Move to the music

One of my earliest musical memories involves sitting in a Honolulu Symphony concert (I grew up in Hawaii) watching, slightly mortified, my father on the edge of his seat, swaying to and occasionally air-conducting a Brahms symphony (is it the burden of children to be embarrassed of their parents??). Dad was an enthusiastic amateur musician and going to the Symphony was a regular Sunday afternoon activity. At nearly every concert he could barely keep still, so great was his need to move to the music and to participate in those performances.

A fairly recent New York Times article confirms what I have always suspected – that music directly affects those parts of the brain responsible for physical motion. Music should make us want to move. And yet, movement and participation is antithetical to the modern “concert experience”, where audiences are expected to sit still and silent until the very end.

This is something that I struggle with. On one hand, what takes place on stage during a symphonic concert requires a tremendous amount of skill and concentration, and it would be terribly distracting, if not impossible (how do you clap along to Webern?) for the audience to actively participate in any way. On the other hand, these constraints feel unnatural and forced – I mean, who really can sit still when listening to, say, the last movement of Beethoven 7? If people wanted to spontaneously leap out of their seats and dance for joy, I’m rather inclined to let them do so.

Of course, the standard concert hall is not entirely conducive to impromptu dancing (and you would probably get escorted out by an usher immediately!). Sometimes a change of venue can put a very different spin on how music is experienced; in my two seasons with the Richmond Symphony, the concert series I headed took place at a rock venue, the Canal Club. It’s all part of a larger trend (check out this article from Symphony magazine) to redefine the performance experience of classical music.

I bring this up because of what I observed during these performances at the Canal Club, where seating was limited and a majority of the audience stood for the 55-minute performance (and to be clear, although we were not performing complete symphonies, we were certainly playing movements of symphonies and larger works by Mozart, Ravel, Prokofiev, Janacek – “real” music, not “classical light” – although I don’t find anything wrong with that either…more on that in another entry). While not everyone did so (we are so conditioned to be quiet and still while listening to Mozart!), people were able to move to the music. Sometimes it was swaying or nodding. For the least self-conscious (and kids excel here), there was actual dancing, jumping.

I’m not saying that we should make audiences stand through a Mahler symphony (although sitting may not be much more comfortable – many halls have seats that feel worse than flying domestic economy class). So, the conundrum remains – if not as part of a conventional concert, how can we best experience symphonic music?

Ask An Expert: Better Know A Bassoon

Our latest Ask An Expert question comes from Wallett Rogers, who wants to know...

Q: ...what bassoons (Heckel, etc.) do your bassoon section players play in concerts?

Okay, now this one requires a bit of explanation before we get to the answer. Unlike string instruments, which are handcrafted by thousands of different expert luthiers around the world, bassoons are produced in something more akin to a factory setting, and nearly all professional bassoonists play on one of only two main "brands" of instrument. According to Chris Marshall, one of our four bassoonists in the Minnesota Orchestra (and the only one ever to have played a starring role in a Prairie Home Companion sketch, I might add,) the granddaddy of professional bassoons is the Heckel, made by a 175-year-old company based in Wiesbaden, Germany. Heckels have a long and distinguished history in the bassoon world, but you'd better know what you're getting into before you start planning a purchase: a new Heckel will run you a cool $50,000 or so.

The main professional-caliber alternative to the Heckel is the Fox bassoon, made by an Indiana company which was started back in 1949 by Hugo Fox, who had just retired from his post as principal bassoon of the Chicago Symphony. Fox wanted to create bassoons that were comparable to Heckels in sound and strength, but somewhat more reasonably priced. (According to Chris, they'll still cost you $30,000 or more for a new model, though, so "reasonable" is obviously a relative term.) For the first couple of decades, Fox wasn't exactly a power in the orchestral world, but gradually, as the quality of their instruments improved, a few high-profile bassoonists were convinced to try out a Fox in a professional setting. One of the first to agree to play on a Fox was Minnesota Orchestra principal John Miller, Jr. John obviously liked what he heard, because he still plays on a Fox to this day, its distinctive black color contrasting with the other bassoons in his section.

As for the rest of the section, co-principal Mark Kelley plays a Heckel, as does the aforementioned Mr. Marshall. Contrabassoonist Norbert Nielubowski plays on a Fox contra, and also owns a Fox bassoon.

Podcast Launch!

Well, after weeks of promises, delays, and procrastination by yours truly, I'm pleased to announce the availability of the very first Inside the Classics Podcast! This initial effort consists of four short segments, in which Sarah and I and a few other Minnesota Orchestra musicians share stories, rants, gossip and other behind the scenes tidbits in an effort to give you a look at the chaotic and occasionally hilarious professional world we inhabit.

Bear in mind, this isn't a downloadable concert - in fact, there's very little music on it at all - it's essentially an audio extension of this blog. (It may also, in parts, sound to you as if it has been edited and mixed by an 8-year-old with a Fisher Price mixing board and a 1982 Sony Walkman. I'm really very sorry about that, but I'm new at this part of the job. It'll get better, I promise.)

We're hoping to make this podcasting thing a regular feature of the ItC site, and at the moment, we're leaning towards the idea of putting up shorter bursts of audio on a more frequent basis, rather than waiting until we manage to cobble together a full-length 25-minute program. But it basically all depend on you, so let us know what (and who) you'd like to hear, and what you could happily go without hearing ever again. Hit the play button below to listen to our inaugural effort, or just click the Podcast button at the top of the page to get access to all our audio content anytime...

Does Identity Have To Come With A Demographic?

Don Lee, formerly a producer over at the 800-pound gorilla of public radio, was at our first Inside the Classics concert a couple of weeks back, and he was intrigued enough to call me up and ask if we could sit down and discuss the series, the web site, and more broadly, the need for new approaches to concert music in general. Don and I wound up talking for more than an hour, during which time I believe I uttered approximately four coherent sentences, and babbled aimlessly about God knows what for the rest of the time.

