If you, like me, are actually not attending a national performing arts convention this week, you can still consume an inspirational keynote address (while steering clear of certain conference dangers–kidding!) by checking out this archived copy of Ben Cameron’s remarks to the members of the League of American Orchestras.
Cameron is the smart/funny/charming program director at The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and here he hits so many great points square on the head it’s dizzying. Sorry, there’s no embeddable player, but if you go here and advance the player to the 48:40 mark, you can hear him get the crowd fired up. Totally worth a piece of your lunch hour, promise.
“Essentialize, sacrafice, and inovate,†he says. Ok, but how? He repeats the well worn mantras about new technlogy, but like everyone else, he doesn’t offer any real examples for how they will help orchestras. His only real point: We have no problems when ticket prices are between 10 and 20 dollars, which he notes happens through subsidies.
I’m at the IWBC conference in Toronto. Heard a talk about “ladies orchestras†in vaudville. Cinema put an end to tens of thousands of theaters for live performance. That was the real revolution in the last hundred years. What we face today pales by comparison. So yeah, the fat cats in the media industry and classical music are suffering. No tears from me.