

The model is different at other not-for-profits, but the basic premise is the same. Well-run not-for-profits keep their mission front and center, budget realistically, and plan far in advance for where their revenue is coming from – how much is likely to come from “earned” sources and how much will have to be raised philanthropically. In order to be successful you have to raise enough to break even annually on a regular basis, as well as put some by for the future in the form of reserve funds and an endowment.

In upcoming posts, I’ll talk about the “best practice” financial model that has evolved in the American orchestra industry and how organizations like St. Paul have decided that it no longer works for them and are pioneering a new one. We’ll look at how the TSO is doing relative to the old “best practice” model and explore how the new model might or might not translate to us here. I look forward to your responses and ideas.

Why is this important? Because in this rapidly changing economy, our shared passion for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra’s mission requires not only constant vigilance, but smart, innovative thinking.

Only this will ensure that people continue to have the opportunity to gather together in downtown Tacoma – for the shared live experience of great works like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Size Doesn't Matter

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:12:00 PST

When I was in my early teens I went to my first live rock concert and was astonished and captivated by the difference between a live concert and a studio recording. Where the record was creamy, seamless and perfectly balanced, the concert was gritty, exciting, and (in the words of writer Bob Greene) full of an “intensely stirring immediacy.”

The same feeling hit me many years later at an undergraduate orchestra performance (at Lawrence University) of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Months before, I had heard it performed by a major full-time orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, where I was working at the time. While the MSO’s was the more mature, polished rendering, the young musicians turned in a vibrant performance that had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish.

A few years later, I left my PR job at the MSO and took the executive director position at the Traverse Symphony Orchestra in northern Michigan – a community orchestra that was making the transition to a part-time professional ensemble under the leadership of a dynamic new music director. Every concert was permeated with a palpable excitement that put the audience on the edge of their seats. Sometimes the performances were rough and uneven. It didn’t matter. This was the way music should be experienced – freshly created, still hot to the touch.

It reminds me of sailing. I started out on a tiny little Sailfish – basically a board with a sail. You’re literally sitting on the water: it’s wet, wild and if you lose your grip you might end up overboard. Later I graduated to 20-foot Ensigns, bigger but still connected to the lake. You held a tiller in one hand and kept another hand on the sheet, and you could literally feel the lake flowing around the keel just beneath your feet. Eventually I moved on to a 25-footer, and later owned a 33-foot sloop with a wheel and autohelm. I loved all these experiences but at each step my sense of connection with the water became a little more removed. (I no longer own the cabin cruiser – but I still have the Sailfish!)

This is why I object to the orchestra world’s obsession with size and rank as a measure of quality. Read a few orchestra strategic plans and see how often the phrase “world class” pops up. I despise the term; it’s pompous and meaningless. It’s not that we shouldn’t aspire to great performances. On the contrary, the most exciting concerts are the ones where every musician is straining beyond their limits to turn in their best. This has nothing to do with size.

Henry Fogel, retired president of the League of American Orchestras, remarked several years ago, “I think what anyone should be interested in is whether the orchestra in their community gives musically satisfying, thrilling performances--not where that orchestra stands in some mythical ranking.” And he knew what he was talking about. While president of the League, Henry visited orchestras in all 50 states. “I heard concerts of real quality,” he reported – “concerts that provided me with artistic satisfaction without the need to apologize for the locale (‘oh well, considering the size of the town, I suppose it was pretty good...’). Nope, these concerts were satisfying listening experiences for someone who has been listening to classical music for half a century.”

This has nothing to do with size. On the contrary, sometimes the polished precision of big orchestras has left me relatively unmoved. If I want that kind of perfection, there are plenty of antiseptic CDs that deliver it, and I can experience it along with a glass of red wine and a cat in my lap – in the comfort of my living room.

When I go to a concert, I want to leave feeling as if I’ve touched the grain of the music, felt its grit, gotten burned by its rawness. I want that “intensely stirring immediacy” that leaves me soaked and breathless and threatens to knock me overboard.

The orchestra that delivers that consistently will never lack for audiences – and it has nothing to do with size.

Do try this at home

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:29:00 PST

In last week’s blog we talked about the Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome in music – how professional musicians in today’s society “get no respect.” The flip side is neither do amateurs – and this time we can’t blame society. Those of us in the music business must look directly in the mirror to see who’s responsible for this phenomenon.

