 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-04-22 02:30
That's really a shame, it seems like a epidemic. Less and less jobs, more and more players wanting to go into music. It's a sad state of affairs. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2011-04-22 11:01
Nothing short of pathetic. Pathetic that it has to happen, pathetic that no one cared enough to avert it, and pathetic that it will only fuel the disinterest in arts and validate another orchestra falling apart.
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Author: ddavani
Date: 2011-04-23 04:45
That's a great orchestra too. I feel bad that all of these major orchestras have to go just because the economy is taking a dip down. It's also a shame that people don't want to support these groups as much as they used to. On top of all of that, we're losing a lot of local orchestras too, I'm pretty sure that someone addressed here that the Long Island Philharmonic is going out of business. There used to be an abundance of groups, now it's a shortage.
-Dave Davani
http://allclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: clarinetcase
Date: 2011-04-23 12:22
It is indeed very sad. Despite the economy, in the US we have millions of dollars to pay a single athlete, for team sports, reality shows, movie stars, etc, but not enough to keep a symphony going.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2011-04-23 15:15
Those million dollar salaries actually return on investment in enough cases that they are a worthwhile investment.
What's unfortunate is that there is no longer enough interest to generate the money required (through ticket sales and donation), not that the money itself isn't being donated.
If the orchestra's product was valuable to the people the money would provide itself. The issue is with the people liking/enjoying/appreciating symphonic works on large enough scale to maintain these great ensembles.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: ubu
Date: 2011-04-23 16:33
The Philadelphia Phillies have sold out over 130 straight games and this year average 45,484 in a stadium that seats 43,647. They also make enormous money on local and national television and local radio rights. Ticket prices go from $17 for standing room to over $65. That doesn't include the premium seats like the Hall of Fame Club and Diamond Club. They're totally sold out for the year, so the prices are no longer posted. A quick broker check shows that they're selling for over $300.
Verizon Hall holds 2,500 people. There are over six million people in the Greater Philadelphia Metro area. There are usually three performances of a program in a weekend. I have received offers for most of the shows for deep (over 50%) discounts and yet the hall was never sold out when I've been there.
If you can't sell 7,500 tickets over the course of a weekend at full price in the fourth largest market in the United States, there is a major problem.
I know tickets sales aren't really what fund orchestras, but it is disheartening.
The audience is dwindling and these orchestras aren't really doing much to reverse that trend. Those who run the Philadelphia Orchestra have used the bankruptcy as a gimmick to solicit donations, but I haven't seen any effort to try to reconnect with the community.
I'd be curious if the Philadelphia Orchestra played one of those free post-game concerts after a Phillies game, would anyone hang around? It would probably also take fireworks to get most fans to stay.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-04-23 16:57
Going to a baseball game isn't even that much about baseball most of the time. Take out the beer, snacks, ability to shoot the breeze with your friends, and occasional loud, excited cheering at the exact moment of collective emotion, and attendance would plummet.
I.e., hold a baseball game in a concert hall with all its rules, and you'll only have the die-hards. After one game, you'd lose a huge swath of your customer base, who would walk out screaming "this is bullshit!" and perhaps torch a few cars.
At a baseball game, if your favorite team is playing a lousy game, you can encourage them by cheering or express your displeasure by booing or heckling. If my favorite orchestra is crapping all over a performance of Scheherazade, all I can do is watch in agony for a half hour of the music being butchered. Well, all I can do without invoking the wrath of the ushers, anyways...
Also, at a baseball game, a n00b who doesn't know the intricacies of the rules can ask his friend "what just happened" (and he'll know something just happened because there will be some commotion). At a concert, he'll get shushed for asking, and he won't know to ask because the audience reaction is largely indiscernible, if it's there at all, because they're all scared of being shushed as well.
I enjoy going to a baseball game, even though I could give a crap about baseball itself. I don't enjoy going to most classical concerts, even though I like the music itself.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-04-23 17:34
A couple of points:
Sports have always been able to appeal to a larger, more generalized market. Their format is based in competition and the action is on far larger scale and closer to what everyone has done at one time or other in their lives - running, throwing and catching things, jumping, etc. - we've all done them ourselves at least as children. The action involved in any sport is a lot more familiar to most people than the little motor movements involved in music performance, and there's no "winning" or "losing" in a concert, so the adrenalin rush of "rooting" for one side (or individual competitor) or the other is completely absent. So I'v e never found the comparison between sport and music performance to be very useful.
