Vegetabulous II (or, perhaps more accurately, Fruitabulous)

As promised, another installment in my food/instrument/Japanese madness series.

More Copland Audio

Here are three more audio samples from our Inside the Classics season finale. First, a bit of history on Copland's political moorings, followed by a full performance of his immortal Fanfare for the Common Man...



Next, following our brief sample of the dense, intellectual music of Arnold Schoenberg, Sarah heads to the piano to break down just what serialists like Schoenberg were doing with their strange-sounding tone rows. She then brings the conversation back to Copland, and his innovative use of traditional harmonies...



Finally, our resident "eminent musicologist," Michael Steinberg, was on hand for the show, and he had some fascinating insights on Copland's place in the decidedly fractious music world of the mid-20th century...



I'll try to get some clips of our other two Inside the Classics concerts up in the coming weeks. If there's anything in particular from either the Stravinsky or Tchaikovsky show that you're dying to hear again, say so below in the comments, and I'll do my best to make it happen.

More than meets the eye

I hope you've had a chance to listen to the Mischke Broadcast on Sam's latest post; there are some really astute observations about the Orchestra and some great questions posed to the group of musicians who chatted with Mischke post-rehearsal.

I was waiting for the quintessential orchestra question/comment, and I wasn't disappointed: "I don't understand how you can [watch the conductor] and read the sheet music at the same time...". I've gotten the same sort of questions in the post-concert Q&A sessions at the "Inside the Classics" shows - "How do you know the orchestra is paying attention to what you do if they're looking at their music and not at you?". The answer, of course, is that peripheral vision plays a huge role in orchestral playing, as does a constantly shifting visual focus.

Players are obviously looking at music, but they have other things to visually attend to as well; string players, for instance, are not always looking at their fingers on their instruments, but if they have a huge leap up to a high note, they are certainly looking at the fingerboard to make the shift accurately. Section players keep a corner of their eye on their section leaders - it's crucial for ensemble playing for a section to be thinking and breathing together. And everyone keeps another eye-corner on the conductor; it's pretty amazing what you can pick up just by the velocity of movement without fully focusing on the actual gesture itself.

It's not to say that we on the podium are bereft of any direct eye contact whatsoever. When coming in for a big solo, most wind and brass players like a good second or so of visual confirmation - I've encountered instances where something went slightly awry before a big wind solo, and a clear cue with lots of eye contact is reassuring and usually very much appreciated. Usually, once the contact is made, it need not be continued - it's more of a "We're both just checking to make sure that everything's OK" moment. String section leaders, particularly the concert master, will make eye contact as well, especially when a conductor is indicating that something needs to change - the tempo is too fast/slow, the dynamic is not where it should be - and a quick look from both parties is all that's needed to confirm "I'm trying to get you to move the tempo/I get that you're trying to make us pick up the tempo".

Sometimes the visual contact is of a totally extra-musical nature. This past holiday season we played the "Evening Prayer" and "Pantomime" from Hansel and Gretel a half dozen times during Young People's Concerts, and a few weeks before the performances violist Matt Young had mentioned to me how much he loved a particular part of the "Pantomime". So of course during the first performance I glanced over to him at that moment and caught his eye - he smiled, I smiled, and from then on all week I always gave him a quick look, which was always returned. It's one of those "inside joke" moments that happens constantly onstage, which (as long as it doesn't distract from the performance!) I rather like - we might be creating extraordinary music, but we're just people, after all, and those wordless but deeply human exchanges that happen are part of what helps us feel connected to each other, which, in turn, makes the music even more extraordinary.

Chatting Up The Broadcast Outcast

Anyone who knows the radio scene in the Twin Cities knows about Tommy Mischke, the self-styled Broadcast Outcast, KSTP's homegrown radio anarchist who made his name hurling all manner of brilliant nonsense into the night air where it was picked up by a fascinating assortment of listeners and callers. Although his show isn't quite the same carnival it once was (getting bumped from late night to midday will force a guy to tone it down a bit,) the Mischke Broadcast is still, for my money, the best thing on the radio anywhere in Minnesota. (That's right, MPR geeks, I said anywhere. This American Life is great stuff, and no one loves Morning Edition or 89.3 The Current more than I do, but Mischke does radio on an entirely different level.) Back in the days when I was writing long-form essays for my personal web site (now mostly defunct,) I once wrote around 3,500 words on Mischke, and what I'd gotten out of listening to his show. At the time, I had a vague notion that I might get the chance to run into him someday, and tell him how much I loved what he was doing on AM1500's air.

I finally got the chance last week. During an afternoon rehearsal, my stand partner looked up into the first tier box, where reporters and other backstage visitors frequently sit to watch us practice, and whispered to me, "Who's the guy nearly falling out of the box?" I looked up and did a violent double take. It was none other than Mischke, craning his neck every which way and leaning so far forward to hear every word that was being said on stage that he did seem about to plummet down to our level. I've never seen anyone look so engaged in what we do, us included.

Afterwards, our PR chief asked if I'd stick around along with a few other musicians (violists Tom Turner and Mike Adams, timpanist Peter Kogan, and bass player Bill Schrickel) to talk to Mischke for a piece on the orchestra he was preparing for his show. I've done a lot of press interviews over the years, but I don't think I've ever before been quite so puppy-doggish in leaping at the chance to do one. As it turns out, Tommy asks great questions, and the six of us ended up stretching what was supposed to be a 10-minute interview into nearly 40 minutes of chatting about music, life, and being on stage for a living.

Mischke aired our chat this afternoon, devoting more than half of his program to it, which was incredibly flattering. Tom and Mike and I spent part of our lunch hour gathered around a portable radio listening, and fortunately, KSTP now archives all its shows online, so you can listen too, if you're so inclined. (I don't know how long the links below will stay active, but they should work for at least a week...)

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE MISCHKE BROADCAST

HOUR TWO OF THE SHOW IS HERE

The Long-Awaited Copland Show Audio

So, way back at the beginning of this month, I promised that I'd put up some of the audio samples people had been requesting from our Copland show once I had a recording of the concerts in hand. Sorry to have taken so long - it takes a while for our library to get around to burning the CDs (they have a lot of other, more important jobs than making recordings of concerts that have already occurred,) and I wanted to find a good embeddable audio player before I started posting clips.

Anyway, I think this should work, so here's the most-requested part of the Copland show - the ending of the first half. Enjoy, and with any luck, there'll be more clips from our 2007-08 season to come over the next few days...

Ode to MSP

A recent Star Tribue article about the ranking of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul airport in a survey of 60 airports (dead last in customer satisfaction).

