In sorting through my mail last evening, I came across the Sphinx spring newsletter, with a lovely photo of Sphinx founder Aaron Dworkin and his wife Afi Sadykhly Dworkin. I noticed with interest that Sphinx has honored Stanford Thompson, among others, with a Medal of Excellence. Stan was a graduate of the first class of Abreu Fellows from NEC, and is currently the Director of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s El Sistema-inspired program, Tune Up Philly. I also read a short description of the inaugural SphinxCon, a conference on diversity in the performing arts, held in February in Detroit.

Reading all their news reminded me of an article we published in 2009 – a shortened version of a speech that Aaron gave at the Chautauqua Foundation where he described his own upbringing and the path that brought him to found Sphinx 16 years ago.  This quote from his speech sums it up and hopefully will intrigue you enough to read the entire article:

People sometimes ask me why I care so much about diversity and why I have dedicated my life to pursuits that further that end. I have the easiest response to that question: ‘I am a black, white, Jewish, Irish Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness who plays the violin. I am the definition of diversity. I don’t have a choice but to do what I do.’

Please take a look at Aaron’s incredible story, and join me in congratulating him and Afi on the wonderful success Sphinx is experiencing.

The most recent release of International Musician, the official journal of the American Federation of Musicians, contains an article about carpal tunnel syndrome.  The article addresses causes of carpal tunnel, treatments that are available, and preventive measures specifically geared towards musicians.  Click here to read the article.

Half of the fun of watching Mad Men is observing how dramatically American society has changed since the 1960’s.  The characters’ constant drinking and homophobia make us blush, and we notice how far attitudes have shifted towards everything from smoking to sexism.  Our lives in America have changed so thoroughly since then that looking back just fifty years seems to be another age.

During those same fifty years, the audience for orchestras have trended towards the geriatric.  Industry leaders have felt little urgency towards appealing to the young — mostly due to an insidious industry myth that the population would “mature” into classical music fans.  It turns out that that idea was based on ignorance.  Ask any orchestra’s development department.

Appealing to the young is no longer optional for orchestras.  The fact is that Millennials are a really big deal, and orchestras must shift their focus to this younger generation.  For those of you playing at home, here is a Millennial named Colleen Dilenschneider succinctly laying down the facts:

Millennials – those roughly between the ages of 21 and 35 – represent the single largest generation in human history.  Come 2015, Millennials will have more buying power than Baby Boomers, and then this massive demographic will have a stronghold on the market for the following forty years at minimum.  Thanks in large part to the web and social media connectivity, we function and think very differently than the generations that came before us.  Nonprofit organizations that are not targeting this population right now in terms of building affinity and creating personal connections may find themselves suddenly irrelevant within the next decade.

Naturally, shifting priorities towards Millennials is a foundational transitional shift, and part of that shift must be managing the expectations of the current Boomer donors.  Current donors love for orchestras and symphonic music is important and valuable, and it is also important that orchestras continue to be strong institutions that can do their work into the future.  After all, the future audience has no advocate, and without that audience there is no future for orchestras in America.  Boomers need to be persuaded that they are giving to orchestras in order to secure the life and legacy of the institution — even if they don’t like the direction that symphonic music has taken in America.

The goal of reform is not as far off as it may seem because most new kinds of symphonic music are already covered in many orchestras existing mission statements.  In fact, many American orchestras do not use the term “classical” at all in their mission statements, and this is good news.  Limiting an orchestra’s mission to “classical” symphonic music stifles its future, and makes it that much more difficult to transition the organization towards relevance to this new generation of Americans.  After all, the market and the internet have already decided (like it or not) that video game music, film music, and Broadway are a large and growing part of what most people think of as “symphonic” music.  If orchestras want a Millennial audience, and their donations, then these genres need to be more a part of what an audience will hear in the concert hall, especially on regular subscription concerts.

Everyone needs classical musicians to embrace these developments, and college and conservatory orchestras can do a lot more to prepare players for the realities of the market.  At the moment, too many schools continue to prepare students as if they will graduate to play in orchestras from the 1950′s.  They are not only doing a disservice to their students, they are also contributing to the marginalization of orchestras by creating generations of musicians who do not yet speak the language of their own culture.