Several times during our talk, Don tried to pin me down on the subject of just who Sarah and I are hoping to ensnare with our somewhat unconventional approach at the ItC concerts. In other words, what demographic are we aiming for that isn't already being served? This wasn't the first time I'd heard the question (in fact, Steve Staruch asked it almost word for word when Sarah and I were guests of his on MPR Classical a few days earlier,) but I've found that I still don't have a good, concise answer. I suspect that what Don was driving at was the idea that orchestras are forever looking for ways to attract a younger crowd, and live in fear of some mysterious bogeyman called "the graying of the audience." But here in Minnesota, where the arts are a far more ingrained part of the broader culture than they are in much of the U.S., I'm honestly not terribly preoccupied with how many under-35s we draw, since we tend to see a lot of them at our regular subscription concerts already. (This is most emphatically not the case for many American orchestras, particularly in the high-profile cities of the Northeast.) If it were to turn out that what Sarah and I are doing is of interest only to lefthanded accountants between the ages of 48 and 51, I think we'd both be fine with that (if a bit perplexed,) so long as they were passionate about the music and represented a large enough group to fill the hall.

Basically, Sarah and I are taking the only approach we reasonably can as we write, plan, and rehearse our concerts. We're creating a show that we find entertaining, and banking on the idea that the two of us are typical enough of the average 21st-century music fan that what makes us laugh or cry or think will do the same for a lot of other people as well.

Anyway, Don's take on the series, and our conversation, is now up at MinnPost, the Twin Cities' much-discussed new online daily paper. I'll be interested to hear what others think...

We Gotcher Mass Appeal Right Here...

The suddenly ubiquitous Alex Ross calls our attention to a surprising new poll of the political leanings and entertainment preferences of American adults showing that 62% like and listen to classical music. In fact, classical edged out rock as the most popular genre! Interestingly, fans of classical music seem to cross all political boundaries, which fans of many other genres do not.

I won't pretend to know what this means, or even whether the study is broad enough to be considered a reliable gauge of American musical taste. Ross points out, quite correctly, that telling a pollster that you like a genre is quite different from actually going out and buying a concert ticket or downloading the latest eighth blackbird album. Still, a study like this does serve as one more nail in the coffin of the increasingly laughable idea that classical music is a dying art.

Musicophilia

I’m keen on reading the new Oliver Sacks book, “Musicophilia”, a collection of vignettes about music and the brain. For all the power music can have over us (who of us hasn’t, at one point in life, been completely overcome by a musical experience, whether at a concert, at home with headphones, playing in a high school band, or singing at the top of your lungs while stuck in traffic?), it seems that the effects of music on the mind remains a mystery to neurologists.

It made me think about a couple of questions that I’ve often pondered; are we hardwired to innately grasp music? And why is there an almost universal attraction to certain kinds of music?

I’m reminded of a Young Peoples Concert I did here last season with the Orchestra – the show was called “Kid Power”, and it was all about the extraordinary accomplishments that kids can achieve. Of course, we had the requisite student concerto competition winner, a composition by a local teen composer and performers from Circus Juventas doing acrobatics while we played Kabalevsky. The kids who come to these concerts often write to me (sometimes entire classes send me notes), and while everyone loved the young acrobats (who really were fantastic), all the comments I received about the music indicated that of all the pieces we played, the almost unanimous sentiment was that everyone loved the very first piece the best.

The very first piece on the program was the first movement of Symphony #25 written by a teenaged Mozart. It was the most serious piece of music on the program - in a minor key and all Sturm und Drang - and certainly not the piece that I thought would end up being the most popular. It made me think about the idea of an underlying universality in music; this piece by Mozart had an immediate, innate appeal to listeners who had limited exposure to classical music and were probably watching and hearing a live orchestra for the first time in their lives. Is it something about structure, proportion, melody? Or something much less tangible?

A small example, I know, and a limited sample size, no doubt; but it makes me smile to think that Minnesota school kids are debunking the flawed and tired notion that symphonic music is “elitist”.

The reports of our death...

My boss over at ArtsJournal.com, Doug McLennan, has a fascinating post up on his blog today, in which he discusses the exponential growth of the arts in America over recent years (and decades.) This huge expansion points up a strange disconnect in the way journalists have chosen to cover the arts (and, in particular, classical music) in America.

Certainly, the building of countless new museums, concert halls, performing arts centers, theaters, etc. has been well documented in the arts press. But when it comes time to assess the overall health of the arts, the same reporters and critics who have covered the boom are frequently found to be writing commentaries in which they decry the woeful state of American culture, the inability of the arts to connect with some mysterious mass demographic, and even declare classical music (and orchestras in particular) to be dying a slow death. (It must be particularly slow, since such commentaries have been circulating for at least 70 years now.)

Doug points out, correctly, that in the past half-century, America has gone from supporting one full-time orchestra (defined as an ensemble that pays its musicians year-round, regardless of salary) to supporting eighteen, including, of course, ours. And despite the regrettable folding of a few small regional orchestras (bankruptcies which are always trumpeted by arts writers as if the New York Phil itself had up and vanished, even if said writers had never heard of the orchestra in question until it filed for Chapter 7) during tough economic times, the overall size, scale, and quality of the orchestra industry today simply dwarfs the one that existed in the supposed golden age of Toscanini and Mitropolous.

The other interesting point Doug makes is that, while the arts are constantly criticized for not being attractive to a wider swath of the public, there is really nothing left in our entertainment world that does reach anything like a plurality of the population. Even in the vastly profitable and popular world of professional sports, the National Football League (far and away the gold standard of pro sports leagues) is of interest to less than half the population.

