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New ways to write orchestra press releases — that was what I offered in my last post.
But when I first began this series of posts, by saying that orchestra press releases aren’t very good, Sarah Robinson, on Facebook, suggested that the deeper problem was orchestra programming.
And I agree. Orchestras spend most of their time playing the same pieces — even if it’s not the shortest list — over and over. I can suggest what might be appealing, involving ways to describe these pieces (and how they’re performed) in publicity releases, but sooner or later, won’t the sameness of it all get noticed? When you write lively descriptions of the music you’re playing, people notice them, pay attention to them. And so then (again, sooner or later) they notice that you’re describing the same music, over and over.
Take the Minnesota Orchestra’s press release for next season (which, because it’s so weakly done, got me started down this road). If you took a common-sense approach to writing a press release for it (instead of just compiling, as in fact was done, a stultifying list of names and compositions), you’d highlight the orchestra’s Beethoven focus, which is what jumps out at anyone who reads through the programming week by week. Five all-Beethoven concerts in a row! Clearly the most important thing — measured by the amount of performance time — that the orchestra will do.
So you write something lively about Beethoven, and about how you’re going to perform him. But each year you do Beethoven. So maybe in last year’s release there was something about him (even if not so much), and maybe for the 2016–17 season there’ll be more again. How long can you go on with this? For how many years can you talk about Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven?
Multiply this by the number of orchestras writing press releases for what they do, and we’re drowning in Beethoven. Maybe we’ll run out of things we can say.
The problem goes even deeper
And this problem — which seems mild enough, if we think only of publicity prose — really is worse than we think. Orchestras spend most of their time playing the standard repertoire. The same pieces, year after year after year, with only slight variation. And doing this takes most of their resources. Most of their money, most of their energy, most of their production work, most of their staff time.
I think this hurts them. Makes them rigid, tends to cripple them. Because there’s not much time, money, or energy to do anything new. Or, in a larger sense, not much time or psychic space to imagine new directions. To take a little time, brainstorm a bit, do it joyfully, come up with things you love, things you’re excited to do, things that will really make a difference to you and to the city you’re in.
You might like to think of these things, but you just don’t have time or freedom to do it as freely as you should. Not only do you not have time and psychic space enough, but you’re always looking over your shoulder, worrying that you can’t pay for what you’d love to do, that your audience won’t like it, that you’re already so committed to the standard stuff that you may not have resourcese left to do something else that you’d love.
Which isn’t to say that orchestras don’t do striking new things. But they tend to do them on the margins of everything else, not as their central focus, and not always with full institutional committment. So that if you have a music director who wants to do new things, when that person leaves, the drive to do the new things may leave with her, and neither staff, board, nor the next music director may care as much.
Is this art?
So I think orchestras are — to repeat a strong word — more than a little crippled by their programming. We don’t see this, because we’re so used to the standard programming that we don’t often question it. Or, really, things are even worse than that. We do question it, or many of us do, but not much changes.
Which leads to harsh, surely radical, but necessary question. Are orchestras really doing art? Art should surprise us, enlighten us, challenge us, take us to new places, show us new things. Deepen our lives. Change our lives. Isn’t that what we say when we advocate for the arts?
But do orchestras do this? Isn’t there instead a sense of comfort in the endless repetition of the same things? You know what you’re getting. You love getting it. You come back, year after year (or at least the loyal audience does), becuase this is what you want. And while it’s possible for a performance of a familiar piece to surprise us — I love when that happens! (and couldn’t put enough exclamation points after those words, to express how exciting this is) — these suprises don’t often happen, becuase how can they, when the pieces are played so often? Is every repetition of the Schumann Third Symphony going to be a revelation?
If orchestras were really doing art, I think they’d treat each season as a clean slate. Start with a joyful question: What do we love? What would we be exhilarated to do? Deeply moved to do? What would excite the people we’re doing it for? What would excite people we aren’t talking to yet? (Which, as I keep saying, and can’t say often enough, is one of the most important questions we can ask, if we want classical music to survive.)
I don’t mean we’d only do new things. It’s completely honorable to do old things, to honor our existing audience. Just as a pop music artist might make an album with songs that a large audience will like, mixed with other songs the artist just does for herself. In any endeavor, this is (to use the word again) an honorable calculation.
Or it’s honorable if it’s made in a discussion that starts from point zero. What do we want to do? If part of what we want is to engage our existing audience, which likes the old things, then of course that’s part of the discussion. But it’s not where the discussion starts. The discussion starts with what we’d most love. Which lets us treat new things as the most important for us. And — a great bonus for everyone, including the existing audience — lets us think about old things in a new light, and present them in new ways.
A footnote: I know that I’ve simplified this, that everything isn’t as black and white as I’ve made it, that new things might well get done with imagination, and old things get done with imagination, too. But the new things still happen on the margins. When did we last see an orchesta announce its new season by highlighting four things that the world has never seen before, reserving the performances of standard works by standard conductors and soloists for later in the release? And I think — harsh as it is — it’s not crazy to ask whether orchestras are in the business of comfort, rather than art.
