This is the second joint blogging exercise with my friend, composer Nico Muhly. The first Co-Bloganza topic was Programming and can be found here (him) and here (me). This time, in a collaboration we hope will someday turn into a PBS talk show called “Crack Margaritas with the Arts”, the topic is The New Music Scene in New York City. We originally discussed our posts over, you guessed it, crack margs, and then over IM, and then exchanged entry drafts, and then revised so we could refer to what the other had actually written. In exchanging drafts, we realized he had named his entry “Scene but not Heard” and I had named mine “Scene and (not) heard”, which is embarrassing on a lot of levels.
I’ll start with three short stories, but as anyone on any scene knows, there more where that came from. By definition, scenes create expectations: expectations of time, expectations of attitude, expectations degrees of commitment. Here I’ll use myself – because that’s how it goes on Life’s a Pitch – as an example of what every industry “insider” goes through when it comes to performances and artists for which they don’t have direct responsibility.
On Thursday, July 16, I got texts from four different people around 8 p.m.:
“Are you here?”
“Where are you?”
“Are you going tonight?”
“Are you Kronos-ing tonight?”
Before I got the “Kronos-ing” text, I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I could only assume the others weren’t asking whether I was at Candide at the Berkshire Theater Festival, which is in fact where I was. I Googled “Kronos Quartet” on my phone and clicked on the schedule. Turns out they were playing a piece by Michael Gordon, who I work for, at a Celebrate Brooklyn! Prospect Park show. Gabriel Kahane’s voice was also used in a piece on the program. It wasn’t a Michael premiere, and Gabriel wasn’t performing, but because of those associations, it made sense that industry friends would assume I would be at that concert.
An almost similar situation happened with the “New Music Bake Sale” this spring; Galen Brown, who writes for Sequenza21, and a few other industry friends said they were surprised I wasn’t there. Again, I had a sense the event was going on, but didn’t really understand 1) why I would go, or 2) why anyone would think I would go. Looking at the website now, I see a list of groups I have mostly heard of, but no one with whom I have any direct professional link. Kronos Quartet in Prospect Park: clear work responsibilities, thus my scene. New Music Bake Sale: vague peer pressure to see and be seen but no real personal or work obligations.
I was sitting on the aisle waiting for Nico’s ScentOpera to start at the Guggenheim in early June when my friend Dan Bora, an audio engineer/producer who has worked with Nico and Alarm Will Sound, among others, came up on my left. “Why do you hate New Amsterdam?” he opened. I twisted my mouth and paused; best to do an internal TV-style flashback-clip sequence of any time I might have said something about New Amsterdam Records (possible), might have commented on someone affiliated with New Amsterdam Records (also possible), or (most likely) said something in general about the demise of the recording industry as we know it. Nothing terribly incriminating flashed through my head, so I asked Dan what he meant. “You didn’t come to any of the Friday night shows in May,” he said. “I thought I would see you there.”
New Amsterdam Friday night shows in May. Right – at Galapagos in Brooklyn, including Nadia‘s CD release concert. I remembered the very cool-looking post-er post-ed on Sequenza21. But let’s break this down: Darcy James Argue. I used to see his name on Wordless Music Series guest lists. Someone recommended his blog, so I asked him to participate in the Michael Gordon Trance scavenger hunt. (He declined.) I do not know what his music sounds like, and I do not know if his Secret Society is a website or a band. The following Friday, Nadia Sirota. An actual friend of mine, plus Nico – another friend -performed that night. I did think about going to the concert, but wanted to see the Jenny Holzer show at The Whitney before it closed. Nadia didn’t invite me specifically, and I figure that if I’m friends with someone and she wants me to be at a concert, she’ll just ask or put me on some kind of mass e-mail. We’ll come back to this later in this blog entry.
Moving on to May 22. I’ve worked with but am not friends with anyone in Signal, and have a total work-crush on So Percussion. So Percussion is related in my head to David Lang, whom I work for, and Signal is related in my head to Michael Gordon. Not related enough, though, that I feel it is my job as David and Michael’s publicist to support those groups. And I have no idea who Sarah Kirkland Snider is. As for the last Friday show, I didn’t know any of the participants but was invited by my friend Damian, a music writer. He canceled, and I didn’t want to make the trek alone.
So except for being friends with Nadia, I have no connection to New Amsterdam Records. Yet the aura of the thing led Dan Bora to assume I’d be there.