Empty seats at a concert are not necessarily unsold ones. People subscribe to a series and then find they can't make it to a particular performance (or aren't attracted to the program and just don't go). I'd be curious what the number of exchanges is in any given year compared to the number of tickets that have been sold but not used. I don't have a clue as to what those numbers are. But those empty seats, whatever their cause, have always been there over the years I've attended concerts at Verizon and before that at the Academy of music. As I said in the other thread, it's easy enough to see whatever you want to see to support a premise, and it seems undeniably true that attendance isn't as high as it was 30 years ago in the U.S.. But back then the orchestra's solution to waiting lists for subscriptions and lines still standing at the box office after the last ticket was sold was to put in more concerts, the result of which was that the number of people wanting tickets who couldn't get them dropped to pretty nearly zero, so any reduction in demand after that would necessarily result in empty seats. Contracts being what they are, of course, it's easier to offer the musicians more pay and add concerts than it is to try to eliminate performances and get the players to take less as a result. In any case, "classical" music has never, even at its height in terms of audience size, had the draw of a sports team - even a bad professional team can draw two or three thousand spectators each time it plays did you watch the Phillies before the late 1970s?), which only looks terrible in a stadium that holds 40,000. Symphony orchestras have never, ever had that kind of audience support, at least in the U.S. in the 125 or so years they've existed here.
There's probably no one here who wouldn't like to see greater audience support for symphonic music, but the fact is that it has always had a limited, some would say elitist, following. The limits are in the nature of the beast. Some of the limits can in fact be erased when people can sit in their living rooms and hear a performance through whatever electronic medium is current, mostly because the music can be made background to whatever else the listener wants to do while listening.
One last consideration is that the Philadelphia Orchestra, as I'm sure is also the case with other orchestras, has tried to find ways to reach into the community, through school programs, free neighborhood concerts, very inexpensive student concerts, etc... That they haven't found a successful approach says more, I think, about the problem of expanding an orchestra's popularity than about the orchestra's attempts (other than that they haven't worked very well) to solve it. I hope they can figure out how to build bigger audiences in the future. I don't know what to tell them to do, but I'm certain they get suggestions regularly from a variety of interested observers.
Have to leave for a rehearsal, which means I won't have time even to proofread this. Maybe I'll want to add more later.
Karl
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Author: ubu
Date: 2011-04-23 19:13
Karl,
My point (which probably was not made clear enough) was not that classical music events will ever rival sporting events in attendance, but that in an area with so many people willing to spend money on tickets, it's a shame that Verizon Hall is not always full and the support more robust. I know some people buy tickets and don't use them, but the number of emails I got last year offering deep discounts was a sign that tickets were not selling as briskly as one would hope. If I can pay $30 ticket for a $95 seat, there's a lot of revenue lost. Plus, how many people will now hold back from buying tickets this year assuming discount offers will be coming.
Listing the revenue that Phillies generate was in response to why athletes can get paid so much. It's a whole different ballgame (so to speak).
As a non musician and non athlete, I do find a correlation between attending a concert and a sporting event. That is the desire for a shared wonderful experience. That's why you hear people brag that "I was there when the Phillies won the World Series" or "I saw Springsteen the night after John Lennon died."
It is a thrill based largely on luck or circumstance, but the chance that you will share a magical moment or witness something special is a large part of why people return again and again.
One of the things that bothers me when attending a Philadelphia Orchestra concert is what I perceive as the aloofness of many of the musicians. It may not be true, but I have talked with others about this and they feel the same way. If enough people perceive it to be a problem, it is a problem.
As the audience bursts into applause, some of them jumping to their feet, I look onto the stage and see far too many blank stares from the orchestra. They look like they're in line waiting to get their driver's license renewed. Can you imagine going to a rock concert with the crowd going wild and the performers can only manage a few obligatory bows and leave the stage? How do you think the crowd would react?