American orchestras can change their focus and have a say in their collective destiny, or they can do nothing and wait to see what the market brings — like in Minneapolis. These are very real trends, and whatever the outcome in Minneapolis, no amount of restructuring can save our orchestras if their focus and their artistic product continue to ignore the culture they inhabit.

The spring issue of Symphony magazine is now available online. As usual, the magazine contains a variety of interesting articles.

Chester Lane, Senior Editor at Symphony magazine, presents a fascinating article about the health and wellness programs springing up in orchestras. Many of these programs have been funded by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation (see my recent article about these grant awards). He features the Detroit Symphony’s participation in music therapy sessions at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, the Longwood Symphony in Boston who partner with local medical non-profits, the Cincinnati Symphony’s partnership with the Mercy Health system, the Pittsburgh Symphony’s program with 30 musicians visiting Children’s Hospital and the veteran’s hospital, the Knoxville Symphony’s performances at the UT Medical Center, St. Louis Symphony’s SymphonyCares program where musicians perform at the St. Louis University Cancer Center, and the Portland (Maine) Symphony’s partnership with New England Rehabilitation Hospital. Chester describes the genesis of each program, often acknowledging the contribution of a specific musician, such as Penny Brill in Pittsburgh, Sylvia Samis in Cincinnati, and Sean Claire in Knoxville. This is a wonderful article, describing a growing initiative in many orchestras that is energizing the musicians who participate.

Robert Sandla, Symphony Editor in Chief, presents an overview of the upcoming League Conference in St. Louis from June 18-20. (Reminder that any musician who plays in a League orchestra can attend the conference for free.) The theme of this year’s Conference is “Imagining 2023,” with sessions designed to explore the experimentation and innovation that is occurring throughout the industry. The keynote speaker, Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums, will explore the parallels for orchestras of how museums have transcended traditional boundaries to attract large numbers of patrons. Robert highlights a few sessions: the Orchestra Leadership Academy’s three-day “Basics of Collective Bargaining” seminar, presented in partnership with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service; Health and Wellness Programs: Learning from the Getty Orchestras; Building a Culture of Collaboration, exploring recent events with the St. Louis Symphony; “Check This Out” sessions, which are fast-paced TED-like presentations about new initiatives in many areas (audience development, outreach, artistic);  and of course the many constituent sessions. The St. Louis Symphony will present a concert at Powell Hall, directed by David Roberson, and the youth orchestra will perform at the opening plenary session.

Jesse Rosen, President and CEO of the League, conducts an extensive interview with Bo Young Lee, Global Diversity and Inclusion Leader at Marsh, Inc., about diversity and inclusion in the symphony orchestra. Ms. Lee quotes Andrés Tapia to define these two terms: “diversity is the mix, and inclusion is making that mix work.” Their conversation is wide-ranging, touching on the historical nature of classical music as a Eurocentric art form, the nature of cultural bias and the role of “cultural competency,” the differences between unconscious, conscious and collective bias, and how to find community partners. Ms. Lee, who will be leading a session at the League’s Conference in June, advised that orchestras should “lean into the discomfort of the diversity conversation.”

Doug McLennon, editor of ArtsJournal.com, writes about the League’s Institutional Vision Program, which ended this year. He states that orchestras are fundamentally changing in response to larger forces, and thus there is a great need to train leaders who can cope with this change. The League’s Institutional Vision Program, founded in 2000, brought board members, musicians and administrators together to define missions and come up with strategies. Orchestras were chosen competitively, with each proposing a project and goal. The faculty included Tom Morris, former President of the Cleveland Orchestra, Lowell Noteboom, former President of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and League Board President, and David Nygren, chair of BoardSource and a governance consultant. 34 orchestras participated in the program and included very small to very large organizations. He concludes with case studies about the Adrian Symphony in Michigan, the San Diego Youth Orchestra, and the Florida Orchestra in Tampa/St. Petersburg.