If there is just one new music scene in New York City, I suppose I’m “on” it. I worked for Wordless Music last season, I’ve handled publicity for Hauschka and Max Richter through FatCat Records, I represent David Lang, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and Gabriel Kahane – all living composers. I’m friends with Nico Muhly and Nadia Sirota, and I have a good friend who works at Works and Process at the Guggenheim. My friends Rob and CJ – collaborators with Gabriel – started a new new-music ensemble. Eric Owens, Hilary Hahn, and The King’s Singers have all commissioned or been directly involved with world premieres. Through work responsibilities and friendships that formed through those responsibilities, yes, I’m on some kind of a scene.
“On the scene.” What a completely bizarre phrase. Is one on a scene if one is on a record label? On a management roster? On a music series? To get off “on” for a moment, are classical music scenes created through teachers? Through universities and conservatories? What about physical neighborhoods? Rob, Hilary/Gabriel’s manager, and I live within a 10-block radius; when do we become a scene? Can sites like Sequenza21, Brooklyn Vegan, or Pitchfork be defined as scenes, or do you not get to be a scene without physical interaction? Perhaps most important, once you’re friends or work with an artist, is there an obligation to attend his friends’ and collaborators’ concerts? The answer here is yes; were it not for that pressure, we would be scene-less. Note: the transitive property of liking music – if I like something on this label or on this series, I will like that other thing on the same label/series/scene – doesn’t always work, which complicates matters. Not unlike the transitive property of friendship; who actually likes all her friends’ friends?
It should be noted that I’m talking about the new music scene as it applies to intra-industry audience building. Perhaps there will be another post about audience members who come to a scene on their own and eventually become part of it after arriving purely as fans. I’ve also been focusing on the contemporary classical scene as a scene focused on music by not-dead composers, not the contemporary classical scene as it relates to music presented or recorded by my contemporaries. As Nico points out in his post, we all know who we’re going to run into at basically any Zankel concert, at the Met’s opening gala, and at the Avery Fisher Career Grant Awards. Or at least we think we do. If we’re wrong, we’ve probably missed some marketing opportunities.
Not only is there not one classical music scene, there’s not one contemporary classical scene, either. I had thought about doing a diagram of the artists/bands/ensembles I perceive as being part of The Monster Scene. But as I started doing that, I wondered: Does everyone connected to these scenes perceive them the same way? Can you define a scene if you’re on it? Are the scenes I could list for blog readers simply narcissistic projections of my own interactions with them? Nico, looking back at perceived music scenes of the past, writes,
In school, we’re taught that fin-de-siècle Paris was a very specific scene: we fantasize about Picasso and Stravinsky and Ravel and Debussy sitting around a table, drinking absinthe and smoking skinny cigarettes. Maybe that even happened one day! Maybe it happened every week! But to what extent, I wonder, does that make sense only when viewed a century later, and to what extent are we New York musicians involved in producing (or resisting) our fantasy versions of the past?
I think it was last spring when Ronen Givony, who founded the Wordless Music Series, asked me what time I was going to “our Superbowl” – sometimes known as the Bang on a Can Marathon. If you work in or write about new music, you don’t miss Bang on a Can. Bang on a Can has been around for 20 years, so – at least in New York City – it serves as the meeting point of the scenes. But this doesn’t mean Bang on a Can can slack off in the marketing department. I work for the composers who founded it, and I still saw River to River posters all over the city, got e-mail blasts, and read press previews. Where the various new music scenes get into trouble, I think, is assuming people are part of their sub-scene because they work for and associate with people on related scenes. By defining the new music scene so broadly to both ourselves and the outside world, we miss audience-building and networking opportunities.
Now, back to Nadia not inviting me to her concert. As my mother would ask me when I was growing up, “Who owns this problem?” That is, how much are any of us responsible for the scenes we’re a part of? Should the New Music Bake Sale or New Amsterdam Records have found a way to get me to their concerts? Should an artist’s/group’s publicist? Their manager? Perhaps not; I’m only one body, and I’m not new audience blood. At the same time, I’m a body that works with artists who commission new works, a body whose client list is involved in new music, a body with a blog. This argument goes both ways, of course: Nadia & Co. could potentially help me and my clients down the road, in which case I then own the problem of staying informed.
