September, 2011

  1. Inquiry, Conversation and Curiosity

    Steven Winn, arts journalist and critic, will be co-moderating our live events in San Francisco. In this post, he explores the nature of this under-taking and summarizes the American Orchestra Forum’s ultimate goal. “It’s not settled answers we’re after, but questions, even unsettling ones, that lead to more inquiry, conversation and curiosity. And then lead us back, when the talking ends, to the music.”

    Any performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 is a major communal undertaking. Ninety-five minutes of music (with no intermission), ranging from the raucous to the sublime, that requires a massive orchestral ensemble, a women’s chorus, a girl’s chorus and a vocal soloist. Not to mention an audience willing and ready to come along for the long and twisting ride. It may take a village to raise a child, but you need good-sized city to pull off Mahler’s Third and make it work.

    I happened to sit a whole closer to the stage than I normally do on Sept. 21, when Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the San Francisco Symphony’s first Mahler 3 in nine years. From my fifth row orchestra seat the marvel of all those musicians (and listeners) pulling together seemed more marvelous – and unlikely – than ever. Things that meld, aurally and visually from a distance, are riskier, more combustive and febrile up close. (more…)

    Topic: Community | Tags: , ,
    September 28, 2011 by Beth Hondl | Comments (0)

  2. Audiences of the 21st Century

    In this post, Steven Winn — arts journalist, critic and co-moderator of our live events in San Francisco — explores some of the questions we’ll be asking as part of the American Orchestra Forum.

    Try talking about this topic without mentioning technology in the first 30 seconds. Then try saying something meaningful about where that’s taking us. Since no one saw Facebook or Twitter coming, no one knows what’s coming – or going away – next. Measure by measure commentary streaming along with a concert? Synesthesia devices that translate music into images? Electronics that become so sophisticated and life-like that concert halls go the way of single-screen move theaters?

    The rise of a visual culture, and the change in the way people relate to the printed word, does seem worth musing on. Will music making, as MTT is exploring in Miami, become more of a visual experience over time? Less mediated or explicated by prose? Will audiences become more active listeners, shaping and guiding what gets played and how they experience it? Will they become more autonomous and less likely to gather for a concert at a set time and remain in their assigned seats in an auditorium for two hours? Or will they crave that very thing in a micro-segmented world?

    Topic: Audience | Tags:
    September 28, 2011 by Beth Hondl | Comments (1)

  3. Creativity in the iPod Age

    What’s on your iPod? We know it’s not just the classical warhorses. Here Steven Winn — arts journalist, critic and co-moderator of our live events in San Francisco — poses some of the questions we’ll be asking about creativity as part of the American Orchestra Forum.

    For most orchestra patrons, “tradition” means music they know (or that sounds familiar) and “innovation” is music they don’t. Is the 20th century still the great dividing line? If so why?

    Has the iPod Age, where Rachmaninoff and rap can live side by side inside anyone’s ear buds, made the boundaries between “popular” and “classical” obsolete? Has music become so completely portable, pervasive, fragmented and fungible that we actually hear differently now? If Google is making us stupid, or at least changing the way we think (or don’t), as some cultural critics claim, have we become different kinds of listeners as well? Is Mahler just too long for our short attention spans? Or is that exactly what we need because of it?

    Might the punchier popular forms begin to influence the kind of music that composers write? Are they thinking more about venues like nightclubs and alternative spaces where the music might be performed (and received in a different way, by people who might be drinking and talking)? Do composers think about (and “use”) popular forms the way Gershwin or Milhaud did? How has irony and culture of coolness changed the temperature for contemporary composers?

    Topic: Creativity | Tags:
    September 27, 2011 by Beth Hondl | Comments (1)

  4. What is Community?

    Community. Admittedly a broad topic. Here Steven Winn — arts journalist, critic and co-moderator of our live events in San Francisco — poses some of the questions we’ll be asking as part of the American Orchestra Forum.

    From museum shows to publishing to Hollywood, the boom-or-bust blockbuster mentality has taken hold. Everyone wants to make the Big Impact and be the thing of the moment. But as many museums have discovered, overemphasizing the big special event (a major touring show) can create artificial expectations, attract one-time visitors who rarely return and detract from the core identity of the museum and its collection. Do orchestras run that risk by leaning too hard on special festivals, blow-out galas, anniversaries and noisy marketing strategies? How can an organization sustain its appeal and centrality over the long season and the long haul, with its inevitable ups and downs?

    Everyone probably agrees that education and cross-cultural outreach are the right things to do. But a lot of right things can feel like so much obligatory spinach. How can orchestras pursue their commitments in ways that refresh and reinvigorate the institution and the community? Is special programming, aimed at particular populations, the right approach? More music performed in neighborhoods, community centers, churches, schools? Should an education program be centered on the live experience for as many young listeners as possible? Does media (electronic, social, etc.) provide a more effective tool?

    Topic: Community | Tags:
    September 13, 2011 by admin | Comments (1)