I do a fair amount of traveling on multiple airlines to multiple destinations. A quick review of travel in the last 6 months revealed that I've flown: AirTran, USAirways, United Airlines, Delta, Continental, Midwest and (of course) Northwest to: ATL, RIC, CVG, ORD, SFO, CAK, CAE, CLT, DTW, NRT, ICN, PHL, EWR, LGA, MKE and MSP (yes, I'm more likely to identify a city by its airport code than anything else...). I have to say that I utterly disagree with the survey results, and I think I have enough of my own personal data to make the comparisons.

Minneapolist/Saint Paul Airport (MSP) is easily navigable and not the sprawling monstrosity of, say, Atlanta. The food offerings are ample (French Meadow Bakery is my favorite), there's decent shopping (The Body Shop, particularly, to replace toiletry items confiscated at the security check), and plentiful vending machines. There are enough security lines to keep things going most of the time (I try to travel off-peak, which helps). While the baggage claim may take a while, it seems pretty par for the course for a comparable airport (and at least your bags are never chewed to bits, as has happened to me on more than one occasion at Denver International).

It's entirely possible that survey-takers were swayed by the oft-delayed flights and cancellations that plagued Northwest (which counts MSP as a hub), but really, it's nothing in comparison to, say, Chicago-O'Hare, where over 50% of both arrivals AND departures were delayed last month (MSP is in the high 20%s). (I once spent the night in the baggage claim at O'Hare on a cot during an epic thunderstorm that stranded thousands - a whole other story!) MSP is clean, well-lit, and doesn't smell like the inside of a garbage can (which JFK often feels like). Sure, it doesn't have a trippy underground passageway with a lightshow like Detroit, but I'm not fussy.

I'll admit that the nicest airport I've been to lately is Seoul-Incheon, mostly because you could get really tasty bibim bap, read newspapers in 27 different languages and (window)shop at Hermes all in the same terminal, but those are just perks. All in all, I find MSP easy to get around, conveniently close to downtown Minneapolis, rarely horribly crowded, and generally a decent place to spend an hour or so every week. What more could you ask for in an airport??

Slouching Towards Snobbery

All-purpose columnist Joel Stein has a funny piece in the LA Times today in which he endeavors, as part of a larger plan to become "an intolerable old man," to learn the tricks of the trade behind being a classical music snob. In pursuit of this dubious goal, he enlists the aid of a bass player from the LA Philharmonic, who must have been slightly confused by Stein's request, since he seems to have spent a fair amount of time trying to show him how to enjoy classical music, when really, Stein just wanted to know how to become one of the jerks who shushes people and glares at anyone who claps between movements.

The Stein column put me in mind of an essay I wrote a few years back for Drew McManus's Take A Friend To The Orchestra Month at his blog, Adaptistration. Drew's annual TAFTO feature enlists musicians, writers, and listeners to describe how best to approach an orchestra concert for the first time. Some of the entries are quite serious, some are heavily intellectual, and some are aggressively populist. After careful consideration of all of these approaches, I went with "sarcastic and silly" for my contribution. (Shocking, I know...)

How To Be An Elitist Snob In 20 Easy Steps is a pretty lengthy piece, so I won't reprint it here. But you can read it over at Drew's place, if you enjoy jokes about cough drop crinklers being beaten to death with bassoons and the like...

Future music

We're inordinately proud at the announcement this past Monday of a BMI foundation "Outstanding Musical Citizen Award" that went to our very own Beth Cowart and Aaron Kernis for their work as co-directors of the Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute.

The Minnesota Orchestra’s Composers Institute is a program unique in the orchestra world; each year 7-9 composers are given the opportunity to have their works performed by the Orchestra in our FutureClassics! Concert following an intense week with the Orchestra, Aaron Kernis (our composer-in-residence) and Osmo. For the 2008 incarnation of the Composers Institute we received over 150 applications, a huge stack of scores by anyone’s standard. Of course winnowing this down to the lucky 8 or so composers is an arduous process, one which required a 12-hour day for the panel of judges which, this year, included me.

Conductors tend to have an abundance of new scores pass their desks; often composers send their music unsolicited in an effort to get their works out and seen. In addition, my position at the Curtis Institute requires me to work on a consistent basis with young composers (students and graduates) from Curtis as well as the University of Pennsylvania. And a few weeks back, during an epic day at the American Music Center in New York, I perused over 70 scores of composers ranging in age from 18 to 55.

Apart from the excitement of deciding on those winning scores, the experience was fascinating in that I was able to pore over new scores with some esteemed colleagues and discuss what we saw. All of the panelists remarked on a trend; pieces that relied on skilled and colorful orchestration that sometimes revealed a paucity of actual musical ideas. Writing a symphonic score requires expertise in two distinct areas; compositional skill (the ability to put together nuanced musical ideas within a coherent structure) and mastery of instrumentation (a facility in distributing the aforementioned musical material amongst the different instruments of the orchestra). Ideally, both skills are interconnected and equal, but if this group of composers is any indication, the current tendency is to highlight well-developed orchestration skills over complex musical content.

I’m not sure to what we can attribute this trend, although I have my theory about the influence of culture and technology.

First, the technology. Most composers eventually input their music for engraving via programs like Finale or Sibelius. These programs provide instant playback of an input score, allowing the composer to hear a reasonable representation of what they have written. While this is a fantastic tool, I have observed some composers writing directly via these programs, ie, doing without initial thematic/harmonic sketches or even overarching structural ideas. Because these programs are so convenient to use, perhaps there is the temptation to do without the significant step of working and reworking thematic ideas in the mind's ear and via written sketch, which I've always found to help truly internalize something that you're working on. It's easy enough to move around a slew of notes on a computer screen, push playback and see if it sounds pretty; I've done it myself. But does this ease of execution perhaps allow us a little intellectual laziness?

The cultural impact I've observed is the tremendous influence of film music (which many of my composer friends are keenly interested in, as it can be quite lucrative!). The best symphonic film music naturally uses orchestral colors to full advantage, and this has certainly worked its way into our collective consciousness. And it's gotten to the point where we can point at a young composer's score and say, "Hey, look, a Williams moment", where a sweep of harp and percussion, decorative high woodwind figures and a brass chord voicing are an unmistakable (and perhaps not entirely conscious) mimicking of the great film composer John Williams (whose music, incidentally, I've loved since I first heard his score to "Star Wars" as a kid.)

Or perhaps it just happened to be this batch of scores I saw. But while I certainly don't want to make sweeping generalizations, it seems to me that while in the past one would have to develop substantial compositional chops before attempting a large scale orchestra piece, it has, via technology and the ready availability of recorded music, become plausible for composers to take a shot at such a piece much earlier in their development.