To me, all of this speaks to a larger issue that's been eating at me for quite a while, and a topic I'll return to in greater detail before long. In the age of globalization and instant communication, it has become far too easy to forget that much of the arts world remains intensely local. Audiences in Minneapolis are not comparable to audiences in, say, Philadelphia, for any number of reasons. There are good theater towns and bad theater towns, just as there are good and bad markets for hockey or baseball. No one city is really capable of embracing every conceivable type of entertainment with equal fervor - there are just too many options to choose from.

And yet, much of what passes for analysis in the arts press these days lacks any sort of context or sense of scale, and focuses on national statistics of dubious value, while ignoring the unqiuely local realities that most cultural groups inhabit. Essentially, it comes down to lazy journalism, the equivalent of you assigning me to write about the state of football in America, and me coming back to you with this:

NEW YORK, November 21 -- A comprehensive investigation has revealed that the vast majority of American cities and their citizens are so disconnected from the National Football League that they cannot even support a local franchise. A study of the 150 most populous U.S. cities showed clearly that only 21% currently have NFL teams in residence, and despite the fact that each team plays only eight home games per season, several franchises have been unable to sell all their available tickets. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says that he is confident that the league is a stable presence on the American sports landscape, but for how long?

Absurd, isn't it? Yet this is the type of overly general, dubiously sourced, and statistically manipulative report that those who work in the arts wake up and read in the paper on an almost weekly basis. There are commentators who have devoted their entire careers to explaining, in depth, how classical music is dead, finished, kaput... and they continue to be taken seriously even after all of their dire predictions have fallen flat in the face of the public's continued appetite for orchestra concerts, chamber music recitals, and even amateur music clubs. It's enough to make a guy glad to read a story declaring that no one of his generation reads the newspaper anymore. (Of course, if the quality of national media analysis is anything like the quality of national arts reporting, you can expect the Star Tribune's circulation numbers to go through the roof shortly...)

Seoul greetings

I'm now in Seoul, South Korea to conduct the 16th annual "Song of Love and Heart" concert at the Seoul Arts Centre. The rehearsal schedule is packed (chorus, children's chorus and soloists as well as orchestra), and jetlag has me popping awake at 4 am, but it's always fun to be overseas and immersing myself in a different culture. More on that in a bit...but for now, the view from my hotel room.

Ask An Expert: Conductor Prep

This week's Ask An Expert question comes from Cinda Yager, who asks:

Q: How far in advance of rehearsals/concert does a conductor begin preparing/studying the scores? Is most of the preparation done at the piano or on the road?

This one, clearly, is right up Sarah's alley. So here she is, live from Seoul (and somehow still awake!)

Sarah's Answer: It really depends on the situation (and on the conductor! For the ease of answering, I'll speak for myself and not for all of conductor-kind, although most people I know have similar score-preparation philosophies.)

For repertoire I know well (and that I've performed fairly recently - say, in the couple of years,) I probably only need a couple of hours over a few days before the first rehearsal. For less familiar repertoire, I'll push up the preparation so I start looking at the piece a week to 10 days before, maybe spending 8-10 hours total on it. Pieces that I've studied but not conducted require a different kind of preparation, because I may understand them from an analytical and theoretical standpoint, but I may need technical preparation to get my ideas across clearly to the orchestra. Any piece that I don't know requires a LOT of work - I'd say 10-20 hours for every hour of music, at least, to really understand it. I try to start at least a month out.

Much of my work is at the keyboard, because I find it much easier to score read (i.e., look at a full orchestral score, reduce it in my head, and play it at the piano) than to simply visualize or try to hear things in my head. Of course, there are times when I'm on the road and don't have access to a keyboard, which makes things difficult. I have a very easy time hearing melodies and standard harmonic progressions, but I find complicated chords and extremely chromatic harmonies difficult, so I really prefer a keyboard if at all possible.

Memorizing a score is a whole other topic and requires it's own timeline!

I tend to start preparation very early, because I find it easier to digest information if I take in smaller pieces over a longer period of time. Osmo has told me he often will wait to really delve into a score because if he starts too early, he begins to second-guess decisions he has made. He goes through an enormous amount of repertoire a year, and with his schedule, there really is no time for second guessing!

Of Firebirds & Foolishness...

Here are a bunch more photos from our Thursday night Inside the Classics concert last week, courtesy of crack photographer Greg Helgeson...

Our brilliant guest dancers were Penelope Freeh and Justin Leaf, both members of James Sewell Ballet. They also proved more than willing to participate in some of our first-half shenanigans, even at the possible expense of their pride...

Nothing like being held at daggerpoint by a 5'2" blond violinist, is there, Justin?

If memory serves, this was actually one of the less ridiculous facial expressions I sported over the course of the night. (Please note that Sarah, as usual, looks completely composed and fabulous. This should give you some idea of how our photo session for the series brochure went.)

The first violins are really never going to live down the tiara thing, and this pleases me.

My favorite thing about this shot is the way that cellist Beth Rapier and violinist Julie Ayer are so clearly unimpressed by Tom & Richard's terrifying arsenal. (And since more than one person asked: yes, that is, in fact, my hockey stick. And yes, I am a left-handed shot, albeit a very, very bad one.)


I honestly don't know what we would have done had David Wright not agreed to take on the role of the Kastchei. In a flurry of enthusiasm, he even supplied his own costume...

Many of you have commented that you really like watching Sarah conduct. I strongly suspect that moments like this are the reason why.

Thanks again to everyone who came to the concerts! Our PR staffers tell us that they can't remember the last time they got such immediate positive feedback from members of the audience, and we're taking your ideas and suggestions into account as we plan future shows. We'll see you in January for our next ItC concert, but this site won't be taking a break for the holidays! Keep coming back regularly, and we promise to have fresh content, new Ask An Expert questions, and those long-awaited podcasts going up throughout the year!

