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From Greg:
We think so much about how to reach a new audience. And by now it’s clear that there are many ways to do that. One of them is by giving house parties. People new to classical music come, like what they hear, and they’re hooked.
Groupmuse, in Boston, is well-known for taking that road. But they’re not alone. And they have a particular house-party approach. They host live performances, which makes them almost a blend of house parties and Classical Revolution, a confederation of groups that, in cities around the U.S. (and also abroad), play classical music in clubs.
So here’s another approach to classical music house parties. For years I’ve been friendly with Cariwyl Hebert, who founded Salon97, and under that name (a wonderful one, as you’ll see) gives her own kind of classical music house parties, starting in San Francisco, and then expanding elsewhere. What she offers — besides wine, dessert, and conversation — are recordings, followed by discussions of them.
Sounds academic. As you’ll see, it isn’t that at all. And — in the exploding world of new ways to present classical music — one advantage of recordings at a house party is a all but unlimited choice of repertoire. Which, as you’ll see, can be very engaging.
I’ve invited Cariwyl to tell her story here, because there are lessons in it for all of us. Read on…
“They say three percent of the population likes classical music. If only we could move it to four percent, our problems would be over. I say, how would you walk, how would you talk, how would you be, if you thought three percent of the population likes classical music? … How would you walk, how would you talk, how would you be, if you thought everyone likes classical music–they just haven’t found out about it yet?!!” -Benjamin Zander
It was this quote from Benjamin Zander’s famous TED talk that inspired the name of my nonprofit, Salon97: a series of casual salon-style events for those who are not included in the three percent. And while it was a popular TED talk by a classical music luminary that inspired our name, it was an entirely different experience that inspired the organization as a whole.
In 2008, I attended my first South by Southwest conference (SXSW). This, for those who don’t know, is an annual event in Austin, TX that features a large music festival of multiple genres, a tech conference, a film festival, and more. I had a wonderful time experiencing a wide variety of music, and I even found myself at a party specifically offered for music industry professionals to network and drink beer in the warm Austin sun. Professionally, I held positions in event management, member relations, and fundraising with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (best known for the GRAMMY awards) and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, so I was excited to talk with others who loved music as much as I did.
Little did I know that the classical music affiliation printed on my conference badge meant nearly everyone at the party would immediately move on to the person next to me and ask about their job instead. How on earth, they must have been thinking, could someone who works for a classical music institution be interesting? No way, not at this party.
This was rather frustrating to me, as I’d already been brainstorming ways to make classical music fun, interesting, and approachable for my friends. Clearly something had to be done. Too many people I encountered thought classical music was boring, staid, too expensive, for “old” people, and only appropriate as music to accompany studying or napping.
Was there an approachable way to experience classical music? I was determined to find it.
My idea
I began by asking myself, “Why was everyone at SXSW Music so happy to be there?” Maybe it was because while attendees enjoyed the music, they could eat, drink, laugh, talk, clap, or sing along. Maybe it was because enjoying music didn’t require them to behave and act a certain way. Why couldn’t listening to classical music be like that?
I developed an idea for a classical music listening party: a simple, casual gathering of friends with the purpose of listening to music, learning about composers, eating desserts, drinking wine, and socializing. Two months later, I hosted my first classical-listening event as a prototype. About a dozen friends came over, and our group included classical music and jazz aficionados, as well as folks who knew almost nothing about music. All invitees were friends of mine from various social circles. I promised a party, so people were enthusiastic about attending. Since it was May, we listened to spring-themed classical music: Vivaldi’s Spring, Amy Beach’s From Grandmother’s Garden, and Frederick Delius’ On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, to name a few.
I introduced each piece with a little background information about the composer and the music. We listened together, and afterward I asked two simple questions of the audience:
- What did you think of that?
- What did it make you think about?
The idea was to keep the conversation focused on emotions and the experience of listening, rather than expertise.
Sometimes the conversation was slow getting started, so I asked a leading question or two. (Why did that piece sound like spring and not autumn?). But most of the time, guests talked about the music the same way they talk about a movie they’ve just seen. “This is what the piece is about, this is what I thought of it, this is how it made me feel.”
