An Outbreak of Idiocy at the Kimmel Center

There are certain things that I am fated never to understand. I will likely go to my grave with an insufficient understanding of the Icelandic sagas, and the language of Wales will forever be a mystery to me. Similarly, I will never understand the way orchestra management is said to "think."

The Philadelphia Orchestra is without doubt one of the finest symphony orchestras in North America and, arguably, the world. It has had more than its fair share of turbulence lately, but the administrative tumult has had little effect on the capacity of the orchestra to make magnificent music on a regular basis. Next season will be the first with Charles Dutoit as chief conductor and artistic advisor.

According to a recent article in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the orchestra "...has redesigned subscription packages and even the musical content itself, to cater to its various distinct constituencies." I needed to read that twice to make sure that The Inquirer was talking about an orchestra and not a Chicago ward boss.

Audiences, apparently, are now subjected to the same analysis used to explain political events in the Balkans. This is akin to saying "The Serbs want to hear Tchaikovsky, the Croats want Brahms, the Kosovars Aaron Copland, and the Bulgarians anything by a Canadian or a Finn."

The traditional manner of programming orchestral concerts has involved giving audiences a balanced diet of mixed cuisine. John Adams' The Chairman Dances appears on a program with a Mozart Piano Concerto and perhaps a Rachmaninoff symphony. A large, gaudy Vaughan-Williams work follows a Rossini overture and it in turn is followed by a Haydn Symphony. The general rule seems to be that giving the audience what it wants must be balanced in some respects by a desire to give the audience music that it needs to hear. You "sugar coat" the pill of Schnittke's music (widely deemed box office poison) by surrounding it with something comfortable and familiar -- like Brahms, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.

The mighty Philadelphians, however, have heard the Siren Song of the consultants and have decided to go in a new direction. So one of America's most storied orchestras is now offering, in addition to the traditional subscription plans, a whole host of options. One can opt for the "Masterworks" series, described by The Inquirer as "warhorses" with the music "prefaced with spoken explanations from the stage" - presumably for those too lazy to read the program notes. The "Connoisseur" series is "the traditional night at the orchestra" without the spoken commentary. (As though tarting it up with a French name is going to make it a hotter commodity.) The "Odyssey" series is said to be "...a bit more adventurous, with live-image projections of the onstage action and postlude recitals after the concerts". Finally, there is the option of the "Celebration" series which has "...Saturday night gatherings with other listeners and musicians, along with live-image projections and spoke introductions."

Good grief. The whole concept of "live-image" projections fills me with the utmost dread. I attended one -- and only one -- concert in my entire life with "live image projections" and I found it repulsive. It is difficult to concentrate on the music -- which as I recall is supposed to be the whole point -- when looking at a massive screen showing a close up of the conductor perspiring freely or a similarly tight shot of the tube player looking as though he is about to pop his carotid artery. Somehow a basic concept has been lost: Anything that takes the focus off the music is a bad idea. Full stop.

And the notion that you cannot "sell" a subscription without a series of parties attached smells of desperation. How my understanding or appreciation of the music is to be enhanced by boozing it up pre- or post-performance with the oboe player is beyond me. And in terms of "spoken explanations from the stage", the obvious question is "Who is doing the explaining?" Conductors tend to be magnificent musicians and average orators, and planting the program annotator on the stage to provide a recapitulation of his/her program notes seems pointless. Or perhaps an actor will be engaged to portray Shostakovich.

It is axiomatic that the folks responsible for putting patrons in the seats will occasionally feel that they need to "sell the sizzle and not the steak" -- which is perfectly fine if you are selling an inferior grade of steak. But this is the Philadelphia Orchestra for heaven's sake!

The way to build a subscription audience - the backbone of any orchestra's survival - is not to Balkanize it. You make going to a concert an integral part of the audience member's life by providing a first class musical evening, intelligent programming, and by presenting guest artists that the audience wants to hear. Anything less cheats the audience and cheapens what should be the uplifting nature of the experience.

Comments

[snazzy]

Actually, this appears to be an innovative and practical solution in accommodating the different expectations and tastes of distinct audiences. If you don't like augmented performances with conductor comments or visual enhancements you can go to a pure concert series. If you like unususal works you can find a package that provides them. And if you want warhorses you can pick those.

The suggestion that great works performed by great artists will fill concert halls has been completely refuted by the less than capacity audiences for the top 10 orchestras during the past decade.

The subscription premise has always been that you pick a day of the week, and get whatever it is that happens to be programmed on that day.

Isn't this a significantly more personalized approach to meeting the needs of music lovers with different tastes?

And of course you can forgo any of this customized packaging, and purchase a conventional subscription or single tickets to the concerts of your choosing.

While Orchestra managers and even orchestra audiences are often labeled cretins by music snobs, this particular plan seems to make good sense both business-wise and artistically.

[StephenSmoliar]

Whatever my feelings about our abuse of the verb "innovate," I suspect that the management of any performing arts organizations recognizes innovation as a survival strategy. The fact that the Philadelphia Orchestra is trying this at all is a good thing. For an extended comparison of this with some of the strategies in San Francisco, see

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/02/paying-attention-to-audience.html

[tompoe]

Decentralized broadband infrastructure looks like our telecommunications network for phones, today. When completed, and used by everyone, you'll be able to bring your concert experience into your home, your neighborhood, your community, and you'll select from a list of concerts from around the world. Life will be better. Of course, the telcos and cablecos want to control that, and hate the idea of decentralized broadband, so they hide it from you. They distract you with attempts to legislate decentralized broadband out of existence before it even appears. You might want to start designing your digital entertainment center now. Might be downright exciting. Visit your orchestra and learn more about what they are planning in the Digital Age.