Swedish Chef

Today was an incredible day.

I started with a two and a half hour masterclass taught by a famous Swedish opera singer. He cooked up a variety of lessons for the seven students lucky enough to perform for him, and the entire audience benefited. Some people who give masterclasses are too focused on the one-on-one interaction with the student and ignore the audience. Others treat it as a performance/self-aggrandizing opportunity for their own egos and ignore the student. This man was neither. He was kind, self-confident but never showing off, and warmly practical for both the performer and the audience.

My favorite themes were all about inviting the audience onstage with you, asking them to be a participant. This is done through facial and vocal expression as well as dynamic contrast and especially pianissimos. His theory is very much about telling a story to the audience members but not giving them the entire plot. "Let the audience solve the puzzle. Don't solve it for them," he mentioned. "Let them put in the last piece. Then they'll go home and say, "Mmmm. I gave a good recital tonight, didn't I?" A very, very neat point of view.

It's so exciting to get to see top flight performers like this, coming and sharing what they've learned. There's such a difference in a truly world class artist, and I love seeing the seeds of that (or in some cases much more than seeds) burgeoning in my fellow classmates here.

After the masterclass, I had a terrific voice lesson where we worked out some more bugs with my breath support. I feel so much easier in my sound and support now, although my voice is still full. I had been working on singing full-voiced and fully supported a little too much, a bit overboard. My teacher used a fantastic analogy:

"You tend to double, triple, or quadruple what's said. You need to be conservative," she explained. "Here's why. It's like making chocolate chip cookies and seeing that the recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp of salt. You decide to put in a tablespoon. But that doesn't work out too well..." :) I'll try to keep the salty cookies in mind and not be quite as diligent. I also tend to want to "get it right", but she pointed out that practicing is all about the I N G - the process. Not the result. A wonderful mentality, and very different from my life in business/prior academia.

Tonight, I had my last Artistic Decision Making class, where we wrestled again with the issues of how to market a program that is a) largely intangible and b) that many audience members may immediately reject simply because they've never heard of the composer. What is the responsibility of an orchestra: to play favorites like Brahms and Beethoven because that's what the audience wants, that's what they'll pay for? Or is it to stretch the horizons, offering people something they may not desire sandwiched between two beloved favorites? If you segment your audience and subscription series, are you fulfilling or failing your mission? What role should marketing play: a support role providing data and selling tickets, or an influencer role, explaining that the data/model indicates that Mahler won't sell as many tickets as Brahms, so we should program Brahms?

I'm definitely sad that this class has finished. There are so many things we didn't touch that I would have loved to have addressed: union issues, more about how to negotiate with artists and agents, some concrete examples of truly creative marketing ideas that have worked (and why they worked in those communities), etc. The professor was such an excellent speaker, too. We all commented after class tonight that the whole course was fast paced and engaging. We all felt as if we could just pick that professor's brain for hours.

Also got the chance to grab coffee with a couple friends: a trumpet player from Turkey, a pianist from Scotland, and a trumpet player from Hong Kong. The pianist is like a stand up comic in his daily conversation, so our time was filled with laughter. What a beautiful way to spend an evening!

I hope everyone is enjoying the transition into fall and that the weather isn't too chilly wherever you are!

~Hope