Maybe not as individuals – but in the music profession as a whole we place so much emphasis on virtuosity of performance that sometimes I think we heap shame on the amateur practice of music. In effect, the message we send is “don’t try this at home.”

Virtuosity is of course a good thing, but it’s not the only thing. Music-making was never meant to be a spectator sport, relegated solely to the virtuosic.

Every civilized society has possessed and honored its virtuosic musical masters, but I can’t think of another time and place in history where music-making has become as psychologically remote and inaccessible to the common folk as it has in our world today. And we wonder why we have an issue with ticket sales.

How did this happen?

Certainly the rise of recording technology is a major factor. Sound recording didn’t become widespread until the invention of electrical recording equipment in the 1920s. Before that, music was solely a live experience. You either listened to it in concert or you made it yourself at home.

Flash forward 90 years. Now music is generated not by sound waves but in digits. It comes in WAV files and on circular discs of polycarbonate plastic. The live experience of people scraping, rubbing, blowing and beating musical instruments without the intervention of electronic media is the exception, not the rule. Virtual has replaced reality.

Only the biggest and best orchestras can afford to produce recordings regularly. These are scrubbed and flawless, sanded smooth until no trace of grit remains, produced in “takes” rather than real time. Orchestras hold up “artistic excellence” (I hate that phrase) as the sole professional Holy Grail worthy of pursuit – and consequently the gulf between “artists” and the rest of us ordinary mortals is wider than it’s ever been.

Although lip service is still given to the value of arts education for children, most adults put away their instruments for good by the time they’re in college, or soon thereafter. The fact that they used to be musicians is a closely guarded secret.

People who used to play an instrument seem compelled to speak of it in self-deprecating terms: “I used to play the violin, but I had zero talent for it”; “I didn’t have a musical bone in my body” – these are common statements.

One of my oldest friends, guitarist Mark Stewart of the new music ensemble Bang on a Can, has a knack for teaching people that they, too, can play. He invites them to sit down at the piano, depress the damper pedal, and then quietly and lightly start playing – using only black keys. Of course this means they’re playing in the lovely, exotic-sounding pentatonic scale – where virtually everything sounds good.

Naturally, if someone gets seriously interested in getting back into playing, they’ll soon exhaust the novelties of pentatonic harmony, but the point is you don’t have to be Van Cliburn before you’re allowed to touch a keyboard.

So go ahead and try this at home. If you’re one of those people who used to play the piano (or insert instrument of choice) and you find yourself wishing you had never quit, then quit wishing! Get one and sit down and make whatever music comes out. It’s just organized sound, for goodness’ sake. Nothing bad will happen if you hit an unintended note.

And besides, maybe you’ll invent a new chord.

They Get No Respect

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 09:40:00 PST

Remember Rodney Dangerfield, the ever-downtrodden character who held a seashell up to his ear to hear the ocean and got a busy signal? His frequent lament was “I get no respect.” I often think that’s true of musicians in today’s society.

I was called by a company recently wanting to hire a group of musicians for a big opening event. Depending on the setting and setup, there are a number of choices available, such as a brass or woodwind quintet, or perhaps a string quartet or trio. We provided them with a menu of choices along with the cost of each. Trust me, this was not going to break the bank. But when they saw the cost, they balked. I think they ended up hiring a single player.

A few years ago when I was working in another place, the city wanted the orchestra to perform for their fourth of July event. We quoted them a rock-bottom price, no net gain for the organization – just enough to pay every musician the going rate. They recoiled in horror. “We can’t afford that on the city’s budget!” Really? Is the fireworks company donating their services? I happen to know every rocket they fired off cost more than one of our musicians would have.

Another city built a brand new convention center and wanted to hire its local orchestra for the grand opening. Although they had just spent millions of dollars on the new center, a rock-bottom quote of $18K was too much money, and they engaged the local youth orchestra instead. Kids play for free, and aren’t they cute? And they’re too young to know when they’re being exploited.

One of my staff members is a professional musician who gigs all over the area on weekends. He recounts frequent jobs where the band plays the gig and then at the end of it the person who hired them “forgot the check.” “We’ll mail it to you.” Really? Can you get away with that with your caterer? Your decorator? Your event coordinator? His group now insists on being paid in advance, or they don’t play.