I pondered composition at one point - I did my BA in composition at Harvard - but I found it wasn't for me. I felt uneasy creating something and then giving it away to a performer to bring to life, even if, ironically, I was the performer, conducting my own work. For me it created too much of a disconnect; and, besides, I always liked it much better the way it sounded in my mind's ear (does that make sense to anyone but me?). And I found composition to be such difficult work; it's too easy to become self-consciously avant garde, or to rely on a saccharine tonality, or to flounder around with minimalist techniques. It takes far more to actually find your own unique voice.

I'm happy to report that there were indeed some very unique and personal voices in that pile of scores, and I look forward to hearing them brought to life by the Minnesota Orchestra next fall!

The Sound Of One Ear Chewing

Sarah has written before about the unmistakable link between musicians and cooking, and this past Sunday, as I was scouring the wires for orchestra news to plug into ArtsJournal's weekend edition, I came across a piece from Paul Horsley, music critic of the Kansas City Star, which really attempts to get at the heart of the matter.

Horsley, I suspect, started out writing this article as one of those humanizing personality pieces in which the arts reporter shows his subject to be just a regular guy, no matter how formal he may look on stage in tux and tails. But in the course of writing about a dinner party among musicians of the Kansas City Symphony, he must have had his interest piqued enough to do some serious research into whether there might actually be a connection between the way our brains process music and food...

"Most musicians agree that their discipline often fosters a highly sophisticated sense of taste... Numerous members of the Kansas City Symphony are so passionate about cuisine, it’s like a second profession."

That's all well and good, and my anecdotal experience would suggest that it is probably true of most orchestra rosters these days. But Horsley's not content with the anecdotal...

"Sensory perception happens in the brain’s cortex, the gray covering of the brain, and each sense activates a different area. For hearing, those areas are on the sides of the brain. Taste and smell are more deeply planted... We do know, however, that eating is a multisensory activity, and thus it involves the orbitofrontal cortex, which responds to enjoyable sensations and works to produce in us our sense of enjoyment when we experience these."

Heavy stuff, and certainly more than I ever think about while spending a rather unreasonable percentage of my downtime baking homemade bread, curing my own Canadian bacon, perfecting pan sauces, and trying desperately to come up with a perfect summer soup that will wow even my brother, a professional cook in Oregon. But I love the idea that there may be more to my and my colleagues' obsession with food than simple gluttony. Who knows, maybe the next major cultural crossover won't be between disparate musical genres, but between the acts of listening and eating...

(Oh, wait. Aaron Kernis and the Italian futurists already took care of that, didn't they?)

Playing telephone

Yesterday the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, a local community orchestra led by Minnesota Orchestra acting associate principal bassist Bill Schrickel premiered a piece by Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vanska entitlted "The Bridge".

A nice story, and one discussed in this MPR online article. Simple enough, right?

Remember that childhood game, "Telephone"? Where you pass a message, person to person, until you (usually) end up with a garbled message that bears some semblance to the original but has morphed over the course of the passing?

So, here's what the Associated Press gleaned from the original information, which was then picked up by news sources nationwide.

Wait, the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra??? A colleague at the Orchestra later told me that the original header for the MPR article itself was incorrect ( which could still be seen this afternoon when I Googled "Minnesota Symphony Orchestra):

MPR: Osmo Vanska composes a musical 'bridge'
The Minnesota Symphony Orchestra is premiering a new work by Minnesota Orchestra conductor Osmo Vanska, called "The Bridge." It's inspired in part by the ...
feeds.publicradio.org/~r/MPR_NewsFeatures/~3/291905521/ - 48k - Cached - Similar pages

Well, mistakes happen. Although it's a little embarrassing that our local news media got it wrong to begin with. But here's the kicker, a brief mention of the premiere in Alex Ross's influential and widely-read blog, "The Rest is Noise". Please note paragraph number 2, in which he describes the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (correctly identified!) as "the Twin Cities' other orchestra".

I'm wondering how the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra feels about this...

Expand Your Playlist

(Apologies to The Current for stealing their on-air slogan there, but it just fit this story too perfectly.)

As I mentioned in a previous post, superstar violinist Hilary Hahn has spent much of the last year touring with folk-rocker Josh Ritter. Together, the two appeared on classical stages, playing some of the music that's made her famous, and and some of what has established him as one of the leading musical voices of his generation. (Full disclosure: Josh and I went to college together, and he played regularly at a coffeehouse where I served as the booking and entertainment manager.)

The reaction they've gotten from each of their fan bases has been interesting to watch. The majority of people I know who've attended one of the shows came away having enjoyed the experience, and unless they're classical musicians themselves, they haven't had a lot to say about the "crossover" element. Which is to say, genre hopping has become so common among music consumers today that seeing two completely different styles of music together on one stage just doesn't strike most people as odd.

Some classical critics, however, have been less kind, calling the partnership a gimmick, sniping unintelligibly at Ritter, or accusing Hahn of allowing a lesser kind of music to sully her art. This strikes me as the height of pomposity, and critics like this are exactly the reason (okay, one of the reasons) that so many people find classical music off-putting. If you thought the collaboration didn't work for musical reasons, by all means, say so, but to declare that the very idea of such a collaboration is worthless is ridiculous.

Anyway, Hahn doesn't need me to defend her. She has an excellent post up at one of ArtsJournal's collaborative blogs describing her adventures with Ritter, and the reason that she thought it was an important project to undertake. It's well worth a read...

Vegetabulous (or, how some people might have too much time on their hands), Part I

Hmmmmm, another odd food/music thing from the Japanese...

The Talent Lurking In The Back Row

Anyone who saw the documentary, Music From The Inside Out, which featured the musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra both on and offstage, knows that while classical music may be an orchestra's stock in trade, plenty of individual musicians have skills that range far afield from Beethoven and Mahler. Some of us only dabble outside our comfort zone - back in college, I played in a jazz string quartet, a bluegrass band, and a disco orchestra (yes, really,) but I haven't really kept up most of those skills - but a few musicians stand out as deeply impressive performers across multiple genres.

I was reminded of that fact this morning, as I have been on 11 other Friday mornings this season, while I played a set of four quick-change "Kinder Konzerts" for an ever-revolving audience of preschool-age kids. (These concerts, by the way, are run by our excellent volunteer association, WAMSO, and we've got two more coming up in July, if anyone knows a youngster they'd like to bring.) Basically, the way the shows work is that a group of 8 musicians plus a WAMSO narrator take the stage, lead the kids through a few interactive musical games, play some short selections the kids might recognize, and feature one 10-minute "musical story" that the kids can follow along with while we play. In between all this, each musician takes a minute or two to introduce him/herself, explain how each instrument works, and play a quick demonstration piece that highlights something important or fun about the instrument.

