[contextly_auto_sidebar] Someone who asked me for one of my free consultations — see below! — said that as a conservatory teacher he feels like he’s surrounded by “unkown unknowns” (to use a famous Donald Rumsfeld phrase). I’m sure many people at conservatories feel like that. And entrepreneurship can be one of those unknowns. Such a popular buzzword, but what does it really mean, and how much of it just might be hype? Good questions. But there are answers, and showing what some of them are is one way I can help. Contact me now for a free … [Read more...]
Changing the curriculum
[contextly_auto_sidebar] Time now to talk about the curriculum at conservatories, about what classical musicians should learn in their professional education. As I said in an earlier post, this was something I was eagerly asked to speak about at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, LINK where the music department is thinking of curriculum change. And of course I’ve been close to the great transformation at the DePauw School of Music, where the curriculum is being reinvented for the 21st … [Read more...]
How the old ways faded
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="5nBcUoGIheS273PWwhCDYtux2AmfpHYR"] In my last post I said that I’m now not happy talking about the decline of classical music. That post was a striking anecdotal report about falling ticket sales at European music festivals, which in the past I would have offered as evidence of decline. But now, as I said, I’d rather say that classical music is changing. Changing, not fading. Not declining. And certainly not dying. Still, the fading of the old ways — though not classical music itself — is worth chronicling. … [Read more...]
The change continues
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="8iJ0uEslRrXHZQexVPJKHRbbIjYPUZOg"] I used to call it the decline of classical music — the aging, shrinking audience, the mounting financial woes. But now I’d rather call it the change. The old ways fade, becoming unsustainable. New ways of doing things emerge, and begin to define our future. Though this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still catalogue the change. One place you can find a catalogue of changes, as the old ways fade — changes going back decades — is a blog post of mine called “Timeline of the … [Read more...]
A new season
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="0HdpRif1Vk4IyCQpEpj498rsg7R4AZBN"] Wow, what a summer. Travel, some big family events, cataract surgery, and a flood in the basement of our country house. And now our little boy starting preschool. And some changes brewing in the way I do my work. I’ll talk about those here when everything’s in place. With so much going on, it seemed like a time to take a vacation from blogging. Now that I’m back, I have a lot to say. But for the moment — just to get started — two things stand out. First… …an arts summit I … [Read more...]
Reemergence
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="D79ZmQZ1r18MLDnvTSSvi9ZjhmQPHxki"] Back from vacation. With some news about my composing. But first, our annual trip — three weeks this time — to the Yorkshire Dales. In the north of England. More sheep than people. Bucolic and gorgeous, but also offers long walks, sometimes over wild terrain. No matter how wild, there always are sheep. Which shepherds have to round up, in all weather, all seasons, rain, snow, freezing cold. Not easy work! As we’ve come to appreciate. Can’t resist sharing this photo of Rafa … [Read more...]
The revolution continues
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="1AO0AgOckT1BbZomwnxYx52Jd1FjnwYc"] Yes, wonderful things. I went to the DePauw University School of Music just after my happy time at the Savvy Musician in Action workshop, as described in my last post. I’d been invited to serve on the advisory committee for the school’s revolutionary new 21CM curriculum. DePauw — under the leadership of its visionary dean, Mark McCoy — is reimagining conservatory education, to educate true 21st century musicians. (Hence 21CM.) Students focus on entrepreneurship, get to know … [Read more...]
Reemerging
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="HbQysTDnm1NCLMqYQtFtuYTa1oqhLNN6"] Since my last post on the Dresden Music Festival, I’ve taken two of the best professional trips of my life, done stretches of solo parenting, and somehow pulled off the biggest project I’ve ever done, though this was a personal thing, not professional. And so I didn’t blog. No time! No mental space for it. But here I am back. The two trips — both fulfilling, exhilarating, so satisfying both professionally and personally — were to the Savvy Musician in Action … [Read more...]
Dresden highlights
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="4T90x2qOK9P037XQzxLsvAO7RRGsj3BS"] Continuing from my last post, about my visit to the Dresden Music Festival… I said I’d heard some terrific concerts. Start with this one: The Dresden Festival Orchestra, a group created by the Festival, playing Mendelssohn (The Hebrides), the Beethoven Violin Concerto, and the Schumann Second Symphony, Ivor Bolton conducting. (Link provided for my American readers, because he’s better known in Europe.) The first highlight there was the violin soloist, Isabelle Faust. I hope … [Read more...]
10 days in Dresden
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="qR1ab3xOVH5TCt5Xq0sdZmM1yYf7b6Ei"] Call it an experiment. Suppose I spent 10 days at the Dresden Music Festival, in Germany, going to concerts, talking to staff and musicians, maybe forming some conclusions about what’s going on. What would I and they learn from that? It all happened because I struck up a warm acquaintanceship with Jan Vogler, the festival’s Intendant, and of course one of the world’s top cellists. Jan had taken the festival in some new directions, onto future-oriented paths he didn’t think … [Read more...]
Measuring success
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="eovSSV5GowIb4yKACwZyDosxqIQhbg1W"] I was talking not long ago with a lovely classical musician, someone well-known, who told heartwarming stories of reaching new people with his playing. He’d be with a small group of people, and his music would touch them, making new friends for our art. Which is hardly a surprise, given how this man plays. And also not because in nearly any context, one on one encounters, or sessions with small groups, be an effective way to make friends and converts. I’m sure we’ve all heard … [Read more...]
The bad guys won
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="rOuHe4NAWhrjDUWpIo2vJpahkzREkig2"] Well, the title is a joke. What the bad guys won — they were sharp, smart students from Oxford Univeristy — was a debate on the future of classical music, which I heard last weekend in Anchorage, Alaska. The debaters from the Oxford Union (a venerable debating group) were Matt Handley and Carin Hunt, and they were bad guys because they took what at first seemed to the audience like an anti-classical music stand: This House believes classical music deserves no support beyond … [Read more...]
Consequences
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="mnbNMxlJaOmGdpawOeCKXOat3c7xe1B8"] Here’s something Stockhausen said about his 1970 piece Mantra, for two pianos and electronics: To say it as simply as possible, Mantra, as it stands, is a miniature of the way a galaxy is composed. When I was composing the work, I had no accessory feelings or thoughts; I knew only that I had to fulfill the mantra. And it demanded itself, it just started blossoming. As it was being constructed through me, I somehow felt that it must be a very true picture of the way the cosmos is … [Read more...]
Too Mellifluous
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="fZAzDfnxHiLzhag1poT1UUlIke1T5NYF"] Of course I got comments on my post about orchestras playing and playing the standard masterworks. I said this hobbled them as artistic institutions, and paralyzed them in other ways, restricting their imagination even in things as mundane as press releases. If you limit your thinking in the central thing you do, the work that takes up most of your time and energy, of course that has consequences. But of course not everyone agreed. Which isn’t a surprise. My thought isn’t … [Read more...]
A quiet warning
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="C24YUeOX1ZIv1TPCIchpKWe4qhqD3DRs"] 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 … [Read more...]