I did see both the New Music Bake Sale and the Galapagos concerts on Sequenza21, so that’s getting to me once. But as we in the marketing business know, getting potential audiences’ attention once is not enough; you have to hit people on multiple fronts. I know about Nico’s concerts because he sometimes invites me, sometimes someone else asks if I’m going, and most of the time I see his concerts listed on his website. But I go to his website because he has a blog that I read at least weekly on the homepage. What would drive me to the New Amsterdam homepage unless something outside of it (press, word of mouth, link forwarding) led me there? If putting a concert on your record label or personal website isn’t enough, if targeted press coverage isn’t enough, is that e-mail necessary? Or a text? Or an IM or a phone call? More and more, I think that personal interactions really are necessary in creating, curating, and promoting a scene. A record label can have consistent album art and a series can have its logo on everything, but it’s those people with their individual motivations, their inexplicable musical tastes, who not only fuel a scene but are the scene itself.
I thought I should post here since I posted over at Nico’s blog.
I really enjoy discovering musicians, concert events, and recordings that are totally off my radar. Following the activity of a handful of players simply because they are a part of a supposedly important “scene” doesn’t interest me at all. But I understand how helpful it can be for musicians to perpetuate themselves as a “scene.” It can be a wonderful way to support each other in hard times. Community is important.
However, as you point out (and I don’t think I made this clear that you do so in my post on Nico’s site) the reality is that in NYC there isn’t just “one” “scene” that is producing and supporting newly composed music. There are many, many “hubs” of activity and therefore many opportunities for us to expand our horizons.
And isn’t our job as artists (I’m not talking about PR people) to create new “scenes” by consistently stepping out of our own comfort zones? That may sound contradictory, but that Groucho Marx quote haunts me: “I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member.”
With regards to audience members joining the scene from a pure fan level, Dave Hickey’s essay in “Air Guitar” on spectators/participants is illuminating.
I went to Galapagos for three of the four nights that you refer to. I remember those shows stood out from the other classical concerts I’ve attended because there was a tangible feeling of excitement in the air. There was a line out the door each time, and a bunch of press writers, New Music pundits, and genuinely interested young people inside. It was refreshing, actually, to see such anticipation for a Classical concert. While I agree that the contemporary classical scene is splintered, these guys seem to be doing something right.
I’m so glad you guys did this project (again). I really enjoy both your and Nico’s writing & learn so much from it. xoxo
Amanda,
Maybe it’s because I’m a composer and you’re a PR person, but your seeming definition of what constitutes a “scene” – a group of people who are obligated to attend one another’s shows – sounds pretty dreary to me. Is that why most people attend concerts? Out of obligation? I’d like to think that most people attend shows because they are interested in the work that’s being presented, or because they think they will have a positive social experience as a result of attending. Or, ideally, both. If this isn’t true, then what on earth is the point of cultivating a “scene” in the first place?
There’s definitely a plague within the walls of a scene when it becomes too cannibalistic – when artists constitute too great a percentage of one another’s shows, and the act of going out becomes a passing of loose change from one poor pocket to another. This is a slow death, indeed. So, for Undiscovered Islands, we focused on getting the word out to people who might attend because they found appealing what we had to offer. And we were quite successful in this regard, through previews and listings in a wide variety of publications, many of which had not previously covered our label’s events before. The writers who covered us did, I think, an excellent job of making the events sound as vibrant and compelling as they wound up being. We gained the beginnings of a new audience and the potential cultivation of a healthy, robust, non-cannibalistic “scene” – the audience side of that scene.
I can’t really argue with your point that it’s important to reach within a scene as well as without, and it’s quite possible that we did not do as good a job with this as we could have. If the only way you could be convinced to attend one of our shows was because of a perceived obligation, I’m not in a good position to say how or why this didn’t happen. But then, I don’t think that you’re really representative of our target audience. In the end, I’m more concerned with catching the people who are out there looking for something like what we have to offer, rather than bending the arms of those who will come only because they think they have to.
Judd
Are we to believe you’ve personally never gone to a concert out of a sense of obligation to a co-practitioner? By “I’m a composer” do you actually mean “I’m a lawyer”? Did you not co-found a record label? I wonder, then, how you find new talent and musical inspiration without going to concerts loosely affiliated with work responsibilities now and again? I thought I made it fairly clear that I would be discussing one very specific slice of a larger scene when I wrote, “It should be noted that I’m talking about the new music scene as it applies to intra-industry audience building.” If this subsection is, in fact, The Only Scene or if I had declared it so, I might agree that my experiences with it have been as grim as you describe.
