Tug Of War

Tonight, I had a really interesting seminar class. It's taught by the artistic administrator of a somewhat-local symphony orchestra, and we look at the business of the orchestra with a major focus on programming. For me, this means a lot of unknown territory. I find myself blessing the people who assigned the listening exam because the vast majority of my puny orchestral knowledge comes from those pieces. Many thanks, too, to whomever decided I should study for the music history exam since it is remarkably helpful to know that Paul Hindemath came from Berlin but lived at Yale for a while and is therefore considered an "American" composer in some circles.

In any case, tonight we had a guest speaker: the artistic adminstrator from the truly-local philharmonic orchestra. He spoke about the criteria he uses to balance a season as well as an individual program. There are so many factors to consider:

• What's the quality of my orchestra? Can they play the piece I'm thinking about and play it well?
• How many extras will be needed for this piece? Can we afford it? And if we have the extras, I'd better use them in the other piece(s) on the program because otherwise, they're sitting idle and I'm paying them anyway.
• What does the audience want to hear?
• When are our "blockbuster" marketing dates? Valentine's Day is a biggie - better program something familiar there. When is our subscription brochure going out?
• What does the conductor want to do?
• What guest artists can we engage? What do they want?
• How long is each piece? Will the orchestra have the stamina to play this program, or will I be torturing them?
• What did we do last season? Many orchestras have a 5 year rule - don't repeat anything within 5 years.
• What particular holidays are coming up? Any composer anniversaries? And we'll likely want a blockbuster to start and end the season...
• What are our "competitors" doing? Can we co-market?

And on and on. Very interesting. What I particularly enjoyed tonight, though, was the discussion about one of the continual dilemmas that face orchestral administrators: contemporary music. Now, when I say this, do your ears start to close as you picture dissonance meets "I won't understand it" meets "all that nonsense"? Or are you one of the few who spring out of their seats and cry, "YES! Something interesting and different!"?

Music critics and other Big Knowledgeable Experts in the field tend to criticize orchestras and their administrators for performing mostly from the canon of recognizable works. Their view is that the role of the orchestra is to stretch its audience, to teach them something new. Plus, if no one performs new works, composers won't be able to make a living, and music will become stagnant. Also, it can be exciting for orchestras to commission or premier a work. It gives the artists something different, an extra "creative" layer as they can originate the sound for the piece without any preconceived, deeply embedded aural patterns influencing their playing.

However - and this is the big however - new works often don't sell. Particularly in the smaller cities, an unknown name on the program can be anathema to ticket sales. No matter how much pre-concert explanation you do, no matter how much you promote it in the paper or via ads, audiences tend not to show up.

You may be thinking at this point, "So hire a guest artist who's well-known to bring in the crowds." That was my gut anyway. Sadly, according to the lecturers tonight, "Programs sell programs; artists don't." They believe there are only four artists in the classical music world who have "draw power": Renee Fleming, Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, and Emmanuel Ax. The rest, despite commanding fees of $15-30K for two performances, have a poor correlation with ticket sales at the box office.

What about pairing new and old? Come and see the new work in the first half, and we'll offer you something familiar in the second half. This occasionally works but can only be pulled so many times before the audience feels like they're being told to eat their veggies before dessert can be served.

An interesting middle ground arose. Turns out there are a ton of pieces by familiar composers - Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Mahler, etc. - that are never performed. Sometimes this is because the piece is too expensive for a small orchestra (based on the number of players) or because it's just not very good in the first place. But sometimes it's because orchestras do tend to rely on "the old standards". So maybe the key is to offer "new music" written by folks we already know. This expands horizons without the "wait, I don't know this person. I bet I'll hate the music," factor.

It still doesn't solve the larger question, though: what is the role of a classical music organization? Is it there to give the audience what it wants, in the grand tradition of Corporate America? Or should it be educational, a rising tide that lifts the level of culture of everyone around it?

What do you think?

~Hope