Part of the job of the performer is to try to connect with the audience. I even commented to a friend at the last concert I attended that at least Ricardo Morales looked like he was having a good time. When one musician stands out like that, there is an issue.
I realize that people are allowed to have less ebullient personalities and react differently. But I have been to events where the interaction between participants and spectators has been magical. I listened to a live stream of the Boston Symphony's performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 from Tanglewood from last summer and the energy exploded from the speakers. If this connection can be made through a wire, it should be able to be made at a beautiful concert hall.
I don't go to live events to hear exactly what I can hear at home on cd. I want more. I want to share in the moment, but all of the energy shouldn't be coming from the audience.
I do think musicians who spend their entire life striving for better and better technique run the risk of losing the purely emotional content in their playing. To me, I'd rather hear a performance with fire and passion than one with dry technical perfection. I know it's sacrilege on this board, but I couldn't care less if all of the notes are correct. On the rare occasion when both passion and precision occur, then the magic truly happens.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2011-04-23 19:20
I agree on the connection with the audience, and the passion that must, must connect with them.
We as performers are sharing our gift with the audience, not just playing a piece for ourselves.
Though technical perfection, and passion can easily coexist.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-04-24 00:28
Bravo, ubu. Especially LOLed at getting the driver's license renewed.
Karl:
You say they've tried to reach out into the community. I'm sure it's been a valiant effort, and without knowing what they actually did, I can only speculate. However, my speculation, based on seeing all sorts of "community outreach", is this:
The orchestra goes to a school, or park, or whatever, plays a concert, says a few words about how great the community is, and leaves. Performers have their "do we HAVE to do this?" faces on (or perhaps "come and be educated by our superior art, unwashed masses" faces), and are eager to collect their paycheck.
Doing things in the community is more than "let's take what we normally do, and put it in this different room than where we normally do it." Even music programs in the school are largely a matter of "well, at least the district saved a few bucks." It doesn't affect the culture, because it feels forced, and it remains within its original context.
What I did see a few weeks ago was some true community outreach. Composition recital on a campus that is pretty insular and has a fairly standoffish relationship with the community for no reason I can adequately explain. Lots of crazy-awesome music goes on there, but nobody tells anyone in the community about it, so you have maybe a handful of people outside of campus ever attending the concerts, plus family members. This particular recital, though, was a standing-room-only house filled with unfamiliar people that were not related to the composer. Later found out that the composer plays organ at a local church on Sundays, and a significant chunk of the congregation came out to see his show, and were delighted at how much they enjoyed it, even when some of the music wasn't to their liking.
That's effective community outreach. Going out and doing something in the community, to be part of the community, in a genuine manner to the point that they're eager to see what one of their own is up to. Not bringing your culture from on high, having a show-and-tell, and waiting to see if all these people you've graced with your presence will pay you back in ticket sales.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-04-24 00:36
But, Alex, this is the kind of hyperbole that just obscures the problems that do exist and need to be addressed and solved.
> Going to a baseball game isn't even that much about baseball
> most of the time. Take out the beer, snacks, ability to shoot
> the breeze with your friends, and occasional loud, excited
> cheering at the exact moment of collective emotion, and
> attendance would plummet.
>
Well, maybe - that's not a really testable theory. But add all that to a concert and you still wouldn't sell tickets at the rate a baseball team does. And in the process the actual content of any unamplified concert (more about this later) would become inaudible over the din or become part of it, as it does even at amplified rock concerts.
> I.e., hold a baseball game in a concert hall with all its
> rules, and you'll only have the die-hards. After one game,
> you'd lose a huge swath of your customer base, who would walk
> out screaming "this is bullshit!" and perhaps torch a few cars.
>
But a lot of the point is that the nature of baseball prevents it from being played in a concert hall. It's an argument that has no practical basis and so doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion. And torching cars isn't illegal after rock concerts and baseball games, either.
> At a baseball game, if your favorite team is playing a lousy
> game, you can encourage them by cheering or express your
> displeasure by booing or heckling.
