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Presentation can make art much more palatable
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Akron Beacon Journal, Presentation can make art much more palatable >>
By Elaine Guregian
The cathedral setting was breathtaking, the music-making divine. But the first thing I wanted to say to my companion as we left the concert was, ``What's a kemence and what's a kanun?''
Well, that's what I would have asked if I had known how to pronounce the words.
This concert at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City was a musical delight, but those of us who weren't specialists could have used an audience advocate. The business term might be value-added programming: extras used to keep and expand audiences. Classical music organizations of all sizes are chasing these strategies, because executed well, add-ons can have a huge payoff. Sometimes they can mean the difference between a customer who wants to come back and one who is turned off.
In this case, the King's Singers, a renowned group that performs in the English choral tradition, was collaborating with a Turkish instrumental ensemble called Sarband in a concert sponsored by Lincoln Center. They had an impressive goal: showing how Jews, Christians and Muslims have all made music inspired by the same psalms. The audience was given program notes and translated texts.
When the program began, the musicians simply sat down and started playing, without any explanation of instruments that likely were unfamiliar to many in the audience. One piece was played after another, without any breaks, and with Middle Eastern and Western styles mixed. Seventy-five minutes later, the concert was over and those of us who began outside the loop stayed there.
Judging from the applause at the end, the performance appealed to people who already knew the world of English cathedral choirs or traditional Turkish music-making. The beauty and expertise of the performances were obvious. But the presenter missed a chance to win over a lot more of us. The experience made me wonder how many audience members have this left-out feeling at other classical concerts. What can be done to put people more at ease and make them more receptive to what they're going to hear, without dumbing down the whole enterprise?
I've been thinking about all of this because of attending the National Endowment for the Arts Institute in Classical Music and Opera at Columbia University in New York City. For 11 days, 23 other participants and I, selected from across the United States, had a chance to hear concerts by groups, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera, as well as to talk to administrators at major organizations.
The need to find fresh programming ideas cuts across groups of every size. One of the questions I've thought the Akron Symphony should be asking its candidates for music director is how they intend to produce concerts that will wake up, enlighten and delight listeners.
George Rosin, the head of the orchestra's search committee, said earlier this week that the candidates so far have brought up these ideas themselves. The smell of relevance is in the air.
In fact, Rosin said he's come to believe the orchestra's primary goals should be making the orchestra relevant to the community, and finding what he calls a brand identity for the Akron Symphony.
Decided focus
Even a group like the Cleveland Orchestra, known first of all for its world-class quality, is hard pressed to go about business as usual. During my time at the New York institute, one of the performances I heard was by the Clevelanders, playing at Carnegie Hall before their European tour. Because you can see so many possible styles of presentations side by side in New York, I found myself thinking about what Cleveland's style communicated to audiences.
The concert was significant for including the New York premiere of a new piece by the Chinese-born composer Chen Yi. This new piece, called Si Ji (Four Seasons) was the second in the orchestra's Roche commissions, held in conjunction with the Lucerne Festival. To me, the New York premiere seemed like the chance to create a festive occasion. Si Ji is a gorgeous piece that showed off the orchestra beautifully, but it was presented in a matter-of-fact way, between two well-known works by Brahms.
Since the composer said four traditional Chinese poems had inspired Si Ji, I wondered if any thought had been given to preceding her piece with Chinese folk music, or maybe with a reading of those poems. Something to help welcome the audience into the music.
Reached in Vienna, where he was with the orchestra on its tour, artistic administrator Peter Czornyj said no to the folk music idea.
``In a certain framework, that might be quite revealing and quite fascinating,'' he said, adding, ``Chen Yi's piece is a strong integration of Eastern elements into a Western idiom. We thought it might have been misleading to dwell too much on these (Eastern elements). It never occurred to us to highlight the Chinese, East Asian elements, but (instead) to accept the work and support the work as a very strong statement of her own strong personality.''
What about having someone read the poetry aloud before the piece was played?
At a pre-concert lecture, great idea. Not at a concert, Czornyj said. ``It detracts from the musical continuity, the integrity of the event. It can easily become... almost dogmatic in its educational side,'' he said. ``I find it very tricky, very risky to get the balance just right, where you're pointing your finger at things and being very dogmatic.''
I can absolutely see Czornyj's point. I agree it's really hard to find this balance between explaining and diverting attention from the music itself. (Which begs the question: which is more interesting, the music alone or in context?) At the same time, this attitude has kept Cleveland on a conservative path that is starting to seem like a lonely road.
I don't mean to pick on Cleveland, where I have had years of amazing musical experiences. It's just that in today's market, I can't ignore what seems like a disconnect between the orchestra's wish to be dignified and the adventurous new music it plays. For example, I think the orchestra misses a chance to attract first-time, open-minded listeners when a new piece is on the program and the orchestra's ads only talk about the most familiar pieces. (The orchestra's choice of new music is a topic for another day.)
But get this: Even the Cleveland Orchestra is considering changing the way it presents a selected number of its programs.
It's too early to give specifics, Czornyj said, but the orchestra is exploring ``ideas of how to prepare audiences for the musical performances they're about to hear with some ideas of interaction with visiting soloists, conductors and possibly composers.'' Sounds intriguing.
Try demonstrations
Here's how another group handles the audience warm-up issue.
During my New York trip, I saw the conductor Marin Alsop expertly talk to the audience and then lead the New York Philharmonic in a few excerpts -- for example, demonstrating a ``weeping'' motive in the strings -- to introduce a piece about witch trials by the contemporary Scottish composer James MacMillan. The demonstrations pulled me into the music, because the conductor (the music director-designate of the Baltimore Symphony and recipient of a MacArthur ``genius'' grant) was articulate, quick, and not condescending.
During the institute, it was often inspiring to hear how the leaders of New York music organizations view their customers. We heard the heads of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, famous for its cutting-edge work, speak of leading their audiences with vision. (The unspoken opposite? Trying to deliver what they guessed audiences wanted.) And we heard about a commitment to producing events that make an impact, rather than simply producing more events, at Lincoln Center, the world's largest performing arts complex.
At one unforgettable Lincoln Center event, I felt like the audience had been invited into a string trio's living room. This was a hybrid I haven't come across in Northeast Ohio; the term ``lecture-demonstration'' sounds way too stuffy. The animated performers -- Ida Kavafian, violin; Fred Sherry, cello; Anne-Marie McDermott, piano, playing bits of Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67 -- kept speaking up and almost, but not quite, stealing the show from its engaging, audience-savvy speaker, Bruce Adolphe.
The event was carefully planned but not pre-packaged, and the musicians acted as if they were getting something out of it, too. The performers seemed to assume that their audience was an intelligent group, eager and able to pick up whatever it offered. I learned a few things without feeling I had been lectured to, and I've never laughed so much at a classical music event.
Finally, back to the psalms program with the mysterious Turkish folk instruments. The scholarly pre-concert lecture on psalms (which I attended) didn't have much connection to the concert. A quick, informal identification and demonstration of the unfamiliar instruments at the beginning might have worked better to clue in listeners and help us sort out what we were about to hear.
While we're at it, it would have been great if, during this 75-minute, intermissionless program, someone had spoken from the stage here and there, watching out for listeners who had gotten lost in the welter of foreign languages and ancient performing styles. If you've ever lost your place in a concert program, you know what I mean.
Lost is the last place that smart concert presenters and producers want their customers to be. 11/06/05
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