I’m curious, too, at what point in the entry you thought I suggested anyone who presented a concert or released a record should necessarily reach out to the industry? I only very briefly touched on what could be a much larger discussion. That is, who is more or less valuable: a fresh new audience member paying real American dollars or someone from the industry, not paying a cent but possessing potentially valuable connections that may help an artist’s career or spark greater success for a label down the road (consequently reaching even more audiences)? I’ve worked with presenters who hate giving out comped press tickets because those are seats that can be sold. “The concert is one-night-only,” they argue. “What does a review really matter, anyway?” You mention the critics who covered the New Amsterdam concerts in your comment above. They’re on the intra-industry scene, and going to concerts is certainly work; do you still want them there?
So perhaps for another post, should an audience member’s value be weighted, or should each body be treated equally when it comes to marketing targets? I am curious how many people were comped for the Galapagos concerts, if you’re willing to share. Surely the artists performing would have benefited from presenters and managers being in the audience in addition to all the newcomers?
Your last paragraph would be relevant if I had said such a thing or if one of your own artists – who I believe himself participated in most if not all of the concerts in question – hadn’t directly questioned me as to why I didn’t attend. You can’t have it both ways: if I’m not the target audience because I sometimes view my concert-going outside of the utopia of only attending things that either interest me or are purely social excursions, then I can’t be approached and grilled for not being there. -AA
Some of my feelings on “the scene(s)” are over at Nico’s blog, but I wanted to share a bit here.
Like Judd, I think people go to concerts because of how they hope the music/experience makes one feel and that the price of going (both financial and actual time) is worth spending to be apart of that experience. But one aspect of a scene is that it should be welcoming (maybe that’s not a goal for some; being one of the few in the know or part of something most people aren’t is attractive for some people). If a scene looks or feels like too much of the same kind of people, philosophy, and music then it is a long, slow march toward musical solipsism.
A few years ago when I started one of my own scenes, the composer federation Pulse, I purposely picked people whose music was not only different from mine, but whose thinking and background were as well. I think this produces a dynamic and ever-changing result. With each project and concert, I think each composer learns from the others and our own music is richer by being exposed to those different viewpoints.
One thing I loved the most when I was standing on the Mall on Jan. 20, 2009 was that when I looked around, I saw black, white, Asian, Hispanic, women, gay, young, old, well-to-do, and less-well off, all together and not just in a superficial proximity. Now let’s look at a composer’s circle of friends and I think this will be a good indicator of the type of audience one can expect in their scene. Yes, we are all in our own cultural and musical ghettos but how can we broaden that circle and get out of it? Amanda (and Judd) maybe this is where the marketing comes in. Making that target appeal to an audience outside your typical reach. There’s no guarantee that it will reach (or even appeal) to people not usually thought of as your target, but by offering them the chance, you are sure to find people you didn’t imagine were out there who liked it and will come to concerts (or at least by CDs/mp3s). Some of my favorite music are the things I didn’t know I liked until I was exposed to them through chance, word of mouth, or repeated exposure.
I’m going to try and not post another entry-length comment to a comment here ((yikes!!)), but what fascinates me about what you’ve written is how you say “when I started one of my own scenes.” Totally interesting choice of words. Can one create a scene by intending to start one? Can scenes be actively curated, or must they develop on their own, organically? What becomes of a scene if those at its inception are acutely aware of what they will become?
In his post, Nico quotes New Amsterdam’s mission statement:
The idea of releasing records that promise to “paint a certain picture of that scene without a name” is also delectable. They’re looking for artists whose music isn’t on any scene and then, by virtue of that and one assumes other factors, declaring these performers are on their own, never-to-be-named scene? If I sound confrontational here I’m not trying to be. I’m simply curious 1. if scenes can not only be labeled when you’re at their core or on them at all (Chris over on Nico’s blog astutely points out that history will name them for us anyway), and 2. what comes of setting out to create a scene comprised of artists who are scene-less.