Then there’s the “musicians as sonic wallpaper” syndrome, where they’re hired to play at an event and then people talk all the way through the performance and basically ignore them. I’ve seen this happen countless times in my career, often at events that are supposed to be full of music lovers and performing arts aficionados.

I get intensely irritated at ballets when the audience chatters all the way through the overture. It bugs me when the church service ends and people talk through the organ postlude. This guy has been grinding out dreary Protestant hymns for our warbling pleasure for the last hour, and now he actually gets to play something real and you ignore him?

People are continually surprised when they learn that the musicians in the TSO are paid for what they do. You mean this isn’t just a hobby? No. Most of them do this for a living, performing with numerous ensembles, teaching privately or in schools. They put in hours and hours of practice every day to stay in top form. They put together an entire two-hour performance in just four rehearsals. Many of them have instruments that cost more than your house. This is no avocation.

I’m not writing this to make anyone feel bad, but I do hope this causes people to stop and think about how musicians are treated in our society. They are one of the most tragically undervalued community resources in our midst. They don’t just show up on stage magically being able to play that music – they’ve put in years of work to get to this moment. They give our lives meaning through their art. They teach our children. They demonstrate to all of us the meaning of teamwork and cooperative endeavors. What would our lives be like without the musicians in our midst?

At the TSO, one of our organizational values is that musicians are professionals and deserve to be treated as such. Let’s never give them cause to feel, along with Rodney Dangerfield, that they get no respect.

A new subscriber's story

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 06:36:00 PDT

I was calling new subscribers earlier this week to welcome them and thank them for signing up. We had our season opening about 10 days ago, and I’ve been working my way through the list.

It’s the easiest task in the world to put off. There are a million other things demanding my attention: meetings to prepare for, staff members in my doorway, reports to write, emails in my inbox.

I had some doubts about the wisdom of making calls on this day anyway. It was November 2 – Election Day. Who was going to be home answering the phone?

Mostly I got answering machines and left a brief message, saying whom I was and inviting them to call me if they had any questions or comments.

I was three-quarters of the way through leaving one of these messages when someone picked up the phone. It was a woman, and I think she heard that I was calling from the Symphony.

She didn’t recognize my name – but when she realized I was the guy in the suit who thanked the sponsors at the beginning of the concert, she opened up like a blossoming flower.

“That was our first TSO concert,” she told me. “We moved down here several years ago from the north part of the state. We used to attend the Seattle Symphony regularly. A couple of our friends are TSO subscribers, and they invited us to try your Orchestra.

“I want you to tell Maestro Felder and all the musicians how deeply appreciative we are. That was one of the most special nights of our lives.

“Both my husband and I are retired now, after more than 30 years in law enforcement. As you can imagine, this was not an easy career for either of us. Now that we’re retired, we need good things like this in our lives – this came at just the right time – “

At this point her voice started to break a little. “My eyes are tearing up a little, as you can probably tell from my voice,” she laughed. “We just never imagined it would be like this. We never thought anything like this was available here.

“The music was so powerful. And we loved the way Mr. Felder talked to the audience and made us feel welcome. The young woman playing the guitar was magnificent. It was all so special. I have no words for it.

“You be sure to tell all of them – Mr. Felder, and all the musicians – thank you from us. We are so glad to have found this, to be a part of this. I can’t tell you how much it means. Please thank them.”

Before she rang off she promised they would be talking about what they could do for the TSO financially. (I hadn’t even asked yet!) “It won’t be a large gift,” she cautioned; “that just isn’t possible for us now.”

I beg to differ. She already gave us the biggest gift of all: the gift of her story of how the Symphony has added meaning to her life. She reminded me, once again, that we’re not in the music business.

We’re in the joy business.

Concerning Music Criticism

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:31:00 PDT

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone came to me after reading a review of a concert they've been to and exclaimed, "he must have been at a different concert than I was!"

Another frequent complaint goes this way: "We should call up the editor and complain. Don't they realize they need to support the arts in this town?"

It's human nature to get mad when a concert reviewer pans a program you really enjoyed. It happens to me all the time. But I often think people misunderstand the purpose of music criticism, and the function of a good critic in an arts community.