Ask and you shall receive...

Well, we've gotten so many pleas for a photo of the Orchestra from this week's "Inside the Classics" shows, so here's one for you that I took from the podium on Thursday (many thanks to Fora, our acting principal bass, for lending me his camera!). Roger Frisch's expression is priceless...

The concerts were an amazing amount of fun, and totally made up for the endless planning and stress. Launching a new series is a tremendous undertaking, and certainly not possible without the support of our colleagues. Fortunatel for Sam and I, this Orchestra is game for practically anything, clearly indicated by this photo!!

After Hours: Thursday Edition

Okay, Thursday audience, your turn. You packed the place, and your energy was palpable all night from the stage! Sarah and I had a great time, and we're already chomping at the bit to get started on January's concert. So if you were with us Thursday night, chime in below in the comments: what did you like about the show, what would you like to see more of, and what could we be doing better?

After Hours: Wednesday Edition

So, our first concert is in the books, and from the stage, it looked like we had an excellent turnout! Thanks to everyone who attended, and if you missed it, we're doing it again Thursday night. (Tickets available here, or at the Orchestra Hall box office.)

As soon as I make it home after each of our shows this year, I'll be throwing up a post like this, designed to solicit your comments. (This may or may not garner much response initially - our tech people haven't told us yet whether anyone's actually discovered this blog...) Sarah and I spent a lot of time thinking, talking, and planning what we wanted to do with this series, and one thing we agreed on immediately was that we wanted to hear some backtalk from the audience, and not just assume that we know what's best for you.

So if you were with us Wednesday night at Orchestra Hall, click the comments link below and tell us what you liked, what you didn't like, or what you think we ought to do in the future. And again, thanks to everyone who showed up - we hope you'll be a repeat customer!

Have a little faith in me...

Well, the day has finally arrived, and we'll be kicking off our new Inside the Classics concert series this very evening at Orchestra Hall, dissecting Stravinsky's Firebird, poking fun at the patently absurd plot that accompanies same, and generally trying to justify the faith that's been placed in us by our bosses, not to mention our long-suffering colleagues in the orchestra.

That last one is an aspect of launching a new series that we haven't really talked about on the blog so far, but the more I think about it, the more I'm amazed that Sarah and I ever came to be in this enviable position. Generally, when an orchestra is launching or revamping a concert series, it looks around at what other orchestras are doing, tries to locate a conductor who does that sort of thing as a specialty, and if a host is required, recruits one from the local public radio station or something. The emphasis is always on safety - why take a chance that the wheels could come off when, instead, we could just follow a proven formula that dozens of other orchestras have already field tested?

That's not what happened here. Sarah certainly has experience with unconventional concert formats (in addition to regularly conducting the Richmond Symphony in a nightclub, she stands as the only staff conductor in Minnesota Orchestra history to throw back a whiskey shot in the middle of a performance, said shot having been proffered by legendary Irish tenor John McDermott, who was not going to take no for an answer) and I've spent enough time with a microphone in my hand to know how not to trip over my own tongue, but never before has either of us done anything quite like what we'll be doing tonight. So it took a tremendous leap of faith for the people in charge of the orchestra to tap us as the right pair to revamp, reinvent, and relaunch an already much-loved series of concerts.

Equally amazing to me is how little we've been interfered with in our preparations. Several times this fall, in the course of conducting the seemingly endless meetings that go along with any concert series (artistic planning, logistics, guest artists, etc.) Sarah and I found ourselves tentatively asking if the Powers That Be wanted to, y'know, actually see some of what we were planning to do in our first show. The answer was always the same: Nah. We trust you. Knock 'em dead.

That level of trust (which is quite literally unheard of in the management structure of other major orchestras, by the way) extends to the orchestra itself, too. As Sarah mentioned, we get only a single rehearsal for these concerts, and for us, that rehearsal was yesterday morning. We had just under an hour to prepare our full performance of Firebird, and another hour and a quarter to work on all the excerpts, extras, and shenanigans that we've planned for the first half. This is generally the acid test for any show - orchestra musicians, even our fun-loving bunch, do not like having their time wasted even a little bit, and while they're certainly rooting for us to do well, they are not interested in spending their rehearsal time listening to me talk into a microphone. (To be honest, since they're sitting behind the speakers that project out into the auditorium, they won't be able to understand half of what I'm saying during the show, anyway...) So you've gotta work fast, and efficiently, and know going in what the orchestra needs to be told, and what can be left out. The upshot is that, while my fellow musicians now have a firm grip on what they'll be playing during the first half of the show, and in what order, they have literally no idea of how I plan to tie the thing together. They just do their job, and trust that I'll do mine.

All that having been said, Sarah and I have been designing, writing, and prepping this show for months now, and we can't wait to actually walk out on that stage tonight. If you haven't already made plans to join us, it's not too late - you can get tickets online here, or just stop by the box office at 11th and Marquette in downtown Minneapolis. I can't claim to know for sure just exactly how everything will unfold onstage over the next two nights, but hey - you can trust us, right?

It ain't easy

How's this for a crazy week; three different programs, three rehearsals, eight performances. Hard enough for the orchestra to keep track of all that music, overwhelming for me as the only staff conductor in town (and thus the conductor of all eight concerts). The vagaries of orchestra scheduling often mean that non-subscription weeks like this one are crammed to the gills with the other types of concerts that are the mainstays of any ensemble - educational concerts, pops presentations, special series (like "Inside the Classics"). To add to the load, I'm gearing up for a week in Korea to premiere a new Requiem, and I have yet to see a complete full score (note to composers - if you want your conductor colleagues to ever speak to you again, don't be orchestrating a week before the first rehearsal!)