But again, the point is that there are no teams competing during an orchestral concert whom you can encourage. People in many places in the Western world do boo and heckle - the accounts are the stuff of legends. If giving permission to an American audience to boo (I have occasionally heard booing even here in the Philadelphia concert halls) were all we need to do to bring more enthusiastic listeners in to fill more seats, I'd be OK with it.
> If my favorite orchestra is
> crapping all over a performance of Scheherazade, all I can do
> is watch in agony for a half hour of the music being butchered.
I don't know who your favorite orchestra is, but Philadelphia at its worst doesn't "[crap] all over" its performances. They have better performances and ones that aren't as good and they have truly spectacular nights and very - for them - ordinary ones. But an orchestra like Philadelphia or New York or many other world-class orchestras doesn't ever descend to the level you describe. And you do have an alternative to suffering a bad performance. You can get up and leave (the ushers just won't let you back in).
The fact is that professionalism in music performance implies a great deal more consistency than it does in sports. It's a cliche that a really successful hitter in baseball is still unsuccessful two-thirds of the time. No one gets into a professional orchestra - even a regional one - with a .333 success rate. The comparison between sports events and their audiences and those of music performances just doesn't work.
> Also, at a baseball game, a n00b who doesn't know the
> intricacies of the rules can ask his friend "what just
> happened" (and he'll know something just happened because there
> will be some commotion). At a concert, he'll get shushed for
> asking, and he won't know to ask because the audience reaction
> is largely indiscernible, if it's there at all, because they're
> all scared of being shushed as well.
>
Well, again, the "rules" are different because the nature of the event is different from that of a sporting event. Of course, if you go to enough concerts, sooner or later you realize that people do comment and even exchange questions and answers during concerts. So long as it's done in whispers and doesn't become a continuous exchange, no one is going to eject the talkers.
But the nature of acoustical music (amplified rock and even jazz concerts allow a different set of "rules" that also, mistakenly in my opinion, are compared with those of acoustical concerts) is such that significant ambient noise will drown out the content people have come to hear. This is as true for chamber music concerts, solo recitals, even small, intimate jazz and folk venues as it is for symphonic concerts. Even if the audience doesn't mind the lack of quiet at a non-symphonic acoustical performance, the musicians will be at last annoyed by competing noise, and some, particularly jazz performers in my experience, may actually walk off the stage. The "rules" of quiet courtesy apply to any kind of concert where electronic amplification is not present to simply overpower competing noise.
> I enjoy going to a baseball game, even though I could give a
> crap about baseball itself. I don't enjoy going to most
> classical concerts, even though I like the music itself.
>
In my opinion, which has no more worth than you give it, you miss a great deal of the beauty, affect and, therefore, value of a live performance if you let these prejudices against the more formal atmosphere cause you to enter the hall with an already negative attitude.
By the way, it may surprise some here who have come into the world of electronic reproduction only as recently as CDs, DVDs, WAVs, FLACs and MP3s, that listeners in the 1950s through the 1970s, probably the heyday of classical music interest in the U.S., had excellent LPs available to them to listen to on home equipment. So, while the argument that the same music is available to listeners at home with greater choice and fewer "rules" (you didn't make it here, but it has been made repeatedly in this and related threads) doesn't really explain why attendance at classical concerts, if it's true as we all seem to agree to one extent or another, was so much greater during that period.
Karl
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2011-04-24 01:04
Nail on the head from Alex-
"Take out the beer, snacks, ability to shoot the breeze with your friends, and occasional loud, excited cheering at the exact moment of collective emotion, and attendance would plummet.
I.e., hold a baseball game in a concert hall with all its rules, and you'll only have the die-hards. After one game, you'd lose a huge swath of your customer base, who would walk out screaming "this is bullshit!" and perhaps torch a few cars."
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-04-24 01:27
ubu wrote:
> Karl,
>
> My point (which probably was not made clear enough) was not
> that classical music events will ever rival sporting events in
> attendance, but that in an area with so many people willing to
> spend money on tickets, it's a shame that Verizon Hall is not
> always full and the support more robust.