Jennifer Melick, Managing Editor at Symphony magazine, writes about large-scale music events that bring orchestra musicians and their community together in novel ways. She features the Toronto Symphony’s performance of Tod Machover’s full-length work, the Cincinnati Symphony’s “One City, One Symphony,” and the Berlin Philharmonic’s performance of Lisa Bielawa’s Airfield Broadcasts in May, with a repeat by the San Francisco Symphony in October.

Music critic Don Rosenberg writes about the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring — I recently wrote a blog post about his article.

Finally, Eileen Reynolds details the many, many summer festivals about to take place throughout the country.

After a season marred by a bitter contract dispute and a musician lockout, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra got some positive news Tuesday, May 7.The committee looking for a new president for the organization unanimously recommended the return of former SPCO president Bruce Coppock, who was president and managing director from 1999 to 2008. Coppock left the SPCO to battle a rare form of cancer he was diagnosed with in 2006

….A national leader among administrators of classical music organizations, during his tenure with the SPCO, Coppock saw wholesale changes in the way the orchestra operates, according to a Pioneer Press profile in 2008. Among the most visible changes was the SPCO’s decision, in 2003, to jettison the traditional role of music director in favor of a rotating group of “artistic partners.”

According to the SPCO, concert attendance increased to an all-time high, the annual fund increased by nearly 70 percent, the budget was balanced in all but one year (during the recession of 2003) and the endowment grew significantly during Coppock’s tenure. The SPCO currently faces a $900,000 deficit.

After Sarah Lutman, Coppock’s successor in 2008 (and, it turns out, predecessor as well) left to spend more time with her consulting career, I’m told the SPCO board made a conscious choice not to replace her until after the negotiations were over, apparently thinking that the replacement would have a better shot at success if he/she wasn’t tarred with the negative baggage engendered by what they expected to be a bad negotiation.

Coppock, however, is hardly untarred. For one thing, (and something  none of the articles mentioned) he is a member of the SPCO board. For another, at least one of the initiatives most identified with him – the reduction in ticket prices – was a specific target of the musicians in their public discussions of the ills of the organization. And it’s hard not to suspect that this appointment was in the works for a while before the settlement and before any meaningful consideration by the formal search committee that included musicians, which will probably not help much in the trust area either.

Nonetheless, it could be a very good choice. For one thing, the last thing the SPCO needs is more of the kind of “management” it’s gotten the last year; almost any change would be an improvement. For another, Coppock had a real record of achievement during his tenure in St. Paul; his departure in 2008 had nothing to do with his job performance. There’s no reason to suppose that he can’t be as effective going forwards as he was in the past. And, between being hired now, without a real search, and not needing to spend months getting up to speed, he gets a good year’s head start on fixing the SPCO compared to any other candidate.

And “other candidates” would have been in short supply. Unfortunately, the talent pool for orchestral CEOs is not very deep these days, if it ever was, and I suspect that most of the people of the caliber that the SPCO needs would not need more than a few seconds to decline an invitation to be considered for the CEO position, at least at this point in time.

So let’s hope it works out for all concerned. The SPCO has an interesting opportunity to take advantage of a certain void in the marketplace for orchestra performance in the Twin Cities, for obvious but unfortunate reasons. I can’t believe that Coppock hasn’t been thinking about how to leverage that.

My Editor’s Choice for this go-round is from 1997—sixteen years ago. Here’s a little background just to put it in context. Our website, Polyphonic.org is part of the Orchestra Musician Forum, that was created in 2004 when Paul R. Judy made a gift of the financial and intellectual assets of the Symphony Orchestra Institute to the Eastman School. The publication of the SOI was Harmony and you can find all the issues of that periodical here on Polyphonic. Harmony also published two research papers on topics of importance to orchestras. Improving the Orchestra’s Revenue Position: Practical Tactics and General Strategies by Arthur C. Brooks was the first.

So why read a sixteen year old paper that is based on twenty-two year old data. Well, the reader might see that the same problems exist today as in 1991, but we can learn from them. The Internet was around, but not in wide-spread use. If the reader substitutes the word “Internet” when Brooks speaks of broadcasting, recordings, CDs, VCRs and DVDs, some interesting ideas might spring forth. Go here to read it.

2013 is the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and 2013 will see more than 270 performances of this iconic work of the early 20th century.

