I love this. http://ilovelocalcommercials.com/videos.aspx

Headed to NYC soon for a 5-day cultural extravaganza. I do wish I was staying a few weeks longer (!) because there's so much I'd like to see and do when there, and I can't possibly fit it all in. Highlights include:

• Joyce DiDonato as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Metropolitan Opera.
• Peter Sellars' Othello - Public Theater @ NYU, w/ soundscape and sound design by Mark Grey. Newsday called it a 4-hour "lengthy psycho-political exercise." Hmmm...I'm intrigued.
• David Aaron Carpenter, viola, and music of Takemitsu, Penderecki, Prokofiev and Piazzolla w/ visual artist Kevork Mourad - at Le Poisson Rouge (serving art and alcohol), whose mission is to revive the symbiotic relationship between art and revelry; to establish a creative asylum for both artists and audiences.
• The U.S. premiere of John Tavener's Requiem at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola - part of the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series - Kent Tritle, music director.

And lots of get-togethers and tweetups with music-loving friends, new and old. Then, tackling a wall of work when I return!  I'll catch Alan Gilbert conducting the NY Phil when I'm back in New York in a couple of months. So much music, so little time.

This blog post from Adam Thurman of Mission Paradox resonated with me. Worth a read!

"You belong. Find your place. Use your skills. Help get great art into the world. It can't happen without you."

An Open Letter to Arts Administrators

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One of the things I love about summer is catching lots of fantastic live music. There are so many great concerts...I couldn't possibly go to everything on my wish list. Below are the musical events on my itinerary so far. And in between, I'll be getting work done (promise!).

Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Alisa Weilerstein, Dvorák - Cello Concerto, June 10

Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Beyond the Score, Dvorák - Symphony No. 9, June 11

Colorado College Summer Music Festival, World Premiere by Patrick Zimmerli, Light, Color, Line, Symbol: Meditations on Architecture for Orchestra and Three Video Projectors, conducted by Scott Yoo, June 16

Opera Theatre of St. Louis, John Corigliano - The Ghosts of Versailles, conducted by Michael Christie, June 19

Aspen Music Festival, Aspen Chamber Symphony with Jeremy Denk, piano, Beethoven - Piano Cto. No. 1, June 26

Colorado Music Festival, Michael Christie - music director, (I'm setting up a tent in Chautauqua Park...kidding!)

• Young People's Concert, June 28
• Punch Brothers with Chris Thile, June 30
• Jazz & The Orchestra, July 2
• Brooklyn Rider, July 7
• East Meets West with Wu Man, Chinese Pipa, July 9
• Lura, July 14
• Jessica Rivera, soprano and Mahler Sym. No. 4, July 16
• Prokofiev Piano Cto. No. 3 with Jie Chen and Peter & The Wolf w/film, July 19
• Grieg Piano Cto. in a minor with Jon Nakamatsu and Peer Gynt, July 21
• Rachmaninoff Piano Ct. No. 2 with Natasha Paremski and Symphonic Dances, July 23
• Symphonic Legends with Mendelssohn, Sibelius and R. Strauss, July 30
• Piazzolla, Marquez, Copland's Appalachian Spring, Alondra de la Parra, conductor, August 2
• La Clave Secreta, August 4
• Haydn The Creation, August 7

Festival Mozaic, Scott Yoo - music director, San Luis Obispo, CA

• Festival Chamber Players with Scott Yoo, violin and Bion Tsang, cello, July 24
• Notable Encounter at Hearst Castle, Festival Chamber Players, July 25
• Grand Finale Concert, July 26

Colorado Symphony Orchestra, World Premiere Mandolin Concerto with Chris Thile, September 17

Chautauqua Concert Series, Boulder, David Wilcox, September 19
 

“What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music: our mind and body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music.”    ~Hazrat Inyat Khan (Sufi Master)

My life has been graced by the power of music. Music was there when my dad had a debilitating stroke eight years ago. It connected him to his memories and helped him learn to walk again. My young daughter has speech and motor challenges and has difficulty putting words together. Music allows her to do so. Her first sentences were sung.

As long as I can remember, music has been a creative outlet for me--a way to move out of the thinking realm and into the spirit. And again, now, music has come back to speak to me in powerful ways through my marketing work.

I am so grateful for the healing, restorative nature of music and how it has influenced me. It gives my life meaning and hope...and I am forever indebted.

I'm not professing to be a Twitter or social media expert. But I am knowledgeable about marketing, and have been Tweeting since last September. Until more recently, I've been more of a Twitter lurker, which is perfectly OK for this somewhat voyeuristic--yet very personal--communication tool.

Now that I'm hooked on Twitter, and have made it a part of my daily existence, I have to admit that it took me a few months to "get" it. And I'm thinking that quite a few organizations out there aren't getting Twitter either. I'll focus on music organizations since that's a large chunk of my Following list.

My advice to music organizations is to think about MAKING CONNECTIONS first. How can your Twitter streams be used in the most effective way to connect your organization to more people? How can you more fully develop your organization's brand using Twitter to:

1.) Share your mission
2.) Inform and inspire
3.) Entertain
4.) Create dialogue
5.) Build community
6.) Get people involved so they care more deeply about what you do

None of the above is possible if all you're doing is using Twitter to blast out concert updates and discount offers! Sure, it's an easy way to get that information out into the world, but it shouldn't be the focus.

Singer/songwriter John Mayer addressed this issue when he announced via Twitter last week, "Just signed a deal to sell ad space inside my Tweets. Now it's time to celebrate with one of the many low sodium soups from Campbells!"  I had to laugh because it seemed so ridiculous and unauthentic. Well...perhaps that's how orgs come off when they're pushing the latest sales offer multiple times a week.

My advice is to establish an authentic voice, a voice that speaks from the heart about who your organization is and the connections it wants to make. And then we can ride this paradigm-shifting wave to a more engaged and informed audience down the road. The thought is exciting, isn't it?

[Follow me on Twitter]

UPDATE: John Mayer's recent Tweet: The Associated Press called my publicist to ask if I was really endorsed by Campbell's Soup. Mission accomplished.

This past weekend will now be known as the weekend Holly went to Brooklyn with Brandi, did a lot of eating, drinking, walking and people-watching, listened to music, had a musical epiphany, cried, wrote about it, and then had it published for other people to read.

Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Michael.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes - the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing that you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.   
~Jack Kerouac

Some good musical humor.  Adagio cantabile with a rock tempo feel. Increase breathing. Release the penguins.

I was very happy to read Kyle Macmillan's recent article in the Denver Post, "Classical music's wild turn." In it, he describes some of the new genre-defying groups -- Alarm Will Sound, Ethel, Osso -- who are attracting 20- and 30-somethings to chamber-ish music. These are classically-trained, casually-dressed artists who have created a unique sound, followed their inner musical voices, and are changing the definition of traditional chamber music.

A great pullquote: "All art forms need to be revitalized to survive, and too often classical music has been more concerned with preserving its past than defining its future."

Amen, Kyle. My hope is that decision-makers at classical music organizations spend more time contemplating how classical music is evolving and how current and prospective audiences want to experience this art...on their terms. Not just following tradition because that's the way it has always been done.

"Tradition is the illusion of permanence."  ~Woody Allen