Staff conductors the world over are nodding their heads with sympathy. The tough part about heavy conducting weeks like this one is not the actual conducting itself, but the preparation. Unlike the rehearsal schedule for a subscription concert (where one usually has four rehearsals to put a program together), young people's and pops concerts are allotted a single rehearsal. This means not only that I have to plan that rehearsal down to the minute, but that I need to have a complete grasp of everything the first time around and fix things on the fly - there's often no time to run a piece again or do anything over, no time for uncertainty or trying something a slightly different way.

In a way it's an exciting challenge, and a particular skill that one has to master to be successful in this business. By the same token it's hard to sometimes gloss over the finer details of what we're doing in the interest of time and efficiency. I'm tremendously lucky in that the Minnesota Orchestra doesn't slack off musically because we might feel underrehearsed - in fact, because things feel so fresh, the level of musical energy often rises. I'm looking forward to concerts tomorrow - two Young People's Concerts in the morning, for which I am host, conductor and piano soloist (in a fantastically oddball piece by Henry Cowell ), and then the premiere concert of Inside the Classics. As I said, a crazy week...

ItC on MPR

Just a quick note for anyone thinking about coming to this week's inaugural Inside the Classics concerts at Orchestra Hall: Sarah and I will be appearing on Minnesota Public Radio's classical music stations this afternoon (Monday) to talk about the series, the blog, and whatever else comes up. I don't know exactly what time the segment will air, but it should be sometime between 3 and 6pm, with MPR host (and closet violist!) Steve Staruch presiding.

MPR Classical is 99.5fm KSJN in the Twin Cities, and streams live from this page. If you're in outstate Minnesota, either Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, or the Michigan UP, you can find your station here...

Update, 12:42pm: As it turns out, the segments we taped at MPR today will not be airing until later this week, probably Wednesday, the day of our first concert. So you'll just have the leave the radio on until then. (Or not.) If any part of the interview winds up on the MPR website, I'll link to it here.

A Woman's Touch

An engaging New York Times feature about Marin Alsop. There has been an interest in the whole “female conductor” idea for years, and this is certainly not the first NYT article discussing women on the podium (see paragraph 6 for my first NYT shout-out).

On one hand I understand the fascination with this topic. Yes, the number of women conductors seems disproportionate to our presence in the general population, and yes, Marin is the first to helm a major orchestra. However, I was reminded that our focus at the very top of the field often blinds us to the work being done in the vast middle.

I was home in Richmond, VA last week, and perusing the symphonic offerings in the Central Virginia area over the course of two weeks you would have thought that women had taken over the conducting world. On the table were concerts by: the Williamsburg Symphonia with their music director, Janna Hymes; the Richmond Symphony conducted by associate conductor Erin Freeman; and of course the Virginia Symphony under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, who is also music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was the associate conductor in Richmond from 2005 to 2007, overlapping with my first season with the Minnesota Orchestra. And, incidentally, Marin Alsop held that very same post in Richmond in the ‘80s…)

I met and worked with Marin at a workshop held in conjunction with the Cabrillo Festival in 2001. She immediately gained my respect as both a musician and person of great integrity, and I understand completely the umbrage she takes in being questioned yet again about the lack of women in top conducting posts. It’s a tough question because you can’t win either way you answer it. On one hand, if we state that it has nothing to do with underlying prejudices and preconceptions, and that it is just a matter of time when women will take over several of the Big Five posts, we are denying the very existence of those underlying prejudices and preconceptions, which are very real. On the other hand, if we discuss how difficult it is to overcome prejudgments about women and authority, we bring the focus squarely onto the gender issue and away from music, where it should be.

The bit in the NYT article that made my hackles rise discussed Marin’s sexual orientation and how it may make her a “less intimidating…authority figure." You’ve got to be kidding. I won’t make a sweeping generalization, but speaking just from my own personal experience, the gay women I know are powerful and opinionated people who are just as comfortable as, if not more inclined than, their straight counterparts to speak their mind. And I find the notion that male musicians might be “more comfortable with an electrifying woman on the podium if she is known to be a lesbian” to be both leering and ludicrous. Why would it make a difference? Should female musicians then be more comfortable with a gay male conductor? And would there be as much verbiage about someone’s personal life in an article about a male conductor? I think not. It’s disheartening to me that the topic is even part of an otherwise informative article.

Ask An Expert: Can you hear me now?

Time for another of our reader-submitted Ask an Expert questions. (Click the link in the menu above to submit one of your own!) This week's question comes from Daisuke Takeuchi, who is not, as far as I know, any relation to the star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox:

Q: I am a new fan of classical music thanks to Osmo Vanska and The Minnesota Orchestra experience. My question is about the sound range of classical music. When I listen to CDs, some parts are too quiet to hear. So, I turn the volume up, but then the loud parts get too loud. I feel like in order to listen to classical music you need a perfectly quiet environment, otherwise you cannot hear the quiet parts. I live in a neighborhood where cars go by, babies are crying, dogs are barking, and I get frustrated when I cannot hear the music. Of course, putting on a headphone would solve the problem, but this bothers me. So, please enlighten me as to why some parts are played so quietly that I cannot hear a thing.

For an answer, I went right to the top, to the master of extreme pianissimo himself, Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä. Osmo has a reputation for demanding extreme dynamics at both ends of the decibel spectrum from his orchestras, and our recent Beethoven recordings do have a startlingly wide dynamic range, due in part to the incredibly senstive digital equipment that the recording team at BIS uses. So Osmo, why so soft, and what's the best way to listen?

Osmo's Answer: First of all, don't try to listen [to classical music] in the car. There's just too much extra noise around. I would say that, even in the concert hall, during the softest passages, you still can hardly hear what we are playing, and you have to allow that that may be what we want you to hear. In [popular] music, everything is recorded so that the sound meter is always in more or less the same position. The sound level never goes too far into the red, and never goes very far the other way either. It is not that way in our music. So I would suggest to Daisuke that he set his volume as loud as his neighbors and his stereo will allow for the loud parts, and then keep it there - don't touch it when we go to the softest passages. It is meant to be so that it is very difficult to hear. That's the whole secret of the music we play - if you [turn up the softest parts,] you are missing the opportunity to go where the music wants to take you.