Most of us in this year's ensemble tend to have one demo piece that we use at all 48 shows. (I usually rotate between two different up-tempo excerpts, depending on my mood.) But one musician can be counted on never to play the same demo twice on any given morning, and he's also the only one among us who regularly uses music he himself has written as his solo. His name is Chuck Lazarus, and if that doesn't ring an immediate bell, it's because he hardly occupies one of the most prominent chairs in the orchestra. He's our fourth trumpet, and depending on the repertoire we're playing, there's a decent chance that you won't even see him on stage a lot of weeks. But anyone who pays close attention to the goings-on at Orchestra Hall likely knows that Chuck is a player to be reckoned with. In fact, before we go any further, let's pause for a brief demo...



I'll admit, I'm not exactly sure why Chuck is being chased by street thugs there. (Is this possibly a subtle Beastie Boys shout-out? Or am I just way too hung up on my '80s pop music upbringing?) But I do know that I love listening to his music, and last summer, when Osmo decided to feature an entire evening of his jazz/world originals on a Friday evening during Sommerfest, we got some of the best audience feedback we've ever had. And the kids we play for at the Kinder Konzerts would definitely concur - Chuck is the most popular musician every single show, especially when he uses the insanely fast closing riff of his tune, "Kilauea's Fountains," as his demo piece.

Chuck's biography reads like an international tour of top trumpeting gigs, and while I won't bother going through everything he's done in his still-young career, I do have one story that I feel nicely sums up his place in our band. Back when Chuck was new in the orchestra (he started only a few months after me in 2000,) he was assigned to sit principal trumpet for a set of eight Young People's Concerts that we would be playing over the course of a week. I don't remember what the show was about, but I do remember that at one point, it called for a brief trumpet solo - just one trumpet, playing alone in some sort of jazzy fashion, for about 8 or 12 bars.

In the first show of the run, Chuck played exactly what was asked for: a few bars of straight-ahead jazz. (I have a vague memory of it being a Miles Davis tune, but I'm probably wrong.) In the second show, which was less than an hour later, he got a bit fancier, maybe adding an extra flip or leap here and there, but still stayed pretty conservative, as most of us orchestra players would when asked to play jazz.

On day two of the run, though, things started to get interesting. Each successive performance saw Chuck stretching the solo a little further, going from straight jazz to bebop, and generally causing heads to turn all over the orchestra. By the last two shows, everyone was just waiting to see what Lazarus would be dragging out next. The first show of the day was damned impressive - a full-on bebop solo that went on for at least 30 seconds, at breakneck speed. Chuck got a hefty cheer from the orchestra as he finished it.

Then, on the last show, the solo suddenly had accompanying percussion! Figuring that Chuck had gone so far as to pre-rehearse a solo with one of our drummers, I looked over my shoulder, only to see the entire percussion section standing stock still, smirking. I looked over the other shoulder, and there was Chuck, accompanying his own wildly complex solo with a foot-pedaled high-hat! Afterwards, I heard one string player murmur to his stand partner: "Well, that's gotta be the first time anyone ever earned his tenure on a kids' show!"

If you're interested, Chuck's got a great solo CD out that you can find at CD stores around town, or order on his web site. He also shows up at the Dakota now and then, either sitting in or with his own band. And I suspect it won't be long before he's in front of us for a reprise of last summer's show...

Bach stock

Bach-infused miso (soybean paste, the basis of that sushi restaurant favorite, miso soup). I kid you not. I'm not sure what else to say about this; I'll just let all of you ponder.

The Rilling Diagram

The orchestra is working under the baton of Helmuth Rilling this week, (notice that I did not say "we" - the strings have been reduced for this concert, and since my current position in our seating rotation has me in the last chair, I've been cut for the week,) which is always a good time. Rilling, while not a household name in America, is a legend in the business and an old friend of the Minnesota Orchestra. (He once showed up at a rehearsal we were playing on tour in Stuttgart, Germany, where he lives, just to say hi and welcome us to his hometown.) He's a deeply serious musician with a definite point of view, and probably the foremost Bach conductor working today. (He helms the Oregon Bach Festival each summer, and a number of MN Orch musicians are regulars there as well.) He also, as I discovered the first time I played under him, uses what may be the world's most unique beat pattern.

Anyone who's ever played in an orchestra or a band knows what a beat pattern is, of course, and Sarah demonstrated a few different ones during our Copland concerts a couple of weeks back. But in case I've lost anyone at this point, it's fairly standard for a conductor to move his/her hands in a specific pattern for a specific meter. If the music is in four, the usual beat pattern will look like this.

Conductors can and do deviate from this, of course, and as long as the rhythm isn't too horribly difficult, we don't actually need each beat spelled out for us to stay on target. But generally, we expect beat one to be a downward slash, beat four is the opposite, and beats two and three need to be left and right motions of some sort.

Rilling is having none of this. His personal beat pattern for music in four is perfectly consistent, and surprisingly easy to follow, but it is a bit on the unconventional side...

No kidding. That's exactly what it looks like - the usual downward slash for one, followed by a light bounce and curlicue at the bottom for two, then an upward left sweep for three, and a final bounce up and to the right for four. When I was new in the orchestra, my stand partner at the time, Kerri Ryan, and I spent an entire week determined to diagram the Rilling beat pattern, and that's what we came up with. We were, in fact, so taken with our diagram that we began writing it in our music (without the numbers I've included above) wherever we would normally have written "In 4." (This will doubtless cause much confusion for other violists in future performances, but I think this is balanced out by the distinct possibility that, since Rilling frequently has us use his personal set of orchestral parts, the next person to see the diagram will also be playing the piece under Rilling, and might, after a few minutes, actually figure out what the squiggle is supposed to represent.)

Rilling is hardly the only conductor with his own beat pattern. Our former Sommerfest director, Jeffrey Tate, used to bob his head upwards on beat four and downwards on beat one, as if watching his own rising and falling baton. Our last music director, Eiji Oue, would occasionally forgo the baton completely during comical passages and keep the beat by throwing his hips from side to side, a move I dubbed the "Hip Check." (Eiji actually had a whole litany of entertaining podium moves, some of which were variously referred to as the "Safe at Home," the "Tiger Woods," and my personal favorite, the "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em.")