People talk about classical music being a dying art, but those of us in the biz know that news of its imminent demise has been greatly exaggerated. What really is on the endangered species list, however, is the practice of classical music criticism.

Part of the problem is that there's no one advocating for it. Given that a music critic is supposed to call it as he sees it (or rather hears it), he tends to be unpopular with the very people he exists to serve!   If a critic is fortunate, she will have an editor who understands and values music criticism, and therefore advocates for its continuance in these times of financial crisis and budget-cutting at major daily newspapers. Without that, it's usually among the first things to get the axe.

We're fortunate in a town of Tacoma’s size that our daily newspaper understands the importance of having a professional music journalist on its staff. I wish they had the resources to have a larger staff, but that's not in the cards these days.   A decade or two ago, major dailies usually had three or four full time critics to adequately cover the different local beats of classical music, dance, theater, and visual art. The News Tribune has one part-time writer covering all the visual and performing arts -- a tall order.

So I'm always glad when a TSO concert gets reviewed, even if the review itself makes me see red! And my response to people who think the critic was at a different concert? "You're right -- she was."

You see, that's the challenge of music criticism. You're trying to evaluate and say something of objective value about a largely subjective experience.   Everyone's experience is going to differ, depending on his or her own background, tastes and experience. There will be as many different perspectives on a concert as there are people in the audience. At a certain point, the difference may be so great that it does indeed seem as if the other attended "a different concert."

So what is the function of music criticism, and why is it of value?

My perspective, for what it's worth, is that a good music critic serves dual functions, both individual and communal. First, the good reviewer enhances the individual concertgoer's capacity for critical listening. Second, he instills and leads an ongoing dialogue about the art form within a musical community.

At minimum, even if you vehemently disagree with what the critic writes, she has caused you to think about what you heard, felt and experienced during that 120-minute period of time.   That's of great value if you ever want to get past that early phase of concertgoing we all go through, the one that Henry Fogel calls the "mineral bath approach," where you sit back and allow the music to wash over you while you drift off and daydream. There's nothing wrong with that (I do it myself sometimes), but I also find that the more I think with discernment about what I'm hearing, and listen critically, the more I enjoy and appreciate it.

Perhaps it is helpful to reflect for a moment about the word "criticism." In our culture, it's become more or less synonymous with "saying something bad," as in "he criticized me."   However, if you regard it in the sense of "critical thinking" (defined by Wikipedia as "purposeful, reflective judgment"), then you're closer to the idea of active or critical listening (and good music criticism).

Most of us today grew up on pop music, where by and large this kind of active listening isn't necessary. (That is not meant disparagingly; I listen to all kinds of music, including some that many classical aficionados might find unacceptable!)   Even those who listen to so-called "serious" music, like classical or jazz (the latter can no longer be considered "pop"), rarely just LISTEN to it. We have it on in the car, or while we're housecleaning, or doing the dishes, or working out. Few of us these days have the time, or take the time, to just sit and listen. So the idea that listening is a learned skill just like playing an instrument is something of a foreign concept.

Nevertheless, I believe it is true. Active listening is something we can practice regularly, like an exercise regime. We get better at it all the time as we familiarize ourselves with different musical languages and the way they have evolved over time and in different cultures.

Among the resources out there to aid in the art of active listening are good program or liner notes, books on music, pre-concert talks, community music classes -- and, lastly, your local music critic.

There are musicians of lesser and greater talent, experience and skill. The same is true of music critics, but the matter is more difficult to evaluate because there are few teachers and the actual craft is rarely talked about – except in extremely closed circles, like national music criticism conferences. Critics themselves rarely invite criticism, and we’re hesitant to criticize them openly because of the old adage “never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” As a result, the whole thing seems to happen in an ivory tower, cloaked in mystery.

Based on my observation, music criticism seems to happen on three different levels, from basic to advanced.

First, there's the Puff-Purveyer. These reviewers function more or less as cheerleaders, writing nice, fluffy reviews that inform as few people as they offend. Although this makes the job of the orchestra's PR department easier, it neither edifies the reader nor instills dialogue and discernment within the music community. I'd rather have this than no critic at all, but it's certainly the least effective or evolved form.

