8/6/2019 Sad Evidence That is Causing Orchestral Panic

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A Maestro with aMission

3734 Haydon Court, Suite 201, Palm Harbor, FL 34685, USAwww.stephenpbrown.com

Sad evidence that is

causing orchestral panic.

There is no shortage of media coverage and industry melee regarding the US orchestral world'scurrent spiral into oblivion. Plentiful and sometimes massive conversations have been taking placeover the past couple of years regarding what to do about it. Stretched statistics have beenmanipulated and cajoled into suggesting reasons why the orchestra world is crumbling, but in allhonesty, most punters don't believe most of it. What I offer below is not a gripe, it is factualobservation. I'll try not to dress it too much but be assured that my deep concerns about theorchestra world (particularly in the USA) have been developing since my college days some twenty-cough-cough years ago.

Example #1:

Manufactured expectations. No-one quite knows actually how some leaders achieved their positionsin today's orchestra world, nor how (or why) they managed to secure several separate leadershippositions at the same time - particularly in my field, conducting. This is an awful self-indulgence andperhaps my second reason for beginning to warm to Sir Simon Rattle - I believe (could be wrong)he's only ever held one leadership position at a time. Someone much younger, more flamboyant, andless gifted than he, has three. However, in my mind, today sealed the nail in the coffin for the self-perpetuated elitism that has caused classical music to need discussions around its 'relevancy' (see theeloquent Stephen Fry's latest sensible contribution):

Back in December I invited 52 of the world's most prominent conductors to answer up to threequestions about conducting (taken from a pool of almost a thousand) that the general public asked

me last summer. I received one contribution - a disappointing 2% response rate but not unexpected.So I followed up and in February I asked 51 of those conductors what advice they might have for afirst-time orchestra concert attendee - I am very grateful for the four replies. Today a fifth responsecame from a very well-known, well-recorded, 'older generation' international star, one of whoseleadership responsibilities is in Russia. He took three months to consider and hand-write thisadvice/ answer that accompanied a signed photograph of himself (at least he responded, I guess):

"Can't think of anything at the moment. Sorry."

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And that, my dear interested and concerned readers, succinctly and accurately summarizes one ofthe main yet hitherto unspoken problems of the orchestral music industry as it operates today -despite the hype and lofty pretense, its primary leaders who are hand-held by the dominant systemof agents, managers and institutions, don't care.

There are exceptions. Consider Robert Spano of theAtlanta Symphony, and Nicholas Collon whohelped begin the forward-thinkingAurora Orchestra. But who's heard of either of conductor,outside the industry and their towns? They are not products of the media-genic marketed jet-setting idols of 'the establishment'. Another example of institutional forward-thinkers are thegovernors (many of whom happen to be the members of) the brilliant London SymphonyOrchestra.

Example #2:Pigeon holes: I can't stand them. Non-transferrable skills: they don't exist. In just about everyindustry in the USA, we love to place everything in a small... no, tiny box without a removable lid.

My dad experienced this narrow-mindedness in the80s when he worked in engineering and couldnot believe how each and every employee was chained to their specific job. People's job

descriptions, resumes and educational histories read almost identical and no-one with any experienceoutside that specific role or task to be performed was considered suitable or acceptable forinclusion/ promotion/ presentation/ responsibility. ARGH!

Tom Peters (see #20 on page 7 of this pdf) has been fighting this for years yet in the orchestraworld, and in most of Corporate America today, this approach is rife. People are not consideredpeople with experience and value - they are robots that are there to fulfill a task that's needed to beaccomplished. So sad. In the music world, someone who ventures outside the relevant box is nolonger considered suitable for that box and are all but written off. I'm deliberately being vague asthis is very close to home for both me and a poor, poor talented friend who's being shown therazor-sharp edge of the establishment's floss right now.

Cross-genre artists are nothing new.Wynton Marsalis did it. Evelyn Glennie did it. And NigelKennedygot so fed up with the establishment that he did it too and still enjoys the occasionalclassical gig... at his own choosing, not his manager's. Until the day that American decision-makersno longer confuse transferrable skills, cross-pollination, and variety with 'inexperience' and'inappropriate', people who are talented and gutsy enough to experience things outside the tight-roperealm of a single career are doomed. Unfortunately for the decision-makers, that very approach istaking them down the road of extinction. But of course, they are too busy, too blind, too self-righteous, too politically-astute for anyone to confront them, or for them to fail. Did the dodos seetheir own demise coming? I think not. Instead, they just wondered why predators kept taking away

their friends and probably gobbled a lot regarding what to do about it. How does this apply to theorchestra world?

Managements, agents and unions in the US all have super nova size opinions about how thingsshould be done, but those perspectives are so 20th century it is truly scary. And it's getting worse:how many conductors have you come across that are labeled as and seem to do nothing but 'pops'concerts, or 'childrens' concerts, or is a 'youth orchestra' conductor, and so forth. Once in a box...

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Of course, no missive is complete without something to replace what it challenges, so what do Ihave to offer? Well, I've come across few experienced people (many already listed above) who havesome very good ideas and a platform from which to action them. But as they challenge the familiar,it-worked-in-the-past, limited-risk established expectations, these folk are often left out in the rain toplant their own crops amongst the rocks. A handful seem to be harvesting: check outJeffrey

Kahane, andJohn Axelrod, and Ben Zander and Toronto Symphony Orchestra for starters, as wellas the cross-genre folk above and Stingand Bjork, too.

Yes, there is a lot to be done but changing what we're doing won't cut it - we must bring acompletely fresh perspective to the entire classical-music-sharing process - and that includes theCEO to the stage sweeper to the teacher to the media to the musicians themselves. No, it is notgood enough to bypass an entire thinking generation and replace the old infirm conductors withyoung inexperienced yesmen. No, it is not enough to consider how to replace lost funding. No, it isnot good enough to treat music (creativity) as a luxury that can be swept out of young peoples' lives.It is IMPERATIVE, dammit, to bring common sense to a society much too over-regulated andweed out the wishy-washy talkers still thinking it's OK to change/ alter/ refocus/ redfine and not

care what the payers experience as long as they keep paying. Guess what - fewer are paying, andrightly so.

I've been told I'm too brash for comfort, promotion and leadership. Those decision-makers shouldread the almost-out-of-date bookReimagine! coz they'll soon realize just how far out of touch theyare. It's shakers that are needed, not followers. Mind you, they probablywon't realize it: toparaphrase Dr. David A. Dunning: "The incompetent don't know they are incompetent, yet aresupremely more confident than those who are fully competent."