Eiji Oue In Action

Definitely not Eiji Oue

People often accuse orchestra musicians of not watching our conductors, not realizing that we're constantly looking at them peripherally, while watching our music and our principal players simultaneously. The reality is that we tend to know a conductor's moves so well that we would likely recognize their beat patterns and podium mannerisms even if we couldn't see their faces. Especially Helmuth Rilling. I'd know his hands anywhere...

Musician, mediator

Unhappy new from the Columbus Symphony. Both Sam and I have touched on this in past posts, and I think we were both silently hoping it would not come to this.

In effect, the Columbus Symphony has cancelled its summer concerts. Operations will cease on June 1 of this year, and it is uncertain (and reportedly unlikely) that the 08-09 season will go forward come September.

What struck me about the New York Times article in the first link was how the Columbus Symphony's music director, Junichi Hirokami, is reported to have reacted; I have excerpted this portion of the article below:

The latest development prompted an angry response from Mr. Hirokami, who used an expletive to describe the board.

“It’s catastrophic,” he said. “Stupid people. I don’t care if they fire me. They have no idea.” He said that if Columbus were to lose its orchestra, “all the people in the world will laugh at this city.”

Like the musicians’ union, Mr. Hirokami said the board had not done enough to raise money. “You have to use your brain — ‘How can we save this orchestra?’ — but they didn’t do that.”

He said he had tried to solicit funds from companies in his native Japan. “But they don’t trust our board,” he added. “That is why they hesitate to support our orchestra.”

It is an interesting conundrum as to what a music director's role becomes in a situation like the Columbus Symphony's. On one hand, I respect that Mr. Hirokami has taken a very definite stand on the issue. On the other, I wonder if those words will come back to haunt him if negotiations continue and, at some point in the not-too-distant future, he needs to re-establish a relationship with a Board he has so publicly insulted.

Conductors tend to be diplomatic, and it's mostly out of the powerful human instinct for survival. Much is asked of conductors by different elements of the organization, and it becomes a delicate balancing act to make sure that all perspectives are given adequate attention. By the nature of our positions, we often do become mediating figures in an organization, able to move between different constituencies (musicians, management, volunteer board) and forge relationships between all. But what about at a crisis point? Are conductors expected to become uber-mediators? Or to make an all-or-nothing alignment with one side of the struggle?

Some would have the music director take a very public stand regardless of whether one is inclined towards mediation or side-taking; when the Jacksonville Symphony was in the midst of their strife, conductor/blogger Ron Spigelman, in this post, outlined this view point:

...time and time again when lockouts or strikes occur, almost every Music Director does a David Copperfield and disappears until it's safe to reappear, or their board will tell them to butt out.

I say in conducting school stop the microscopic analysis of the Fibonacci sequence and start to teach about how to deal with people and situations like this that will arise because; HELLO, they always do!!!!

Forget the outside mediator, you already hired one, he's called the Music Director and right now in Jacksonville he is needed more than ever! Please Fabio, I know you, you are a good guy, a great musician and I am sure you care about the musicians. Don't leave a legacy in Jacksonville, leave a future for the musicians for when you move on. It will be greatest performance of your career!

(Fabio refers to Fabio Mechetti, music director of the Jacksonville Symphony.) While I agree that "dealing with people and situations" is a useful skill for a music director, I wonder about the necessity of becoming a public mediator. Perhaps a figure around which to rally; that's how conductors are used by marketing departments anyway. But is it reasonable to ask conductors to perform professional crisis/dispute intervention?

The Jacksonville Symphony situation has fortunately been resolved, and soon afterwards Mr. Mechetti posted a response to Mr. Spigelman's plea.

Difficult questions, all. But one thing is for certain, as expressed in Mr. Mechetti's response:

"It is easy to be critical (and hypocritical) of a situation from miles away."

Miles away from Columbus, I can only hope that something can be salvaged from a grim situation.

Of Rebels And Wannabes

The Classical Brit Awards were this past weekend, and I'm sure you were all glued to your TV sets watching to see what Anna Netrebko would wear, and whether Andrea Bocelli's duet with Sarah Brightman would live up to the hype.

Hmmm? You've never heard of the Classical Brits? Oh. Well, think of them as the UK-based awards show that annually attempts to make the classical genre as tacky and meaningless as the MTV Video Music Awards. Seriously - this year's big lifetime achievement honoree was Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yes, that Andrew Lloyd Webber. Apparently, the fact that the doodler behind such Broadway dreck as Jesus Christ, Superstar and Cats managed to scratch out an oratorio or some such nonsense in his spare time qualifies him as a classical composer worthy of statuary. (It's not as if there's any shortage of truly great living British composers who could have been given this award, either.)

The big story of the weekend appears to have been the fact that bad-boy violinist Nigel Kennedy was a no-show, after being told that he could not enter on a bicycle and play with the string quartet Bond instead of the house orchestra. As superstar tantrums go, this one seems awfully mild, but Kennedy seemingly has the British arts press on a string these days.

I've never really gotten the Kennedy mystique. He's certainly a talented player, and he jumped on the whole "dragging classical music out of its own stifling formality" bandwagon long before it was fashionable, but aside from that, what has he done in the last ten years to merit as much attention as he's paid by the press? When you Google his name, the first thing that pops up is still that old video clip of him playing Vivaldi with a few lighting effects, and I'm pretty sure he did that when I was in high school.

Throw in his thoroughly invented Cockney accent and his penchant for inflating his own importance to the music world whenever there's a reporter handy, and it's all just a bit much. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my musical rebels to be, well, musical. I'm all for busting barriers between the classical tower and the rest of the music world, but I'm not sure acting like a spoiled rock star is the way to go.

The good news is that, whether the Classical Brits recognize it or not, there are an awful lot of musicians rebelling against the norms of the business in a way that actually results in great performances of cool music that crosses genres without dumbing anything down or tarting it up. For an example, look no further than Hilary Hahn's recent collaborative performances with Idaho singer-songwriter Josh Ritter. If you ask me, any duo that can pull off this...



and this...



...in a single show is worth more attention than all the crossover garbage the Classical Brits celebrate.

Brevia

Saturday, May 10

Random Surreal Moment #1:

LaGuardia Airport, NY, sleepily ambling through the Northwest terminal looking for coffee, who do I bump into but an old friend, violinist Soovin Kim along with pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Of course, because this is a random surreal moment, we are all on the same flight to, of all places, Detroit. Soovin and Mitsuko are on their way to play Messaien's "Quartet for the End of Time" in Kalamazoo. Mitsuko, in her inimitable voice, tells us, "The last time I was there, I received a pen that had written upon it 'Yes, there is a Kalamazoo'!".