Then there's the one people often end up referring to as The Poison Pen. These critics are functioning at a higher level than the first, even though they may not make a lot of friends! At least they're challenging the status quo, getting people to talk and argue, and giving an arts organization the respect of expecting excellence. However, they undermine their own effectiveness by writing as if there is one single objective standard out there that only they (seemingly) really grasp. Either a performance lives up to that standard or it doesn't. These writers are the ones that, like the cowbirds in the comic strip Pogo, seem happiest when they're filled with loathing. They often leave people with the impression that they're on some kind of personal vendetta against an organization or a conductor (though that's rarely the case).

Finally, there's the Post-Critical critic. That sounds like a paradox, but I think this is the most evolved and effective kind. This reviewer has reached that rare state of "post-critical naivete" (a phrase borrowed from theologian Marcus Borg) where their first question is not "what do I think about it" but rather "what IS it?" -- what is its essence, how does it differ from other things of like kind, what is it saying, how is it being conveyed?

It's not that this reviewer never says anything "critical." It's just that the underlying basis for the criticism has shifted. You never get the sense they're trying to be clever, or coming from a place of self-aggrandizement. They're not thinking about themselves at all. Everything is about love of the art form, describing, edifying and appreciating.

I know one long-time music critic who recounted the moment this shift happened in himself thus: "I woke up one day and realized I just wasn't that important." As a result, I watched his writing change gradually but significantly. Today he's still writing, he has the respect, admiration and trust of the musical community he serves, and probably has more credibility than any other critic I've known.

Do people still sometimes think he was at a different concert than they were? Probably. But he's instilled a discourse that is as respectful as it is passionate.

A music journalist like that is as important to a functioning arts scene as the organizations he covers.

First Entry

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 19:39:00 PDT

Welcome to the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra's new weblog, created by, about and for the TSO, its audience and musicians. On this blog, we will be posting regularly, every other week on Thursday. Although I will write many of the entries, we will also invite occasional guest bloggers. This might include members of the TSO, TSO Chorus, or guest artists. We welcome your ideas, comments, and thoughts.

Andy Buelow
Executive Director

It's hard to believe that the first concert of the 2010-2011 season is a week off. (Slightly frightening, in fact.) The musicians have picked up their music from the bin in the office, and the first rehearsal is Monday night. I'm looking forward to hearing it.

My Dad, who is a retired music professor, pointed out to me recently something I hadn't noticed: every piece on the season opening concert was written in the 20th Century. That's fairly unusual in the Orchestra world. The symphony orchestra evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries, and probably reached its artistic peak with the late 19th century Romantic era. Perhaps for this reason, 19th century music predominates in the repertoire. Much great music was written in the 20th Century, however, and this concert attests to the fact that it was absolutely not all abstract, atonal and difficult to understand.

This program is definitely in the "what's not to like" category. It's all great, listenable music, but my personal favorite piece on the lineup is the Aaron Copland suite from Billy the Kid. I've liked it since I first heard it at age 17, but I really came to appreciate it when I bought a piano reduction by Lukas Foss and started trying to play it. If you have hands the size of a giant -- and four of them rather than two would be ideal -- it's no problem to play.

Billy the Kid marked a new direction in this quintessentially American composer's artistry, but also a turning point in American music in general. If you listen to his earlier music, you will probably find it far more dense, abstract and complex. His Orchestral Variations and Piano Sonata are examples of this earlier genre, when Copland's writing was much more reflective of the neo-classical style of Stravinsky or the uncompromising discordance of Bartok. Billy the Kid represents a remarkable about-face. It predates the better-known Rodeo and Appalachian Spring as the first work written in the open, tonal, widely-spaced and economic style that came to define Copland's music for most people. "I decided to see whether I might say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms," Copland later recalled. And say it he did. However, with no disrespect to Copland, Billy the Kid is nowhere near as simple as it sounds, as anyone who has played it knows.

We are preparing some special surprises for this concert, and we think you will go away satisfied, wanting more and with happy ears -- which is, after all, our goal. The orchestra definitely gets a workout on this program, one which they will love. As an audience member, you'll hear a program of very tonally accessible music, even if it is all from the 20th century. I think you'll find these pieces some of the most amazing, colorful and delightful works ever gathered together in one program. They're all very different from one another, but they have one thing in common: you'll hear some of the most marvelously orchestrated music in the repertoire -- music that could only have been written for symphony orchestra, and can only be properly appreciated performed by symphony orchestra.