Donald Rosenberg, long-time music critic and reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has written a fascinating article about the Rite in this month’s Symphony magazine. He begins with a description of the pandemonium that occurred at the premiere. To my surprise, he states that most of the commotion was because of Vaslav Nijinksy’s choreography, not the music. In fact, the noise from the audience obliterated the music for most attendees and left poor Nijinsky, “standing on a chair backstage, shouting counts to the dancers.”

Don showcases The Rite of Spring at 100 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has a season-long celebration of conferences and 11 commissioned instrumental and dance works based on the Rite.

He also discusses the complexity of the piece as perceived over the years. My favorite quote is from Stanislav Skrowaczewski, who recorded the piece with Minnesota in 1977:

As a boy, I wasn’t allowed in the mountains of Poland. The local place was inhabited by this sort of tribe. They had in the summer in the full moon absolutely incredible rites at night that I saw from far away. I don’t think they were drinking. But because of the rites, they were in another state of mind. It was dangerous, because they could kill you in this state of mind. They were in a sort of ecstasy that we sometimes get through music. The beginning of the second part always gives me a shiver.

The most interesting part of Don’s article, for me as an symphony musician,  are his interviews with five principal bassoonists with five major American orchestras, discussing the opening bassoon solo.

Two comments to begin with:

1. Camille Saint-Saëns is credited with saying, “If that is a bassoon, then I am a baboon!” but apparently he wasn’t at the premiere.
2. Don asserts that the opening bassoon theme is taken from a Lithuanian folk song — as one married to a Lithuanian steeped in his tradition, this was a shock to both of us!

Don’s interviews of five premiere bassoonists, discussing this legendary and oh-so-difficult solo, is really fun. I urge you to take a look at the article.

• Loren Glickman, a NY free-lancer who played on Stravinksy’s recording back in 1960, talks about the composer insisting that he play the solo completely straight, and how later bassoonists found his rendition boring.
• Judith LeClaire of the NY Philharmonic talks about how it must set up a mood — “etherial and mystical.”
• David McGill of the Chicago Symphony talks about the tradition of coming in from nothing, and states (to our amusement), “You’re not a Lithuanian folk singer or someone actually sitting in a forest playing a bamboo flute in the distance.” He goes on to say that one must evoke a primitive quality.
• Stephen Paulson of the San Francisco Symphony is concerned about the perfect vibrato of some of his colleagues playing this solo; he tries to “make a really beautiful thing but do more sparing things with the vibrato, maybe like a Baroque or jazz player.”
• Carl Nitchie of the Atlanta Symphony jokes that the opening solo has a bass drum accompaniment — his own heart beat!

Thanks to Don for a wonderful tribute to Stravinsky’s greatest work!

Polyphonic recently received a most interesting submission from composer Stephen Malinowski, who has created a graphical interpretation of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It’s hard to describe in words but fascinating to watch — a graphical interpretation in real time of the entire score, using various geometric forms over time — just go look at it! My orchestra (Hartford Symphony) is one of the 270 planning to perform the Rite this year (in early June), and I certainly intend to watch composer Malinowski’s video while watching my part, before my first rehearsal. I imagine, despite the many times I’ve played this work, it will give me an insight into a new dimension of understanding of a beloved piece.

Osmo Vänskä says he will resign as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra if the ensemble loses a prestigious engagement at New York’s Carnegie Hall because of the current musician lockout.

In a letter to board chairman Jon Campbell and chief executive Michael Henson, Vänskä said he believes the orchestra needs to be playing by late May or, at the very latest, early September to achieve the proficiency needed for the Carnegie appearance — which he called one of the most significant goals of his tenure.

“I must make it clear, that in the case Carnegie Hall chooses to cancel the Minnesota Orchestra’s concerts this November, i.e. if they lose confidence in our ability to perform … then I will be forced to resign,” Vänskä wrote.

While Vänskä didn’t explicitly place blame on either side, the MO board reacted as if they’d been bitten by the largest mosquito in Minnesota history:

Campbell said that when Vänskä signed a contract extension in 2009, he was given a heads-up that the business model was changing — in short, contract talks would be tough. Minnesota is one of many orchestras nationally that have been pinched financially.