Random Surreal Moment #2:

Hungrily ambling down Monroe Street in downtown Detroit several hours later, looking for a meal, I'm assaulted by blaring music. At the intersection of Beaubien and Monroe, in the heart of Greektown, a couple of street musicians are playing drums and sax, riffing on a funk groove, going full throttle. They abruptly stop, and after a moment of silence, the drummer begins an unmistakable ostinato, and four bars later, the sax comes in with...Bolero.

Osmo's Finnish Finale

As most Minnesota Orchestra fans know, our music director, Osmo Vänskä, is a very big deal in Finland. When we perform there, we're frequently met at the border by TV cameras and print reporters, and they're not there to capture the tour escapades of our viola section. (Although, come to think of it, that would be one hell of an entertaining thing to record.) Osmo's work in his home country - first as principal clarinet of the Helsinki Philharmonic, and then as the conductor who transformed the little-known Sinfonia Lahti into an internationally acclaimed recording and touring orchestra - is well-documented, and an apt comparison could be made between Osmo's 20-year tenure in Lahti and what Sir Simon Rattle accomplished with England's City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

This past week was Osmo's last hurrah with his Lahti band. He's served as their chief conductor since 1988, and unlike many conductors, who dump their smaller orchestras the moment they land a bigger gig, he's stuck with Lahti even while taking on music directorships with the BBC Scottish Symphony, and of course, us. He and his wife, Pirkko, still have a home in a small town between Lahti and Helsinki, and despite spending the majority of their year in Minneapolis (US immigration laws restrict the amount of time landed immigrants can spend abroad and still work in America,) they make a point of getting back to Finland whenever possible.

Osmo's last concert as Sinfonia Lahti's music director was pretty hefty stuff, and definitely aimed at Finland's musical connoisseurs. The first half featured the world premiere of a new concerto for percussion ensemble by Icelandic composer Áskell Másson, with the deeply impressive Kroumata as soloists. (Kroumata will be with us in Minneapolis in a few weeks as part of our season-ending Percussion Festival...) Following intermission was Bruckner's monumental 9th Symphony, which is always an event.



The concert actually took place two days ago, so it's too late for a last-minute whirlwind trip to Lahti, but through the efforts of ClassicLive, a great fledgling company based in that same city, you can actually watch a high-quality audio and video stream of the concert anytime between now and May 29. It's not a free service - you have to set up an account and pay for the time you spend watching their streams - but I'm telling you, it's worth it. They have an impressive amount of content available from multiple European orchestras (behind-the-scenes stuff and a few bits of silliness like Osmo whistling in addition to full-length concerts,) the quality of the sound and picture is absolutely top-of-the-line, and their rates are pretty reasonable (as little as €5 - I think that's around $7.75 at the moment,) especially if you plan to watch more than a single concert. (Full disclosure: a friend of mine works for the company.)

Osmo's departure from Lahti means that we are now officially his only orchestra, which ought to lead to some interesting speculation over the coming years. Lots of conductors maintain multiple music directorships in America and overseas, and while Osmo already spends an almost unheard-of number of weeks each year conducting us (I believe it's 19 weeks next year, as compared with an average of 12-15 for most American MDs,) I'd be surprised if his name didn't surface on the wish lists of any number of European and/or Asian bands looking for new leadership. With his reputation for significantly elevating the national and international profiles of the orchestras he leads, we may be sharing him again sooner rather than later...

The Mahler Problem

We're playing Mahler's ginormous 9th Symphony this week with one of my favorite guest conductors, Mark Wigglesworth. Which is interesting, because it's entirely possible that you could be a regular visitor to the Minnesota Orchestra web site, could even be planning to attend this concert, and be unaware that there's any Mahler on the program.

The headline on the website for this concert is "Schubert's Unfinished Symphony," which is, to be fair, also on the program. The same description appears on the concert tickets themselves. The thing is, the Schubert, lovely though it is, is a 20-minute appetizer, while the Mahler is a 90-minute magnum opus, so it might seem a bit odd for our marketing department to be highlighting what is unquestionably the less significant work. But there's a reason that they do it, and it's one that musicians often avoid talking about: the concertgoing public just doesn't seem to like Mahler.

I should qualify that right off the bat by saying that, clearly, many people do like Mahler, and several thousand people will be joining us for the concerts this week to prove it. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if our overall ticket sales this week are among our lowest totals of the season. Past experiences with Mahler, in fact, almost guarantee it. And this isn't just a Minnesota problem - audiences across America are decidedly less enthusiastic about Mahler than we musicians are.

So what's the problem here? Mahler's symphonies have been a part of the standard orchestral repertoire for the better part of a century now, so it can hardly be a lack of familiarity that keeps audiences at bay. If anything, I get the sense that our audiences know exactly what a Mahler symphony is, and that it's that knowledge that keeps them away. A couple of years back, our piccolo player and I were talking about Mahler's 5th symphony at a Hallowe'en party (yes, we're huge dorks,) and her husband disgustedly broke into the conversation to explain, in great detail, that only musicians like Mahler, and that people who have to listen to it (rather than playing it) generally hate the experience.

And the thing is, he may not be wrong about that. There's no question that Mahler is generally a lot of fun to play, especially if you're lucky enough to play it with a really good orchestra, under a really great conductor. The music is hugely challenging for every instrument in the orchestra, contains plenty of melodic content for everyone, fits together like the world's most complex jigsaw puzzle, and is just incredibly visceral and raw in it's style. If playing Mozart is like baseball, all clean lines and perfect structure, playing Mahler is like rugby. It's brutal and draining and everyone seems to be piling onto everyone else at exactly the same time, but damn, it's exciting.

Of course, Mahler is brutal and draining for audiences as well. And on top of that, Mahler symphonies are loooooooooong. The one we're playing this week is 90 minutes, which isn't at all unusual for him. I think his shortest symphony is an hour, which is as long as Beethoven's longest. And when you consider that, in most Mahler symphonies, the drama, the pathos, the agony, and the navel-gazing start right off the top and almost never ratchet down, it's asking a lot of an audience. Most people aren't in the mood for that sort of thing very often, and a fair number of people never are. It's like asking people how they feel about Ulysses. Most will allow that it's a great work of literature, but they're not going to make an attempt to read it very often, because who has that kind of energy?

I strongly suspect that a lot of concertgoers get turned off to Mahler after wandering into a performance of one of his bigger works (the 5th, the 6th, the 9th, etc.) unaware of what they were in for. Mahler isn't a composer you want catching you off guard. If you're just looking for a nice, relaxing evening out, and you suddenly find yourself being assaulted by all the personal demons of a 150-year-old manic depressive Austrian in musical form, you're not in for a good night. It'd be like intending to spend a quiet night at the movies and wandering into Letters From Iwo Jima. Even though you recognize that it's an impressive work of art, it's not even remotely what you were looking for.