The conversation continued with the group in its entirety, and later in smaller groups, for three hours after the last piece ended, which told me I was onto something. Classical music doesn’t scare people, the pretensions we attach to the genre are what scare them. Give people wine and dessert, let them sit on your floor in shorts and flip-flops, and they will listen to classical music for several hours longer than you think they will.
Doing it again
I started doing these living room listening parties quarterly, which gave me enough time to prepare, and provided an opportunity to pair the music with recognizable themes: American composers and hot dogs for Independence Day; scary music, costumes, and candy for Halloween.
After each event, guests would discuss our parties with their friends, some of whom came to future gatherings. I also invited more of my own friends to join in, and our parties began to grow. Newcomers were always introduced to regulars, which helped solidify our community. Events were held in the same living room for a few years, as people did not mind sitting on the floor if chairs weren’t available. And, increasingly, they were not.
Around this time, I established an informal advisory board and began integrating live performances into our gatherings occasionally. Soon we concluded that the Salon97 community could only grow so much within our living room. We established community partnerships with organizations that were trying to reach a similar audience: adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, who are curious about varying forms of arts and culture but who are too busy to scale a high barrier to entry. Our most successful partnerships involve Salon97 bringing a presentation, while the partner organization provides a venue, which led to us hosting events in theaters, art galleries, and social clubs. We and our partners collaborate to build a crowd.
Now, nearly seven years in, Salon97 presents classical music listening parties across the U.S. to crowds large and small in a variety of venues, and about half of our events include live music. We host intimate living room salons in San Francisco, New York, and Boston and have presented larger-scale events with the San Francisco Public Library, ZYZZYVA Magazine, Classical Revolution, the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music’s Chamber Music Day, WQXR Radio in New York, clarinetist David Krakauer, IdeaFestival and WUOL Radio in Louisville, and more. Collaborating with performers lead to inviting composers to present their work, and we have hosted three events featuring discussions with composers, along with both live and recorded performances of their work.
Nearly all of our events are offered to the public free of charge. Our costs are underwritten by an annual fundraiser, and overhead is low since we do not have salaried employees. (I make my living working as a web consultant.)
We choose participating cities based on compatibility with a local partner organization, and with the help of friends in our Salon97 community. Avid fans of our San Francisco events recommend possible hosts and attendees in other cities. As a small organization, we only do events where we know we have friends waiting for us.
What happens
Regardless of the location or size of an event, we never really know what will happen until we are there together—which helps make our gatherings a rewarding experience for all in attendance.
A few examples:
- At a living room salon in San Francisco a few years ago, we had a fervent discussion of Steve Reich’s Different Trains, a 1988 three-movement piece containing samples from interviews of Holocaust survivors and recorded train sounds. Guests shared their thoughts on what the piece sounded like, ideas of what the piece meant, and how Different Trains made them feel. One person, who was familiar with Different Trains, had heard it performed both before and after 9/11 and shared how much the attacks changed how he heard the music, which is built upon the testimony of survivors of violence.
- At an event in New York, one attendee said that Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue reminded him of his daily commute, which led to a lengthy discussion of how and why Rhapsody in Blue does (or does not) sound like a busy Manhattan day.
- After listening to John Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra at the same event in New York, someone asked what the foxtrot is. Two people got up and danced the foxtrot for the whole room! It was wonderful.
- And at our event with composers Garrett Shatzer and Juhi Bansal last year, people had—and seized—the opportunity to ask the composers and performers about how they compose and perform. We chose to to hold this event in an art gallery instead of the kind of raised-stage theater more commonly used for concerts, and that was especially helpful when the ensemble played George Crumb’s Night Music II, for violin and prepared piano. Not only could our guests see a live performance with the prepared piano at eye-level, they also could take a closer look at it during the reception afterward. Our guests were thrilled with this, and spent much of the reception crowded around the piano taking photos.
We have hosted upwards of 60 events over the years and there have been special moments like these at all of them. This short video we made to celebrate our five-year anniversary and the launch of our membership program provides a peek into the range of fun, educational, free events we’ve done over the years.
Why we succeed
As a nonprofit, Salon97 thrives as a result of developing our own community and crowdsourcing financial support from it. Our community consists of working professionals in various industries: tech, architecture, and finance, to name a few. Artists, writers, and musicians attend our events as well. These are folks who would not have met otherwise, but look forward to seeing each other at our salons. For example, one person in our group invites friends he met at Salon97 to his quarterly cocktail parties. Someone else, a musician, found a new professional opportunity after meeting the director of a university music program who was looking for new instructors. A local artist attends theatre performances with people she met at Salon97 and routinely introduces friends to our events. All of this happens while sharing in the joy of classical music discovery—a truly rich experience all around.