“I’m disappointed because he agreed to the new business model and he’s in a way not really able to stick with the plan we all had,” Campbell said. “We’ve been pursuing a strategy to get serious negotiations going and I don’t think there’s anything in the letter that alters the plans we’re working on.”

2009, of course, was a year in which the orchestra reported a balanced budget, as well as two years before this:

In 2011, after choosing to balance its budget the previous two years, the board retained the public-relations firm Padilla Speer Beardsley to determine “what size of deficit to report publicly, between $2.9 million and $4.3 milion.”

It must be hard to keep all the stories straight. But Campbell’s calling Vänskä a dirty rat – in the nicest possible way of course, this being Minnesota – is a little unfair. Vänskä may have known about “the plan we all had,” or at least about the tough negotiations part, but I doubt very much that whatever he “agreed to” included shutting down the orchestra for a season, losing a bunch of the orchestra’s best musicians, and forfeiting any future Carnegie appearances. And I suspect that “agreement” was not really what the board asked for; “silence” is probably more accurate, hence the anger at his speaking out.

It can be hard to remember just how far outside the lines this “negotiation” has strayed. Orchestras have lost seasons before; it’s rare, but it’s happened. Orchestras have been locked out before, although I can’t bring to mind the last time it happened outside of the Twin Cities (oops – see below). And music directors have protested about what their board was doing in other places, although that’s just about as rare; slavish adherence to the Music Directors’ Code of Omertá is the norm (although fortunately the enthusiastic public support for institutional self-mutilation that Leonard Slatkin showed in Detroit is not).

But none of these things have ever happened to an orchestra like Minnesota. The Minnesota Orchestra was a paragon of institutional excellence for decades. It was not always the great orchestra it’s become, but in terms of governance and management it was right at the top of the class. To have an institution with that recent history of artistic and institutional excellence go through this kind of trench warfare is unprecedented in our industry.

I thought a few months ago that the Twin Lockouts posed an existential threat to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, but that it was beyond impossible that the Minnesota Orchestra wouldn’t somehow get through this board-imposed ordeal in one piece. I think it’s time to realize that this board may truly be capable of burning down the orchestra in order to save it with its “new business model” – killing it, not just as a great orchestra, but as any kind of orchestra.

At the end of the day, who can stop them?

 Correction and addendum:  I must have been trying to say that “orchestras have been locked out before this season, although I can’t bring any to mind… ” as of course both Atlanta and Indianapolis were locked out for several weeks in the fall of 2012. And I missed the point of my own post, which was that the lockouts are only a consequence of the real problem, which is the depth of the cuts being demanded by management. What’s unprecedented in Minnesota is the demand that the musicians of an orchestra that had been financially healthy for decades, and at the top of its game artistically for the past few years, give up all the real salary increases they’ve received since the early 1980s. Everything that’s happened since is simply a result of that demand.

On re-reading this post, I realized that I missed the single scariest line in the original article, which was this quote from the board chair:

We’ve been pursuing a strategy to get serious negotiations going and I don’t think there’s anything in the letter that alters the plans we’re working on.”

The musicians show no signs of caving, your shiny $50 million hall renovationl will open in July with no musicians, your place on the very select list of orchestras invited to play at Carnegie Hall is at risk, and the music director who has led the orchestra to international acclaim is threatening to leave – and none of this causes you to rethink what you’re doing?

On Monday, April 8, 2013, Yo-Yo Ma, along with former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum and Damian Woetzel, former principal dancer at New York City Ballet and the director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program, participated in the Americans for the Arts Summit in Washington DC, discussing the need to develop strong public policies for arts education.

Mr. Ma and Mr. Sorum played a jam session briefly for a gathering of legislators and arts advocates from across the country who planned to visit congressional offices. They performed with bagpiper Cristina Pato and dancing star Lil Buck. The Washington Post has an interesting article describing the event.

The intent of the gathering was to press Congress to restore funding to the NEA, and to push for funding for music education in public schools.

Mr. Ma gave the 2013 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy; you can read a complete transcript here. He was introduced by Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

You can also watch the entire event on YouTube. Yo-Yo Ma’s remarks begin at minute 48 in the video.