I think everyone involved would like to sell more tickets. The discussion always centers on what needs to be changed to do it. Many of the changes that are routinely suggested would change the nature of the product radically enough that as many supporters would, I suspect, be lost as gained. Not all change is bad, but it needs to be thought of in terms that keep the essence of the concert experience for those who enjoy what they're already getting. In any case, my overriding point in this area is that selling more seats isn't likely, at least in a direct way, to solve the financial problems at hand, at least in Philadelphia.
> I know some people buy
> tickets and don't use them, but the number of emails I got last
> year offering deep discounts was a sign that tickets were not
> selling as briskly as one would hope.
I suspect (again with no more proof than anyone has for much else we've discussed in this topic) that those emails would go out if there were 5 unsold seats left for a concert. Email is so cheap once you have a mailing list - why wouldn't you try to sell every last seat you know is available? I just don't know if those emails with the ticket offers are really a good indicator of sales levels. Maybe.
> As a non musician and non athlete, I do find a correlation
> between attending a concert and a sporting event. That is the
> desire for a shared wonderful experience. That's why you hear
> people brag that "I was there when the Phillies won the World
> Series" or "I saw Springsteen the night after John Lennon
> died."
>
> It is a thrill based largely on luck or circumstance, but the
> chance that you will share a magical moment or witness
> something special is a large part of why people return again
> and again.
>
I'm not sure why the Springsteen example is relevant to the discussion. Was the concert experience a wonderful, magical moment because of Springsteen's performance or Lennon's death? And will those people in your example buy a return ticket in the hope someone else of equal fame will again be killed the night before (I know you can;t have meant to suggest that)? In any case, when magic happens at a concert of any kind, it generally isn't created, I don't think, by luck or peripheral circumstances.
> One of the things that bothers me when attending a Philadelphia
> Orchestra concert is what I perceive as the aloofness of many
> of the musicians. It may not be true, but I have talked with
> others about this and they feel the same way. If enough people
> perceive it to be a problem, it is a problem.
>
> As the audience bursts into applause, some of them jumping to
> their feet, I look onto the stage and see far too many blank
> stares from the orchestra. They look like they're in line
> waiting to get their driver's license renewed.
>
The orchestra has expressed awareness of this, too. Have you noticed that since the move to Verizon Hall the orchestra members - particularly the string players whose seats face the conductor, actually turn to face the audience when the orchestra stands for bows? They used to stand still facing the conductor's podium. It's a small thing, but something that was noticeable when it started. I don't much care for seeing musicians talking to each other during those bows, seemingly ignoring the applauding audience members, but I know several of the players, and despite possible appearances, they (many of them, anyway) are truly grateful for the acknowledgement and enthusiasm of the audience at the end of a performance. Another problem they've talked about but not yet addressed (AFAIK) is that Verizon wasn't designed with a "green room" where players can greet audience members after the concert. That room was always mobbed on Saturday nights at the Academy. It doesn't exist at Verizon because the backstage area is secured behind electronic locks and most of the players leave by the rear doors (on 15th Street) where the public isn't likely to find them. Still some of the players, if you wait and know whom you're looking for, exit through the lobby and are receptive to audience adulation. More in this line could be encouraged and has been, as related by Peter Dobrin, discussed among the orchestra players and the management, but then, to dredge up the sports analogy that I try so hard to avoid, there are lots of very highly paid players in all sports who won't have anything more to do with the fans than they can avoid.
> Can you imagine
> going to a rock concert with the crowd going wild and the
> performers can only manage a few obligatory bows and leave the
> stage? How do you think the crowd would react?
Well, yes, I can because, never having attended a real rock concert, I have no idea what they actually do at concert's end. Other than performing encores (which sometimes happens at symphonic concerts, although not as much as many audience members would like) what *do* the performers do to acknowledge crowd enthusiasm at the end of a rock performance?
> Part of the job of the performer is to try to connect with the
> audience. I even commented to a friend at the last concert I
> attended that at least Ricardo Morales looked like he was
> having a good time. When one musician stands out like that,
> there is an issue.
>
He does look unusually enthusiastic. You've scored one on me.
