Make it a happy hour! 02/20/2010

It happened again.  I was in the break room and one of my co-workers said that her son and daughter in law had scored free tickets to the symphony last weekend.  I got excited.  It was a great concert.  Karen Gomyo played the freaking daylights out of the Sibelius Concerto in D minor and Stravinsky’s Petrouchka Symphony was tight!  Containing my excitement I asked how they liked it. 

“I think they liked it.  They did think it was a little long and they got uncomfortable.” 
 Yeah, I think to myself,  I hate those damn chairs too but I suffer for the chance to hear the good stuff—live!

The main point is simply that most audiences are feeling physical pain after an hour of concentrated quiet attention.  Especially audiences over the age of 50. (Which is most of them)  My co-worker’s son had no excuse.  He isn’t even 40 yet! 

Most concerts are too long for 21st century audiences. We live in a 20 minute sit-com world.  Give listeners a little and they’ll want to come back for more. Oversaturate them, test their limits and the experience becomes a grueling marathon of music they can’t appreciate anymore.  Audiences can become mentally exhausted, even with a short intermission between halves. 

Of course shorter concerts would completely upset the musicians union.  Contracts are contracts.  My answer to that is shorten the concerts and extend the educational outreach then pay the musicians the same.  They don’t lose hours, the hours are just spread differently.  The other option is program shorter concerts but program more of them.  Every weekend? (DON’T SHOOT!)

In last weekends  performance, the first piece, Finlandia by Sibelius wasn’t even necessary.  It isn’t a long piece but it extended the concert just enough to make it feel long.  One piece per half is plenty. Audiences can wrap their minds around the music, really focus on it.  I often hear one piece per concert that just isn’t up to snuff- like it wasn’t rehearsed enough and got tossed on the program to lengthen it.  I say, leave it off.  Don’t take a chance and disappoint the listeners.

I recommend either two shorter halves or one long concert with no intermission.  If some stretching needs to happen, have the conductor address the audience and give some verbal program notes.  

Heck. since I’m dreaming how about this…get the night started right after work with  a pre-concert “happy hour” of appetizers and drinks in the lobby from 5-6 pm, the concert from 6:30 to 7:30  with NO intermission and time at the end for the encore and still have time for a decent dinner.  I’d still pay the same $ for a ticket.  People who work Downtown would just walk to the hall and not have to kill so much time.

I wonder if
1.  More older kids,teenagers and young adults would attend?
2.  Elder patrons would “feel” better?
3.  Patrons would leave  refreshed and exhilarated with a “I can’t wait for the next concert” attitude?

A really naughty orchestra could even close the concert with a mini-”cliffhanger”.  Let them preview the next concert by playing a 1 or 2 minute bit and not resolving the final chord.  (Come back to find out how it ends.)

I guess the main point for me (as blasphemous as this will sound to aficionados) is for orchestras to enable audiences to make art music a natural and fun extension of their lives by getting started earlier and programing one less piece.  Good music should be accessible to everyone not just those stoic individuals with the ability to sit motionless for 2 and 1/2 hours. 

NOTE TO READER:  You may now rip my argument to shreds by posting  your comment.

Noble acts of choral beauty 02/08/2010

Weston Noble lives up to his name. An elegant man in his late 80’s, he exudes a sense of warmth and humble grace. An American patriot, Noble saw action as a tank driver during WWII and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. As music director of the Luther College Nordic Choir he built its international reputation for choral excellence. As a humanitarian, Weston Noble generously gave his time and talent last weekend to guest conduct a sing-a-long of choral classics to raise money for a noble cause, The Arts in Prison.

Started by visionary musician Elvera Voth, the Arts in Prison program helps incarcerated men find a new “voice”. After retiring from an illustrious choral conducting and teaching career in Alaska, Voth moved to Kansas City. Eager to engage musically, again, she approached the Lansing Correctional Facility and founded the East Hills Singers. “The men were so happy to have something to do.” Voth says, “That’s one of the saddest things about our penal system.” The choir combines the voices of inmates with volunteer singers as a way to help them reconnect to society in a soul fulfilling way.