Speaking of always doing the same thing, I usually blow the horn, so to speak, of my hometown band, the Phila. Orchestra, when I comment here, but I’m encouraged that they are apparently starting to un-harden their arteries somewhat.
Last night I was present for a pretty interesting program, John Williams’ suite from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Magnus Lindberg’s “Graffiti,” and (as a representative from the warhorse catalogue) a suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. I was not familiar with Lindberg before last night (he’s probably already old hat to many in this community), but I was very impressed with Graffiti, and as a bonus, he was present for the pre-concert talk.
People interested in seeing how a venerable musical institution might make a few innovative changes might want to look at the kind of programming this orchestra is doing these days. True, they’re still dressing up in formal outfits and aren’t yet tolerant of dancing in the aisles, texting and tweeting during concerts, and similar trendy moves. But it should be noted that, even though classical music outfits still have to perform what I call the “museum function” (that is, Beethoven, etc., still need to be performed now and then because–let’s face it–they’re masterpieces, and have to be shown to the public just as Rembrandt and Monet have to keep hanging on museum walls), there is still room for some non-warhorse stuff now and then on programs.
Certainly David Allen Miller gets lots of credit & high marks on all his programming of music by contemporary composers & still manages to keep a healthy subscription base for the Albany Symphony, but how many other orchestras can boast the same.?!
Why do orchestras do this? Why do they play the same repertoire over and over?
I guess it is what management (not just artistic management) think audiences want.
And they might be right.
I’ve also wondered whether it is partly a result of conductors having a limited repertoire and, sometimes, being unwilling to learn new or different works.
I am sure that applies to travelling soloists. A violinist sometimes spend much of the year playing the same one or two concertos around the world.
Interesting read Greg, thank you. The same could be said for film making – “recent Hollywood’ is in the business of comfort – of giving the audience what it knows, likes, and expects & which they know will turn a dollar. This audience does not go to see a film to be challenged, they go for comfort-for entertainment.
The independent sector of filmmaking seeks to challenge its audience – film goers in that market go to see a film that will make them think, maybe feel uncomfortable, but certainly always to be challenged and to change them.
Maybe orchestras are the western art music sector’s ‘recent Hollywood’ -music as entertainment and comfort? I guess the bottom line question in this case – do they turn enough profit to only do this kind of programming???
It certainly also depends on the national and international eco-system of orchestras and other groups – smaller, larger, whatever – who all rely on each other and provide different things to different audience niche markets.
It will be interesting to see where we are in 5-10 years time; and even more in 20 years.
Why does everyone silently accept the proposition that of course the audience needs to be challenged? Audience members are real people, who have real problems; they face many challenges in holding on to their jobs and their homes, and in raising their children. Maybe they need art as an alternative to all the other challenging things in their lives that cannot give them comfort.
Certainly. Such an expectation from the audience is quite reasonable, so it is quite entitled to be entertained in the way you describe.
What is being discussed here, it seems to me, is not what the audience should want but wherther and how we can persuade an audience to appreciate challenging music.
We, well some of us, hope for that because we believe music will die unless it is renewed through experimentation and adventure.
That is our problem, not the audience’s problem.
Thanks for your blog, Mr. Sandow! An thoughtful piece, and I look forward to more.
As a composer, I see the flip side. Composers are just not writing music for the core classical audience. The model for composers (to oversimplify) is to write serious and difficult music, using academic criteria of “cutting edge” or “important”, as if Beethoven had gone on furiously developing underground for 200 years. I love the bells and whistles of spectralism, extended techniques, etc. However, the depth of tradition, the expression, the reasons kids practice for years to become virtuosos, have been left out. Melody, harmony and pulse are considered trivial, but they are the heart of the art.
I see this changing fast among young composers, with input from pop and world music, not to mention video game soundtracks (thank you Japan!). But blaming and shaming the orchestras or audiences is not going to fix this. A re-think of composition and what we are saying to whom could.
I really enjoyed these comments. Over the last several years I have made a practice of evaluating orchestral seasons. I started counting the total number of pieces played in a season, the total number of pieces played by Mozart and Beethoven, and the total number of pieces played by American composers. Most orchestras devote more than 25% of their entire season to just two composers, Mozart and Beethoven. And most orchestras devote less than 10% of their season to all American composers combined, new or old. Many orchestras play Mozart and Beethoven more than all French, or Italian, or Russian composers combined. To me this isn’t a question of playing new music. Sure, new music needs to be in the mix. To me, this is a sign that orchestras have completely lost the ability to put together interesting, varied, and diverse seasons, even of older music. There are so many great composers out there that could be played, and yet orchestras choose to program Mozart and Beethoven one out of every four pieces played. No wonder audiences are bored.