Copyright Conundrums

What’s been interesting as we prepare for this first Inside the Classics concert is that although we refer to Firebird as if it were a single piece, there are actually 4 discrete versions of it – 1910, 1911, 1919 and 1945. The original (1910) is by far the longest, a 50-minute ballet in two scenes, and is scored for the largest orchestra (3 harps!!). The other three versions are “concert suites”, with selected portions of the full ballet, and for a much smaller band.

It can get a little confusing from a pure learning-the-music perspective – the 1910 version has the most music, the middle two version the least, and the 1945 reinstates some of the music from the original, but under different titles and with the order switched around. Each one is orchestrated a bit differently, so although it sounds familiar, different instruments are playing in different combinations. It’s enough to make your head spin, particularly when you have them all laid out in front of you.

To further complicate matters, there is the copyright issue; the 1910, 1911 and 1919 are public domain and can be played for free, while 1945 is still under copyright and must be rented. At this point one runs into a budgeting issue. To perform a lovely section of music that’s called “The Firebird’s Supplication” or ”Pas de deux” (depending on which version you’re looking at), the question is, does one do the version that most orchestras own (1910) and hire a bunch of extra players (this is the one requiring an enormous orchestra) or does one pay to rent the music (1945 version) while saving on the extra musicians (smaller orchestration)?

Musicians are often reluctant to discuss the constant conflict between artistic content and fiscal feasibility – it raises the uncomfortable truth that although we are part of non-profit organizations we need to foster our art responsibly, acknowledging the existence of a bottom line (a topic sure to be revisited at length at some other time!). But that’s not to say that there’s no way of maintaining some sort of equilibrium, or that it’s not possible to produce great art and be financially savvy, which takes me back to Stravinsky, ever the shrewd businessman, who actually created this copyright conundrum. He became an American citizen in 1945, and realizing that citizenship gave him copyright protection (he was not receiving royalty payments for his music up to that point), he was keen on revising and reissuing his early works, to his great financial benefit. Who says artists can’t be practical?

Niagara Rising?

It's a strange time to be thinking about summer - here in Minneapolis, the temps are in the 30s, and the snow should fly pretty soon. But a story out of Ontario this morning should have orchestras around North America taking notice. According to sources, two of Canada's largest orchestras, the Toronto Symphony and Ottawa's National Arts Centre Orchestra (the latter of which is led by former St. Paul Chamber Orchestra music director Pinchas Zukerman,) are planning to create a major new summer music festival in Niagara, which some are calling Tanglewood North. (My personal geography obsession compels me to point out that, while a Niagara-based fest would in fact be 350 miles west of the Boston Symphony's famous summer home, it would be less than one degree of latitude further north. Yes, I'm a nerd.)

Geography aside, the idea of a major summer music destination at Niagara should have both arts supporters and local merchants in southern Ontario and upstate New York salivating. Tanglewood is a major economic force for the Berkshire resort region of Western Massachusetts, drawing audience from all over New England, New York City, and the entirety of upstate New York to tiny Lenox, MA for eight weeks every year. Collectively, that means that a large chunk of the considerable wealth of the Northeast US gravitates to a single musical center each and every summer, and the Boston Symphony's public profile (already screaming high by orchestra standards) is significantly enhanced by its longtime association with the bucolic setting and informal quality of such a unique venue.

Orchestras across North America have been jealous of Tanglewood for decades, and many have tried to recreate the magic elsewhere, with varying degrees of success. The Philadelphia Orchestra heads north to Saratoga Springs, New York for several weeks each summer, and has enjoyed some economic success there, although nothing like what the BSO enjoys at Tanglewood. Chicago and Cleveland each decamp for relatively nearby festivals in Highland Park, Illinois and Kent, Ohio, respectively. In 2003, an ambitious new festival center was constructed in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania for the Pittsburgh Symphony (among others,) and failed spectacularly, although it has since reopened with a considerably less ambitious mission. And back in the early part of this decade, our very own Minnesota Orchestra abandoned plans to construct an outdoor summer venue in Brooklyn Park, just north of Minneapolis. (At present, we are the only major American orchestra to stay 100% at home in the summer, which isn't likely to change, since our 4-week Sommmerfest, based at Orchestra Hall, has been a consistent moneymaker and audience favorite in recent years.)

The simple reality for most orchestras is that creating a sustainable summer festival in a remote location, while always an attractive prospect, is a nearly impossible task to complete. You need not only a beautiful location, but a spot within easy driving distance of millions of potential concertgoers. You need the vast majority of those potential concertgoers to be well-off enough to afford your ticket prices. Assuming that your dream location is not located within 25 miles or so of your home city, you need housing for your musicians and staff - a major issue considering the size of a symphony orchestra. Finally, you need an existing infrastructure willing to embrace your plans and integrate you into whatever local scene already exists.

These requirements are the reason that my personal summer dream for the Minnesota Orchestra - a monthlong festival in Bemidji or Grand Marais - will likely never be a realistic possibility. We in the Upper Midwest simply don't have the population density of the Northeast (I consider this to be a very good thing, in general,) nor do we have their almost unbelievable concentration of wealth. (Also, our orchestra, while certainly a well-funded organization by any reasonable standard, does not have the resources of the Boston Symphony, which leads the world in endowment size and fundraising capability.) So while I assume we will continue to make regular tours of outstate Minnesota (something we've been doing nearly every year since 2003,) I doubt you can expect to see us plunk ourselves down in a single remote outpost for an extended stay.