> I have been to events
> where the interaction between participants and spectators has
> been magical. I listened to a live stream of the Boston
> Symphony's performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 from
> Tanglewood from last summer and the energy exploded from the
> speakers. If this connection can be made through a wire, it
> should be able to be made at a beautiful concert hall.
>
There have been many such performances among the ones I've heard live over the years. It probably doesn't happen over the air every time you hear the BSO from Tanglewood, either. Really exceptional performance can happen at any time and the ordinary, merely good ones don't, in my view, negate them, whether you're talking about recordings, broadcasts or live concerts heard in the hall. That your Mahler experience was a broadcast doesn't mean it can't happen in the hall for a live audience. After all, I assume there were people in the venue when that Mahler Symphony was being performed.
> I don't go to live events to hear exactly what I can hear at
> home on cd. I want more. I want to share in the moment, but all
> of the energy shouldn't be coming from the audience.
>
Again, if you go to concerts, especially with the hope of hearing something engaging and even special, you will sometimes be disappointed and sometimes satisfied. The Phillies last year (again, sports - oh, well) lost, what, 60 or so games, including the playoff games that cost them the pennant. Some of those games (and some that they won) were laughers. Hasn't kept the fans away this year.
> I do think musicians who spend their entire life striving for
> better and better technique run the risk of losing the purely
> emotional content in their playing. To me, I'd rather hear a
> performance with fire and passion than one with dry technical
> perfection. I know it's sacrilege on this board, but I couldn't
> care less if all of the notes are correct. On the rare occasion
> when both passion and precision occur, then the magic truly
> happens.
And then, the whole experience becomes especially, magically worthwhile.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-04-24 01:35
We disagree. As I replied to Alex, I don't think this analogy has any real meaning. You couldn't play a baseball game in a concert hall, and you couldn't give live classical concert in a baseball stadium without a lot of electronic help.
Come to think of it, the outdoor food, beer (liquor) and conversation laden concert does indeed happen at many summer venues around the U.S. and I assume the world, made possible by a lot of amplification that would never be used in an indoor hall. Which is the reason why I personally don't go to outdoor summer concerts. When I go to a live performance, I'd refer to hear the players than the version of their efforts that gets transmitted over those speakers in the outdoor amphitheaters. But the Philadelphia Orchestra's summer series aren't, AFAIK, any better and perhaps are worse attended than the regular indoor season. It would be interesting to see statistics about that.
Karl
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-04-24 01:44
But the silence is a recent invention. Concerts were more lively affairs back in classical times. Somehow the music survived.
I don't expect a concert to be like a baseball game. I was pointing out reasons that make baseball games successful and corresponding reasons that harm classical attendance.
I've heard too many phoned-in performances by too many great orchestras, both live and (especially) in recordings. I yell at the radio regularly, but in person, when I might actually be able to have an impact on the person botching the solo, I am prohibited from doing so.
Listen to those LPs from the 50s-70s, and contrast them to the CDs of today. The old recordings were sloppier, both in technique and audio quality, but they were more real, risky and daring. Today's recordings, with such an emphasis on the classical world on absolute precision above all else, are sterile. We're trying to make sophisticated midi instruments out of ourselves.
Today, a single missed note can ruin the evening of a performer. We have developed all sorts of strategies to battle nerves... meds, PRETENDING THE AUDIENCE ISN'T THERE, practicing a piece so much that you can play it automatically with no personal involvement, etc., which all go very much contrary to the spirit of music. Every moment on stage should be a chance to make something wonderful, but the vibe I get from a lot of performers is that every moment on stage is a chance to mess something up and pray that you don't. I find it hard to get past that atmosphere and find the beauty in music. Solos are a matter of "ok, now it's your turn to try not to f*ck it up." There's always an element of fear or apprehension present.
A really great conductor can sometimes turn things around, get performers to trust themselves and each other, to make the music a joy rather than just less agonizing, to bring them out of their OCD excerpt-woodshedding shells. But it shouldn't take a good conductor. This should be default behavior from musicians, playing their hearts out to even the most talentless schmuck waving a stick.