In 1998 Ms. Voth invited her dear friend and internationally acclaimed choral conductor Robert Shaw to lead a community sing-along event in Newton Kansas to raise money for an expanded project incorporating all of the arts. It was his last out of town performance before his death and the proceeds raised from this momentous occasion established the Arts in Prison Program.

The event, Saturday at Yardley hall, was modeled after the Newton sing-along and used the same program. The song books even included Robert Shaws performance notes. It began with a workshop with Weston Noble from 1-3:00 pm and ended with a concert at 4:00 pm. Members of the Kansas City Chorale, the Kansas City Symphony Chorus, Shawnee Mission North High School and Lawrence High School along with other interested singers from around the metro participated in the workshop. Weston Noble expressed the importance of music’s uplifting and transformational power and emphasized the mind body connection required for good singing.

The performance event began with a rousing rendition of the famous hymn Old Hundred followed by the ever popular Ave Verum by Mozart. He, Watching over Israel from Mendelssohn’s Elijah was particularly moving. After a tricky start the Renaissance masterpiece, O Vos Omnes by Victoria warmed the audience.

The East Hills Singers took the stage in blue button down prison uniforms and dungarees. A combined chorus of volunteers and inmates, they sang with dynamically with discipline and passion. Their first piece, Holy, Holy, Holy, conducted by Elvera Voth, was so sensitively sung that it was hard not to cry. The highly esteemed Kirk Carson, the group’s current conductor, took the podium for a moving piece called The Awakening by Joseph M.Martin. The accompaniment was expressively played by Jolynn Cotton.

Bach’s Dona Nobis Pacem from the Mass in B minor was conducted by the highly esteemed Maestro Bruffy. His uncanny ability to charm the socks off of audiences with his humorous rambling is something to behold. The glorious How Lovely is thy Dwelling Place was followed by a rollicking rendition of A Mighty Fortress is our God. The choirs seemed very secure in the sure hands of Weston Noble. After the Halleluiah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, the angels must have smiled.

Arts in Prison Executive Director may have summed up the afternoon perfectly. Standing on the proscenium between the chorus on stage and the singers in the audience she liked the experience to “what heaven must sound like.” For an avid choral singer, getting the opportunity to sing some of the finest literature in the repertoire with great conductors, in a fantastic venue with full orchestra is an experience to treasure. When the cost of the ticket goes to support a noble cause, the benefits are heavenly.

Tribes 02/06/2010

I just watched a 17 minute motivational TED presentation.  The speaker challenges everyone in the room to start a “movement” in the next 24 hours.  The audience chuckled but they understood what he was driving at. People have a genetic need to associate and identify with groups that have the same values, interests and outlook-even if they just “look” like they belong.  With one handly little four step process, according to the video, anyone can start a movement, they just need to rally a tribe.

I realized after watching all four seasons of 30 Rock on netflix one lost weekend, that I am in the Liz Lemon-type of women who wears sensible shoes and have blah brown hair and read BUST.  I proudly identify with her along with thousands of other women.  We are a tribe.

But isn’t being in a “tribe” another way to stereotype?  By labeling the different “tribes” aren’t advertisers just trying to “micro-market?”

I wonder about this as I consider how our cultural organizations can continue to subsist.  What will it take to bring people back to the concert hall?  A nicer concert hall?  A dynamic conductor?  A 360 degree experience that involves the audience inside and out? Idntifying with other similarly interested tribespeople?

Tribes aren’t always the most functional organizations.  Like a big  family, there might be animosity and jealousy.  And doesn’t familiarity breed contempt? 

I don’t know if I agree with the video but it sure sounds good when a bald intellectual with an entertaining power point says it.

Classical Music enthusiasts UNITE!