Still, I think the new Canadian festival has the potential to be a smashing success, if it comes to fruition. Niagara is a unique location, less than half an hour from Buffalo, less than two hours from Toronto, within an easy one day drive of Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, and practically right next to the millions of people who live throughout Southern Ontario in cities like Hamilton and Kitchener. More importantly, the area is already home to multiple summer arts festivals (notably Niagara's Shaw Festival, which is one of the continent's preeminent theater fests,) so the infrastructure for a musical center is already largely in place. Oh, and that waterfall seems to draw a few people to the area, as well...

This way there be dragons...

Bernard Holland had a column in Sunday's New York Times that really grabbed my attention. It was about the role of composers in the concert experience, and it expressed, in words far more organized and eloquent than I could come up with, much of what I believe to be true about late 20th-century music and those who wrote it.

The column starts out by repeating a question every critic has either been asked or asked himself: namely, how one should prepare for a world premiere, when there's no score to study and no recording to consult for perspective. With so much new music layered in complexity, how can even an educated listener hope to be ready to offer an assessment of a completely new work after one hearing?

Holland doesn't like the implications of the question: "Haven’t we got things backward? Shouldn’t composers be preparing for me rather than me for them?" That may seem flip, but it expresses the beginnings of the frustration that those of us in this business hear year after year from members of our audience. I can't count the number of times that some intelligent friend of mine has looked pleadingly at me after a concert featuring a work by a contemporary composer and whimpered, "Did you like that piece?" It's as if they can't allow themselves to believe their own distaste without having it confirmed by a professional.

This just shouldn't be the way things work. Composers (especially those in the business of writing dense, academic scores that sound more like aural representations of calculus equations than music) have spent a lot of time over the past several decades blasting away at symphony orchestras for not playing more new music, while conveniently ignoring the undeniable fact that the programming of new music didn't decline precipitously until virtually the entire music world fell under the spell of a generation of composers seemingly dedicated to the deliberate alienation of the listener. (see also rows, tone) Not only did these composers and their advocates in the press delight in the discomfort and hostility of the average concertgoer, they viciously attacked or studiously ignored any composer impudent enough to continue making use of such supposedly passé concepts as tonality or emotion.

This era is mercifully over, and has been for at least 15 years (although certain modernist bigwigs with friends in high places are still inexplicably held up as shining examples of what composers should be in certain academic and musical circles.) Most of today's best composers are writing music that, while certainly challenging in comparison to much of what you can hear on the radio, is accessible enough to the average listener that it won't trigger an immediate fight-or-flight reflex. More importantly, young composers seem to be granted greater freedom than in decades past to experiment with different styles and find their own voice rather than being pressured to adhere to a rigid ideology that equates impenetrable complexity with intelligent artistry.

To me, the great tragedy of the era in which new music was used as an intellectual cudgel with which audiences could be beaten is that even in 2007, when my orchestra is preparing to premiere a new work that I know for a fact they'll be able to absorb and enjoy on first hearing, I look out into the crowd before the first downbeat, and see hundreds of tense and worried faces attached to intelligent, open-minded people who are steeling themselves for the worst. Listeners have become so used to being confused and taken advantage of by the composers of the past that they can't help but assume that they're going to hate what's coming from a composer of today. And that's a damn shame.

The good news is that it doesn't seem to take much to break down those fears. Bear with me for a story: A few years back, the Minnesota Orchestra was premiering a brand new work by a composer of some international renown, as we do on a somewhat regular basis. We'd been rehearsing it all week with varying degrees of success, and as the concert loomed, we found out that the composer would not be able to attend, due to ill health. This was a shame, because we had been hoping that he would speak to the audience about the work, which was very complex and dark, before we played it, thus perhaps preparing them for what to expect.

Instead, Osmo took the microphone to speak about the piece, and everyone in the room was amazed by what he said. Right off the bat, he confessed that when he first saw the score, he had thought, "Oh, no." The piece was so esoteric and academic that he feared that neither the orchestra nor the listeners would be able to get their minds around it enough to make the experience of listening worth anything. Osmo further confessed that, even after days of rehearsal, he still wasn't sure whether he liked the piece. But, he added with a laugh, "what does Vänskä know? You will have your own opinions, and if we are playing the piece well, you will be able to hear with your own ears." It was an unexpectedly profound moment, even as the audience laughed at the joke. A conductor had just given a roomful of listeners full permission to hate a piece of music that they had paid to hear. All he asked was that they listen with an open mind.

After that concert, I cornered every audience member I could find, and asked what they'd thought of the piece. (I hated it, myself, but didn't let on.) Lots of them thought it was lousy - a few liked it. But the difference between these listeners and the ones I usually hear from after a tough premiere was that all of them were smiling, even the ones who had no use for the piece. Osmo had given them credit for being intelligent adults, capable of drawing their own conclusions about music, and that made them far more willing to engage with the piece than they would have been otherwise. I've often thought that if Osmo's speech could be replayed before every new or unfamiliar work we play, our listeners would wind up liking a far higher percentage of what we play for them.

Holland sums it all up better than I can: "Composers ought to write anything they want. And how nice it is that lovers of Duparc or Ned Rorum can gather in small recital halls and listen to the songs they wrote. Let explorers of microtonal imagery or computer-generated randomness revel in their exclusivity. The Internet seems made for niches of specialized interests; and if Milton Babbitt disciples want to crawl into one and exchange examples of combinatoriality, let us leave them to it. [But] for thinking big, you need to need the people... Giving composers the luxury of being important and disliked debilitates music."

