Doublereed Archive - Posting 000058.txt from 2003/11

From: "Robert A. Losinno" <roblos@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [DR-L] Opera Co. of Brooklyn Does it Again!
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 01:03:45 -0500

Amen Jim.
-----Original Message-----
From: doublereed-l-admin@-----.edu
[mailto:doublereed-l-admin@-----.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 12:59 PM
To: doublereed-l@-----.edu
Subject: Re: [DR-L] Opera Co. of Brooklyn Does it Again!

In a message dated 11/12/2003 10:57:54 AM Eastern Standard Time,
onlyocelot@-----.com writes:
I guess I'm more and more disturbed about the kneejerk reactions to this
whole matter.

I take exception to the statement that OCB 'could care less about live
musicians'. The fact that they have found a way to found a new opera company
in an economy like ours is rather laudable: they are employing and paying
many opera singers who might never get a chance to be heard. They are doing
it in a way that can be managed, with budgets, apparently, that not only
allow them to expand their program (thus more greatly employing their
singers), but allows them to foot free concerts.
Etc Etc ad nuseum.
Knee jerk??? Tell that to all the pit musicians that have lost their
gigs to virtual orchestras. As for budgets, if they're having financial
troubles they can go to the musicians and enter into a cba for less money or
they can use some of the reduced scores that are out there.

<<How much damage are they doing to music? Apparently not a lot. (I wonder
if anyone has looked seriously at the sales of live-performance recordings
of Bach's music following the release of Switched-On Bach?)>>

Huh? Not even the same thing.

<<How much damage are they doing to musicians as a whole? They've taken a
bunch of vocalists who might not have had a job using their talents in the
way they've trained for (opera) and given them a venue that didn't exist
before. They haven't given the same major boost to instrumentalists, yet,
but the release quoted does say that they are including an opera with Murray
Sidlin's 13-piece live accompaniement orchestra: Aaron Copeland's Tender
Land. (Copeland also wrote small-orchestra versions of his large orchestra
music. So did other composers. Are they to be condemned for giving jobs to
the forces they had, rather than letting them all starve because they didn't
have enough to do the big versions?)>.

Virtual orchestras are doing a whole lot of damage to musicians as a
whole. Theater management will use any way and excuse to line their pockets
with more money. There are plenty of shows on tour now that use virtual
orchestras and plenty others that use student or recent graduates (paying
them crap) and augmenting them with virtual machines, putting local union
musicians out of work.

<<And once established, the OCB is now starting to ramp up live musician
participation. They are employing instrumentalists that they could not
afford last year. Isn't this good?>.

What are they being paid? Are they union musicians? Are there pension fund
contributions being made?

<<Should the performances held decades ago, by the fellow who programmed
all the printers to play in harmony on stage, have been boycotted by live
musicians? I think it's safe to say that he disemployed no single musician
in his presentations. What's more, he brought to the attention of a large
number of people that electronics, sometimes in ways no one would (want to)
have thought of, could contribute to the world of music.>>

Nobody is complaining about electronics which bring different sounds to
the mix.

<<After all, musicians whining about being underemployed and underpaid is
nothing new. It's been going on for years. And as the number of performances
have decreased and the price of tickets have gone up, the number of people
who are not musicians who are willing to turn a favorable ear to the
complaints have dwindled to the point where the biggest orchestras in the
country are running deficits worthy of Congress.>.

You a repug or what?

<< I do know that in our small corner of new england, we are just
recovering from the worst backlash against the arts I've known of short of
the French revolution.>>

Backlash against the arts in New England? In which state are you living?
There isn't a backlash. School administrators have never figured out the
importance of the arts in schools. Orchestras are having troubles because
they depended so much on corporate giving in the past and that has dried up
in the past couple of years due to the economy. How is that a "backlash"
against the arts?

<<When my 23-year-old son went to the local public school for a year for
fourth grade, his 'music class' consisted of a teacher putting a rap CD into
a bro-box, and the kids all 'dancing' >>

Wow! 23 years old and in fourth grade. You must be very proud of him.

<<In our area, some amateur groups have been going out of their way to
make themselves available to schools and even colleges to expose their
students to real music played by real people. >>

Ah, something we can agree on. Exposing students to the arts.

<<(Unlike Hartford Symphony's bleet of a decade ago, it didn't take 'real
money'.)>.

Ah yes, the Hartford Symphony. The group that undercut local musicians so
they could tour with the michael bolton of opera, andrea bocelli, and still
pay their musicians crap. Wonderful group of people.

<<(You see, even non-union groups aren't your enemy.)>>

Who said they were? What you fail to understand is that the union isn't
your enemy.

<<If people don't know that opera is worth paying to hear, they won't pay
to find out. But once they find out... It could be that the OCB's free
performances this year, financed by the hated synthesizer-reinforced small
orchestra, is responsible for the Met, in five years, having a black bottom
line. The fallout from this could even reach the NYPO's bottom line. It
could cause parents to refocus schoolboards in NYC from facetiously-painted
'Gay schools' to "Where are the arts in our schools?">>

Oh please. Do you really believe this?

<<Shall we destroy that now?>>

Unfortunately, if this is let go, other groups will follow suit and use
virtual orchestras instead of live musicians. It is the nature of the beast.