To me, music is very much a shared experience. The concert hall atmosphere makes it extremely insular, though. The performers are expected to be still, at the most only sharing a nigh-on-invisible tap on the knee in response to a well-played passage. Everyone's on pins and needles (because this music is SO IMPORTANT), and there are a million things that people are praying WON'T happen, so that the music will sound acceptably within the realm of satisfactorily-played. It makes the entire affair uncomfortable for both the performers and the audience, and the music suffers greatly.
It's music, not an exam. I get a distinct visual at the end of a classical performance, of the performers as condemned prisoners looking up to the queen in her box to see if she will grant a stay of execution.
It's the difference between "These people paid a lot of money to see us, so we better play it well" and "These people paid a lot of money to see us. Awesome! Let's play some great music!!" A subtle but crucial distinction.
There are, of course, exceptions to everything above. However, I see this all as being the overwhelming norm, from local orchestras all the way up to top pro groups, and it's what's driven me from being a classically focused musician with season tickets to a fringe experimental-and-popular performer who goes to the symphony maybe once a year. I'll still play and listen to music from the classical realm, because there's so much really awesome music out there, but I find a hard time reconciling myself with the culture.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-04-24 02:02
Karl:
"selling more seats isn't likely, at least in a direct way, to solve the financial problems at hand, at least in Philadelphia."
Selling more seats alone will never solve the financial problems of an orchestra. They are financially unfeasible beasts, with expenses far outstripping any possible take from attendance, except in particular acts like Andre Rieu. What can help, though, is an overwhelmingly positive public image for the orchestra, which is created by compelling performances and a fiercely loyal fan base.
"Have you noticed that since the move to Verizon Hall the orchestra members - particularly the string players whose seats face the conductor, actually turn to face the audience when the orchestra stands for bows? They used to stand still facing the conductor's podium."
Theater. More theater. A nice gesture, but little more than that, especially since it was likely an edict from on high.
"Well, yes, I can because, never having attended a real rock concert, I have no idea what they actually do at concert's end."
I highly recommend you attend one, if not for the music, then at least out of curiosity for how such an event is run. My mom dragged me to a Willie Nelson concert 5 years ago, when I was classical-or-bust, thoroughly entrenched in the culture. It was a huge eye-opener, a game-changer for me. The music is something that is shared throughout the evening between the performer and the audience, rather than something "done at you". While most of the hall was sitting at tables with dishes, drinks, and leftovers from dinner, the audience was quiet, not out of "that's the protocol," but out of genuinely wanting to hear the music. At concert's end, performers might take a bow or wave in the manner that one bows or waves to a friend, to someone who appreciates what you just shared together. Not as a customer or a patron, and definitely not as "oh, were you there the whole time?" It's not even so much a matter of "what does the person do?" because the end of a song or of the concert doesn't have that huge contextual shift from "playing" to "done playing" that classical does.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-04-24 03:03
EEBaum wrote:
> Selling more seats alone will never solve the financial
> problems of an orchestra. They are financially unfeasible
> beasts, with expenses far outstripping any possible take from
> attendance, except in particular acts like Andre Rieu. What
> can help, though, is an overwhelmingly positive public image
> for the orchestra, which is created by compelling performances
> and a fiercely loyal fan base.
>
Every performance won't be compelling. And who, other than those who already attend, will know? This gets back, for me, to the premise that ticket sales and audience relations have little to do with what's ailing at least the larger orchestras. The charitable trusts in Philadelphia who have withheld money and done so, apparently, for the somewhat circular reason that they don't want to contribute to organizations that run at a deficit. Of course, their withholding support is a partial cause of the deficit in the first place, but the subtleties of orchestra finance are exactly what's getting inadequate coverage in the newspaper accounts, since the writing is primarily the duty of music critics and not financial experts. In Philadelphia, the new hall's costs and Kimmel Center,Inc.'s own financial problems are contributing in a major way to the orchestra's problems, as is the decision (which I've found difficult to understand) to take the Philly Pops, which was never a full-time venture nor, I don't think, a heavy money-maker using free-lance players completely separate from the Philadelphia Orchestra's roster, under the orchestra's administrative wing.
