[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[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...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="CQhPzZWVh8jxsEaOyi6fMZg5Wcjhv7YT"] I said in my last post that — having shaken my head at really poor press releases from orchestras — I’d provide some examples of good ones. That’ll come, but for now I’ll just suggest an approach to writing a release, an approach that ought to produce something better than what we usually see. What I’d suggest, simply enough, is to do more than recite facts, and instead to tell stories. And that the stories shouldn’t mainly be about the pieces you’re going to play, but about … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="UuANeqSiKdMeerpMJrDW276gXqtH5irV"] I’m gratified by some early support for yesterday’s post, about feeble orchestra press releases. And Marna Seltzer, on Facebook, agreeing with what I said, hoped I’d give some examples of good press releases. Good thought, Marna. I’ll do that. And now a thought for today. About our hoped-for new audience, the one we want, younger people, millennials and above. We need to know who they are, what they want, what matters to them. A Washington Post article provides a reminder. … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="amHdFddmSmvtFkWm4UMiIY3aeUxt5hjV"] I don’t mean to pick on the Minnesota Orchestra. Or on anyone. But this is the time of year when symphony orchestras announce next year’s season, and their press releases…are weak. The most basic fact about classical music today is that we need new listeners. But I can’t see these press releases doing much to find those. Which to me is a serious problem. Can’t we learn to talk about classical music, in a way that might make compelling, so we can people — especially people outside … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="y731Zt4Em3IDVP8gSeOPtKgfgPFgo9aa"] A piano student speaks to her audience, for the first time, and is absolutely thrilled. I’m going to do something that may seem like blowing my horn, reprinting praise for myself from a reader. And from a reader who, with other students in a course she was taking, was assigned to read me. Which is kind of double praise — first my writing is assigned to a class, and then one of the students writes me in gratitude. Of course, being human, I like to know that my work means so … [Read more...]