Howl

Quite a few years ago I was driving back to Philadelphia from Maine after a summer at the Pierre Monteux School in my Pontiac LeMans hatchback (I called her “Jezebel” – what a dreadful little car…) packed with suitcases, crates of scores and a sleeping dog in the back. The dog in question was my husband’s (then-boyfriend’s) mutt, Sieglinde (named as only a horn player and Wagner enthusiast would.) I had given her some sedatives for the 10-hour drive back to Philadelphia and had utterly forgotten that she was even there. Many hours into my journey the radio happened to be tuned in to the local classical station, which was playing Brahms’s “Tragic Overture”.

There’s a bit towards the end where the horns play loud and prominent octaves, concert “D” (around measure 320, if you want to check it out), and Sieglinde was always sensitive to that note on the horn – which I knew because when my husband played that note at any dynamic above mezzo forte she would begin to howl. Imagine how startled I was when my canine companion, who, to this point, was drugged to unconsciousness and silently passed out in the hatchback, raised her head woozily and moaned out soft howls to the radio!

We recently discovered that Sieglinde, now nearly 13, is deaf – she hadn’t been responding to our calls for a while, which we wrote off as just part of her obstinate personality compounded by age. The other day, however, my husband was practicing that very same section of “Tragic” with Sieglinde in the room, and she remained curled up in a ball, oblivious. Which made me a little sad, but maybe it's a relief for her, who no longer has to hear daily hour-long warm-ups on the French horn.

Art, schmart

A recent memory: I was in a city that shall remain unnamed, conducting the local orchestra. Post-concert, a couple of musicians and I go out for a drink, where we strike up a conversation with a local. When I explain what I’m doing in town, he expresses surprise: “I didn’t know there was an orchestra here in _______!” Never mind that we had just performed a few blocks away. Then he leans over to the musicians at the table and asks what their day jobs are – we explain that playing in the orchestra is a full-time deal. “Wow, who knew, I mean, it’s not like you’re providing a necessary service, or anything like that.” (He was a telemarketer – it took a lot for me not to snap back with a snarky rejoinder – I really try not to start bar fights!)

I was reminded of that evening while looking over an article from a couple of months back about ”El Sistema”, the Venezuelan youth project founded in 1975 by Jose Antonio Abreu as a social program to improve the lives of underprivileged kids. Essentially a network of youth orchestras, it has, since it’s inception, trained over 400,000 Venezuelan children, 90% from the lowest economic stratum, and in most cases turned their lives around.

This quote from Abreu: “As a Venezuelan musician, I proposed to make my art an instrument of authentic social development, an instrument to build citizens, a powerful vehicle to achieve an integral education for children, compensating in this way the traditional deficiencies of the continent's education system. " And he has succeeded on all accounts – Venezuela now has a network of nearly 220 youth orchestras which continue to build a sense of community and tremendous civic pride. In fact, now the entire world is looking at El Sistema as the gold-standard of arts education, and graduates are going on to successful careers in Berlin and Los Angeles.

What is extraordinary about the Venezuelan system is the notion that providing musical training, with the discipline and opportunity for self-expression that comes with it, can reshape and fulfill the lives of children living in some of the worst slums in the world, kids who would otherwise be caught in an endless circle of crime, drugs and despair. And this is why the comment from the telemarketer in the bar really rankled; music IS necessary and can be transformative in a very tangible way. Art is not fluff – it’s the stuff that makes humans human, that makes life a deeply joyous enterprise.

Who you callin' minor league?

The professional orchestras of the world tend to spend an unseemly amount of time and energy trumpeting just how excellent we are. In fact, the tenor of such discussions frequently gets downright silly, as it did earlier this fall, when Marin Alsop began her tenure as music director of the Baltimore Symphony. In reporting on her historic debut, a number of national publications described her (accurately) as the first ever female music director of a "major" American orchestra, sparking howls of outrage from orchestras and listeners in cities like Buffalo and Denver who believe their local bands to be deserving of the label "major." The fact that a Major Orchestra is typically defined within the industry by factors like annual budget, endowment size, length of season, and musician pay scale was lost in the face of protests that "our orchestra is every bit as good as theirs!"

I once found myself on the receiving end of a similar protest when, in my role as a news editor at ArtsJournal.com, I wrote a blurb describing a medium-sized regional orchestra on the East Coast as just that, sparking an angry e-mail from the orchestra's PR chief, who demanded that we rewrite the blurb and identify her band as "major," even though their rank in all the categories I mentioned above places them in roughly the same tier as orchestras in Alabama, Columbus, and Louisville.

The protesters in these debates over the use of the word "major" may well have a point - Alex Ross of The New Yorker wrote an excellent piece earlier this year about how much better second, third, and even fourth tier orchestras have become in recent years, and how narrow the gap between the top US orchestras and those considered to be beneath that standard has become. But the real heart of these sorts of debates is simple civic pride, and the wound that people feel when their city, state, neighborhood, etc. is defined by an outsider as being less than major league caliber in any way. Look at how quick arts groups are to trumpet phrases like "world class" as a way of supposedly impressing the local populace, and you'll see how important perception and rank are in the cultural marketplace. (The Minnesota Orchestra has been living high on the marketing hog for more than three years now through the power of a single line from a London newspaper, where a critic was kind enough to say of us that, "out of nowhere, the world seems to have gained a new superstar band with a maestro to match." I often wonder if that critic knows just how many times we've reprinted his words for our own purposes since he wrote them back in 2004.)

Still, I've long suspected that the bulk of our ticketbuyers could care less about national and international accolades, and are basically looking for us to provide them with an entertaining night out. Sure, it's nice to be able to say that your local theater troupe, opera company, or orchestra is among the best, if you care about that sort of thing, but since no one ever really tells you who's doing the ranking, it feels a bit silly to me.

Besides, tell me that the fans of Britain's Really Terrible Orchestra (and there are apparently thousands of them) aren't having as good a time at the RTO's concerts as the concertgoers in Baltimore, Buffalo, New York, or Minneapolis. Somehow, I don't think they're spending a lot of time worrying about where their band ranks among the world's best...