Lost in this has been much discussion of what is actually the reason for the New Mexico Symphony's demise, which originally started this specific thread (the Philadelphia situation moved here from its own separate thread, perhaps my fault). Each orchestra currently facing difficulties is doing so because of monetary issues that are far beyond, as we seem to agree, the reach increased ticket sales to solve. and no doubt each involves a composite of differing local issues. The general discussion about changing the way symphony orchestras go about doing what they do as performers is really a parallel but peripheral discussion.
>
> "Have you noticed that since the move to Verizon Hall the
> orchestra members - particularly the string players whose seats
> face the conductor, actually turn to face the audience when the
> orchestra stands for bows? They used to stand still facing the
> conductor's podium."
>
> Theater. More theater. A nice gesture, but little more than
> that, especially since it was likely an edict from on high.
>
Well, what's wrong with theater? And what's wrong with the suggestion's having come from someone (on high or not)? Maybe it was Eschenbach, who was the Music Director when Kimmel Center opened. I just don't think anyone had thought about it before. It's a recognition (however small) by the musicians of the appreciation being shown by the audience.
>
> I highly recommend you attend one, if not for the music, then
> at least out of curiosity for how such an event is run. My mom
> dragged me to a Willie Nelson concert 5 years ago, when I was
> classical-or-bust, thoroughly entrenched in the culture. It
> was a huge eye-opener, a game-changer for me. ... the audience was
> quiet, not out of "that's the protocol," but out of genuinely
> wanting to hear the music.
Really, I am quiet because I want to hear the music, not because it's "protocol." Part of why I've been so active in this conversation is that I think too much of it has attempted to project individual attitudes and reactions onto other more or less anonymous people. Is "protocol" the reason you listen quietly at a classical concert? Are you sure "protocol" wasn't why some listeners at the Willie Nelson concert were being quiet?
> At concert's end, performers might
> take a bow or wave in the manner that one bows or waves to a
> friend, to someone who appreciates what you just shared
> together.
In a classical orchestral concert this function is generally taken over by the conductor who represents his players. The conductors and soloists bow and even sometimes wave. Seeing 80 players all doing this would look perhaps a little chaotic or at least overdone. But isn't this just as much theater as the players' turning to face the audience?
Karl
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-04-24 06:59
Agreed, on talks of finances.
Nothing's wrong with theater, and hopefully it'll lead to something genuine. The fact that you need to tell the performers that maybe they should face the audience does not speak well of the performer-audience rapport. I'm not asking for everyone to wave, but people looking like they actually just played a show, because they DID just play a show, would be nice. Given that the performers and audience supposedly just shared something wonderful, I would expect something more than the "ok, that's that" look from performers.
You listen because you want to hear the music, as do many in the audience. But it's not optional, it's mandatory, rigorously enforced. That's the big difference to me between classical and other concerts. The protocol is heavily institutionalized in classical performances, to the point that it becomes wrong and punishable by scorn to do anything else, where a single break in protocol can "ruin" an evening, throwing off the performers and/or audience significantly. Anything an audience member might spontaneously do is tempered by concern that it may disturb someone. It's terribly fragile, and needlessly so. I know we're off the baseball metaphor, but there's very little you can do THAT wrong at a baseball game, except maybe wearing the opposing team's jersey in the bleachers at Dodger Stadium.
On the surface, and on paper, the events at a classical or rock concert may appear quite similar. The difference, though, is significant in that every move in a classical concert is heavily orchestrated and prescribed, and any deviation is seen as wrong or unprofessional, subject to heavy scrutiny and criticism. Theatricality in a rock concert can be intentional or spontaneous and makes no disguise about it, but theatricality in the classical world exists under the guise of "this is how you do it because this is how it's done, and this is all crazy-important," usually in denial about it being theater at all.
For my taste, the whole experience is too civil. Rock bands always run the risk of being booed off stage or otherwise dealing with an unreceptive crowd, whether or not through a fault of their own. It keeps them honest. But even the most blah classical performance is met with applause, half because people in the know do it as protocol, and half because those not in the know see everyone else doing it. It's terribly hard as an observer to tell whether a performance was actually any good when there's a standing ovation every night, usually spurned by fidgety audience members' desire to stretch their legs.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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