I am often asked what makes Salon97 successful. I’ve narrowed it down to these five items:
- Keep it casual: Introducing a happy hour/cocktail party into classical music concerts/events sets the stage for a fun evening, whether or not guests end up enjoying the music. They are also more likely to settle in and listen to the music without feeling self-conscious if they’ve had a glass of wine before the program begins. We emphasize the casual setting: people are not shunned for coughing while we listen, for clapping after the music ends, and are told they do not need to remain seated while they listen. Each musical selection is almost always 20 minutes or shorter.
- Be friendly and welcoming: At first glance this may appear to be a repeat of the first item, but it is actually quite different. Offering someone a drink is one thing, and making sure they feel welcome is another. We make it a point to talk with as many people as possible during our receptions, especially those who are new to Salon97. And we introduce new guests to regulars, and anyone who might have a common interest. Making friends (or at least pleasant acquaintances) is a huge factor in helping guests feel they made the right choice to attend, and makes it more likely that they will want to return for another event.
- Maintain affordability: A key tenet of Salon97 is that classical music is for everyone, so we put our money where our mouth is and make our events accessible to all. Keeping our events free or low-cost removes ticket prices as a barrier of entry to classical-music discovery. Making this experience accessible to everyone, regardless of income, is just as important to us as creating a welcoming, robust, and engaging musical experience. Many Salon97 regulars enjoy both the music and social aspects of our events but would not be able to come if we charged more than a nominal fee.
- Keep it simple: Post-listening discussion is a big part of our events. We keep people coming back by maintaining conversations that don’t leave anyone out. While it is also very important to not dumb down the content, folks with PhDs in music, people who do not listen to classical music, and everyone in between attend our events. Some of the stories our guests share are amazing and insightful. We would never hear them if these discussions stayed at the expert level.
An example of the synergy between professional musicians and classical music “newbies”:
When discussing the particularly evocative Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, an orchestral piece by Charles Tomlinson Griffes, a few years ago, we happened to have a conductor in attendance who recently included the piece in a concert he directed. He was thrilled to share his stories of studying and performing the work, and others enjoyed hearing these anecdotes! The less musically-inclined of the group discussed the piece as it relates to Samuel Coleridge’s opium-induced poem “Kubla Khan,” the poem’s inclusion in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, along with the imagery in each of these works. Having a combination of professional musicians and arts and culture enthusiast non-musicians made for a deeper conversation, drawing upon the expertise of musicians, writers, and film buffs alike.
- Tie the music into everyday life: A lot of new people at our events tell me that they feel intimidated by classical music. But as soon as we highlight the fact that regular people wrote this music, it isn’t so bad! Sharing stories of the lives of composers, their unexpected day jobs, vices, and lifestyles gives new listeners a way to relate.
By the Sleepy Lagoon by Eric Coates “sounds like dancing around a field on a warm spring day!” exclaimed someone who was new to classical music. And when people learn that Charles Ives had a day job as an insurance salesman and that even greats like Tchaikovsky occasionally had to write pieces solely for income, they can see that not only are famous composers human, but that each of us can accomplish great things amid our daily lives and obligations.
I have enjoyed classical music my whole life. When I was three years old, my dad could not play the Polka and Fugue from Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper without me dancing around the room. And I presume that all the classical music lovers who read Greg’s blog have similar stories! This is how most of us came to classical music. Not because it was our job to perform in an orchestra or to teach others the craft of performance, but because it made us light up inside.
That’s what we focus on at Salon97—how classical music makes us feel. And we believe anyone with ears, a brain, and a heart can feel what we do. If the joy we have seen in others at our events is any indication, people are hungry for more classical music.
Cariwyl Hebert is the founder and director of Salon97, a San Francisco-based non-profit making classical music fun and approachable for listeners across the U.S., around the world, and online via a monthly podcast. When she isn’t sharing the joy of classical music with others, Cariwyl works as a web marketing consultant and also relishes long walks, disco, and whiskey. She resides in San Francisco with her husband and cat.