The reality is, too, that a number of Mahler's symphonies are arguably longer and more over-the-top than they needed to be. It's almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation about this, however, because the people who love Mahler really love Mahler. And in the same way that people who love, say, Lord of the Rings, are not willing to hear a single word said against it, Mahlerians are prone to fly into fits of righteousness if anyone so much as suggests that, really, the first movement of the 9th does drag on a bit. So there again, we run the risk of alienating audiences who, encountering a passionate fan of Mahler, are made to feel as if they are just too dumb or impatient to understand the attraction.

All that having been said, a lot of Mahler's music is great stuff, and we're really not going to stop playing it anytime soon, much as our marketing department might like us to. So I'm curious to hear from our readers on the subject. Do you like Mahler? Hate him? Feel confused by him? Does seeing his name on a concert program make you less likely to buy a ticket? And if so, how did that aversion get started? Enquiring musicians (and marketers) worldwide want to know...

Everyone play nice

Ongoing, until May 15: the Van Cliburn YouTube Contest for amateur pianists. The Van Cliburn Foundation, apart from holding their usual high-profile competition for professionals, runs an International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs every few years, and the winner of this YouTube event is automatically entered into the live Competition, to be next held in 2011.

You too can view and vote for your favorite amateur pianist via this link; it's a great idea, a great use of this interactive technology to support musical activity. When I idly took a look at the YouTube page, the amateur pianist the third video down (Christopher Shih, MD), rang a bell. Days later, I received an alert from one of the many online social networking sites to which I belong (yes, I'm a big geek, what can I say...) that Christopher Shih wanted to add me to his friend list, and I put two and two together. Chris and I went to Harvard together - he was a hotshot pianist then, a successful gastroenterologist now. But he hasn't given up music and has performed in (and won!) various amateur piano competitions.

Watching those amateur videos is a true pleasure, and if you find yourself having half an hour to spare, I encourage you to take a look. The concentration and commitment put into each performance is absolutely palpable - and a few sound near-professional!

Ask An Expert: Of Tuners, Oboes, Employers, and Missing Musicians

A three-pack of quick hit questions for you this time around. First off, Hoa wants to know...

Q: Who, exactly, does a philharmonic orchestra musician work for?

Well, it depends on which orchestra the musician plays in. In America, most orchestra musicians are employed by the non-profit corporation that runs the orchestra. (For instance, our orchestra's musicians are employed by the Minnesota Orchestral Association.) The corporation is run by a volunteer board, which oversees the organization and hires managers and music directors. There is no single owner of an orchestra the way there often is for, say, a baseball team, since we are not operated as for-profit concerns.

Next up, Steve Curnow was wondering...

Q: What's the reasoning behind the orchestra tuning to the oboe?

Well, they tried tuning to a viola once, but the guy couldn't remember how to play his A-string from memory...

...[crickets]...

Nothing? Really? Fine. Basically, the oboe is a loud, piercing instrument that we can all hear even when everyone is tuning. Also, the tuning A sits nicely in the middle of its register, and oboes are capable of sustaining steady pitches for an extremely long time without much strain.

Finally, our old friend Don Picard is back with this complicated query...

Q: How are concert assignments handled? I.e. which concerts do permanent members of the Orchestra play? I noticed (I think) that Burt Hara wasnt playing at the ITC concert Thursday, but Jorja Fleezanis was, whereas (if I remember correctly) in an earlier ITC concert, Ms. Fleezanis wasn't there but Mr. Hara was. Does the union contract require X number of concerts per year, and the musicians can choose which? Or is it up to the conductor who plays? Or...

There are actually entire pages in our contract devoted to sorting this type of thing out, and you'd all be bored to tears if I reprinted them here. So the simple answer is that every musician gets a certain number of "services" (a service is a rehearsal or a concert) off each season. For most of us, it's not very many, since we also get several paid vacation weeks per year. The number of "relief services," as they're called, varies from musician to musician: strings get more than winds and brass (because we play on nearly every piece of every concert,) titled players get more than section players, veterans get more than rookies, etc, etc.

As for when each of us gets to take time off, we have the right to make specific requests for our relief assignments, and they tend to be granted unless there's a compelling reason that they shouldn't be, such as several other members of the same section already having been granted relief for that time period, or the request falling during a week when the music director wants as few substitute musicians as possible in the ranks. Most of us wind up taking our relief on weeks when the orchestra is playing something other than a regular subscription concert, since Young People's Concerts, pops shows, and such often don't require the full orchestra complement.

Depends how you look at it

Doing a bit of traveling this week, and although I do some work while flying, what I really enjoy when airborne is perusing gossip magazines (as I’ve said before, I’m a huge (HUGE) pop culture junkie). So, I’ve been catching up with the whole Miley Cyrus brouhaha, which I find utterly fascinating.

First things first. Here is the “offending”photo:



I don’t want to belabor the point, as the mainstream press has taken care of that (last weekend it seemed like CNN updated the story every 7 minutes). But as a basis of comparison, observe below a shot of Ms. Cyrus from the Teen’s Choice awards a few months back:



I frankly think she’s exposing more skin in the latter shot, and I find the Vanity Fair photo rather ethereal and much prettier.

The larger point, I think, is that Cyrus’s Disney handlers realized, much too late, that the more mature image presented by the Vanity Fair cover might alienate her largely tween audience (or, more likely, their parents).

We live in an increasingly visual world, and it is no surprise that the music world is so image-driven. Now, lest you think that image issues are strictly a pop music phenomenon, observe the below:



Violinist Sarah Chang’s first album cover. Compare to this:



Chang’s latest release. Is the image appropriate? Sure, it’s an attractive shot of Chang. Does it have anything to do with the music? Well, I guess she’s holding a violin, and there are falling leaves…(“Autumn”?)

Image certainly carries weight in the classical scene, and probably has for longer than we care to admit. (Think of Franz Liszt, the 19th century piano virtuoso/composer whose rock star good looks and charismatic stage presence made the ladies swoon.) Cyrus’s photo reminded me of another rather controversial picture, this one of violinist Lara St. John:



St. John’s first album cover. Some people cried pornography; St. John maintains that she was expressing how nothing came between her and her music (echoes of Brooke Shields ?). What’s certain is that the image generated a lot of press, which I’m sure boosted album sales and helped launch her career. (In St. John’s defense, that would have been the beginning and end of it if she didn’t have the goods to back it up – she’s a fine violinist with a thriving career.)

