Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Dead Orchestras
Orchestras are a luxury these days. They are expensive, unwieldy, untenable through ticket sales, and appeal to a limited audience. I suspect the answer is not “educating” a new audience (not that such efforts aren’t necessary), but instead lie in examining, from the ground up, what role an orchestra concert serves, and what the modes of presentation are. The orchestra will never die, but it needs to be reconsidered.
This isn’t he first time the mighty orchestral machine, and the economic engines that drive it, have contracted rather than expanded: Neo-classic music arose, in part, because of the economic devastations of World War I, and composers wisely looked to other more economically viable avenues to explore.
I think, then, that the last item of David Toub’s post was the most important: New ways of presentation, not only for orchestras, but also for art music in general are essential. In these days of MTV and movies, the old paradigm of “walk on, bow, present high art to enlighten the people, applause, bow, walk out” has become outdated. While it will always be useful and recitals will always be with us, shouldn’t we look for ways to include the audience in the context of the performance? Minimal staging, spatial thinking, a sense of narrative and drama, lighting, and any number of other options can greatly increase audience enjoyment, particularly of new works that aren’t tried and true favorites. Witness the success of MTV or the power of opera and ballet.
My string quartet was choreographed and danced recently with the quartet playing live onstage. The audience was packed with people you couldn’t ordinarily drag to a classical concert, let alone a new music concert, and they were enthusiastic to say the least about the whole experience. The resulting video was made into a work of art itself, and serves as one of my proudest moments for a piece that’s more than ten years old.
I’m convinced. Interdisciplinary applications and ideas apply to more than scholarship and research. If we really want to reach people, and I think most composers do, then we need to apply a twenty-first century vision to making music in our time, rather than relying solely on the same old traditions.
posted by Cary Boyce
5:39 PM
|