I think it’s worth mentioning, as part of this discussion, that it’s not all bad if, at a certain point, a scene comes to IN PART encompass a group of people who feel obligated to go to the same concerts….which I think has been true throughout the ages, and not just of musicians. The artists of the 1960s Soho loft scene in New York (visual artists, choreographers, composers), for instance, all felt obligated to see each others’ work, even in cases of artists who weren’t particularly fans of one another, as a show of support to the community and to create fodder for discussion and argument–which I think is intrinsic to the growth of any artistic group/scene/whatever.
Judd makes a good point that it’s sad if a scene comes to be defined ONLY by this, b/c that’s when it feels insular and exclusionary; when the same people, who all have some sort of “business” interest in the scene, are the primary audience members, and anyone new feels a bit out of the loop. And I think sometimes the new music scene–especially the new, younger incarnation in NYC–has elements of this. I work in “the industry” (though not in the publicity capacity Amanda does) and friendships with the scene’s members matter to me both professionally (for future connections) and personally (many of them are super cool people), and sometimes I do feel like I’d be closer with certain people if only I went to more concerts they attended. That, of course, shouldn’t really be my motivation in attending those concerts. Here’s an example: forgive me if I sound like a Philistine, but it’s hard for me to make myself go to the Bang on a Can Marathon. I love new music. I love the Bang on a Canners. But going that far downtown and a whole day of it always feels like too much to me, hence, I know, I know, I’m missing out on some great music. But I always feel guilty, too, because I feel like, “Oh, if only I went maybe I would run into so-and-so and have a pivotal conversation with them” or whatever.
Maybe in the end, the best is a bit of give and take. Perhaps New Amsterdam could stand to get a little more “sceney”–especially if it sees itself as representative of the kinds of people who are within the scene. The “scene” could stand, occasionally, to get a little more inclusive.
This is all very interesting. I have never really thought of any of this as being a “scene” but rather groups of people – some of whom know each other and some of whom don’t, some of whom like each other and some of whom do not – who all happen to either be interested in or working in (or if one is working, hopefully both interested and working in) the classical/new/modern/experimental/indie music industry.
I go to some concerts as a working publicist if an artist I represent is performing, others because I hope to work with an artist performing, others because friends of mine are performing, others because I’m interested in a certain composer or love a certain piece of music or a certain musician, others because I’m checking out a new venue, and others because someone invited me to attend with them.
If someone assumes an artist I don’t know is one that I do know, or that I attended a concert that was actually off my radar, rather than wondering why they would think I know artist X or why would I be at concert X, I usually think that I should check out the artist or that I should have tried to make it to concert X. Not out of obligation, but curiosity.
Is that a “scene”? I just thought it was life.
Can one create a scene by intending to start one? Can scenes be actively curated, or must they develop on their own, organically? What becomes of a scene if those at its inception are acutely aware of what they will become?
Amanda, yes I think you can form your own scene. Certainly there is an organic element to it (how like in college, no matter what you believed, there was always someone who believed something similar and you could always find some of them somehow). But, yes some come from conscious deliberation and effort, generally because they were shut out (or limited in some way or at least felt it) from “the larger mainstream (recognized & moneyed) scene”, whatever that is. I think Bang on a Can fits here but definitely the artists of the Black Rock Coalition would. Each created a defined community of musicians which provided avenues of support, encouragement, and probably more importantly, respect and recognition all of which may have been lacking in the larger musical world. And like many communities, the growth of their developed scene beyond the initial coagulant doesn’t follow a preordained path.
Amanda,
You ask: [New Amsterdam Records is] looking for artists whose music isn’t on any scene and then, by virtue of that and one assumes other factors, declaring these performers are on their own, never-to-be-named scene?
It sounds to me as if you are using the words “scene” and “style” to mean the same thing, which is something that I think happens a lot in these kinds of discussions. When we use the word “scene” in our mission statement, we are using it to mean “a sphere of activity.” The new-music “sphere of activity” located in New York and beyond is comprised of composers and performers working in many different genres of notated music. Within this larger new-music sphere of activity there exists a sub-sphere, if you will, of musicians who create music that falls between the cracks between those genres. Some labels already existed to serve these musicians; by forming New Amsterdam Records we sought to create another. Far from “sceneless,” every artist on our label was very much already on the “scene”–that is, working in the world of New York notated music in some capacity. So rather than New Amsterdam creating the scene, the scene created New Amsterdam, as it has many other collectives, organizations, and institutions, and has it will doubtless create many more.
Sarah