The image game is a tough one, and it always feels like women come under more scrutiny than men. On one hand, we are expected to present an attractive image of ourselves; on the other, if that image is deemed to “cross the line", our talent is put to doubt because we are thought to be relying on our feminine wiles. And that line keeps shifting, drifting with political and cultural winds.

I know I spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out what to wear on the podium; women don’t have “uniforms” in the way that men do, so I can’t just slap on a tuxedo and call it a night. How do I maintain both my femininity and sense of style while still remaining “appropriate”? The only certainty for me are my 4-inch heels; whatever you think of them, I love them, because they make me tall. And it’s great to cut an imposing figure on the podium.

Wrapping Up The Season

In general, I'm not much for generation gaps. I mean to say, I don't actually believe that they exist, or at least that they're anywhere near as stark and divisive as some in the media like to make them out to be. If you believe what you read in what used to be called "the papers," nearly everyone over 50 loves Hillary Clinton, Paul Harvey, and Susan Stamberg, and either hates or ignores Barack Obama, Ira Glass, and anything remotely connected with the internet. The bulk of Americans my age (early 30s) are supposedly the exact opposite. (Both of these characterizations can, of course, be generally disproven by a quick sampling of people you know personally.)

Whether more than a handful of people in either camp actually fall into these absurd pigeonholes seems to have become almost irrelevant in an age when he who screams loudest on the cable news channels wins every argument. Want to prove that aging newspaper writers are all terrified of the internet? Spend a few minutes watching respected author/sports journalist Buzz Bissinger go absolutely stark raving mad on HBO when confronted with a sports blogger, live and in person. Want to demonstrate that young people today are mindless, sex-crazed, violence-addicted terrors who cannot be allowed to inherit our carefully constructed society? String together a few scaremongering "your children at risk" stories about Grand Theft Auto and Miley Cyrus, and you've got yourself a gripping (if almost completely factually indefensible) model.

In the classical music world, older listeners are supposedly conservative in their tastes, terrified of any sort of change in the concert hall (think lighting effects, video screens, or musicians wearing something other than white tie and tails,) and dead set against any piece of music composed later than 1928. Younger listeners are... well, there are no younger listeners of classical music. Nope, none. (None that matter, anyway.) Just ask any of the thousands of commentators who've been proclaiming the death of orchestras for most of the last century.

Way back in January 2007, Sarah and I did our first show together at Orchestra Hall - a free preview concert for invited attendees of the old Casual Classics series whom our marketing department was hoping to convince to stick around after the impending departure of longtime series host/conductor David Alan Miller. At that show, which focused on Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, we distributed a ridiculously detailed survey asking for audience feedback on everything from the start time of the concert to the food available in the lobby to the performance of the host (me.) The idea, as I understand it, was to identify trends in the evolution of the audience and try to predict, as best we could, who might enjoy the new series, and who we shouldn't bother spending a lot of money trying to attract.

My impression is that our marketing department got a lot of useful information out of that survey. What I got out of it was an overwhelming impression that, while a lot of people my age had enjoyed the concert, everyone over the age of 60 hated me and hated the show. (I should have known better than to look at the survey results at all, but when the information is right there in front of you, it's awfully tempting...) I knew the show had been far from perfect, (Sarah and I had literally just met; I had never before been asked to carry an entire half of a concert from the front of the stage; and to judge from the recording I have of the show, I spent most of the first half speaking at a words-per-minute rate that would have put the Micro Machines guy to shame,) but I was still floored to discover that I was such a generationally polarizing figure. (Sarah, it should be said, was popular with young and old alike.)

As we headed into this season, it was clear that there was an expectation that Sarah and I would be playing largely to an audience closer to our own age than to that of the stereotypical (and largely fictional) septuagenarian classical music fan. Whether such an audience actually existed for us to entertain was anyone's guess, and I found myself wondering, for the first time, whether my long-held conviction that a person's physical age is not indicative of his/her tastes was wrong. So I was relieved, at our first Inside the Classics concert in November, to see a lot of familiar faces, young and old, in the crowd. It appeared that, survey or no, the Casual Classics crowd was at least willing to give us a second chance. Still, I was holding my breath when we asked for feedback from anyone who wanted to give it at the end of each show.

I won't bother going through all of the response, positive and negative, that we've received through mail, phone calls to the box office, e-mail, and blog comments over the course of the season. If you've read through our After Hours posts, you've got a pretty good impression of the overall response we received. There's no question that the direction Sarah and I have chosen to take these concerts has alienated a few scattered people (after that first November show, we received one memorably acerbic communique from a gentleman who was so incensed by the concert that he had torn our program page from his copy of Showcase and scrawled his various objections across it before mailing it to the two of us and to Osmo,) but we've been overwhelmed by the warmth and encouragement shown to us by so many of you.

More importantly, I've been thrilled to look out into the audience each and every night that we've been out there and see a ridiculously wide range of ages. There are kids and parents, teenagers and octogenarians, baby boomers and Gen Yers packed into the hall for these concerts. And while I know that not every one of them always walks out the door 100% happy at the end of our shows, I realized this weekend that I've begun taking a quiet pride in the generational diversity of our crowd. This afternoon, when I was leaving the hall after having played a pops show with the eminent flutist James Galway, an older gentleman called out to me as I was crossing Marquette Avenue. (Not that old, I should stress. His hair was white, but he looked to be in far better physical condition than I am...) "Love Inside the Classics!" he said. "Really looking forward to next year!" As I thanked him for coming, I put another quiet mental checkmark in my scorecard of conventional wisdom vs. reality.

We spent a lot of this first Inside the Classics season poking and prodding at both audience and orchestra, trying to get a handle on what sort of ideas we could reasonably expect to work in performance, and which ones were either too clever for their own good, or not in the least clever in the first place. You all have been very patient with us, and I wanted to be sure to thank you for it. I can't promise that we've worked out all the kinks, or that we'll never leave you wondering what we were thinking at some theoretical future show, but I do know that I'm having a great time getting to know our audience, in all its multi-generational glory.

My favorite Minneapolis theater troupe, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, had a sentence in the program book for their last show, Fishtank, which I think nicely describes our creative process as well: "Free as cows at pasture, we roamed the rehearsal room looking for a fence so that we could wonder what's beyond." After three shows and countless conversations with both ourselves and our audience, I feel like we're starting to see the fence. What's beyond should be fun to discover...

After Hours: Thursday Edition

Annnnd let's hear from the Thursday crowd. If you were with us tonight, let us know in the comments, along with any suggestions for future shows. Thanks so much to everyone who's showed up to any or all of our concerts this year - Sarah and I have had a blast, and we're already looking forward to next season! We'll keep updating the blog all summer long, so be sure to come back regularly...