How do you measure success?

If one were to only consider the metrics of presenting and producing an event of contemporary music in the current cultural climate, one would think that the number of warm bodies in the audience is the most important measurement to review.  Make no mistake, audience turnout is a factor, the reception of the performers important, and revenue from ticket sales ideally should be at least adequate enough to cover basic expenses.  But there is much more to think about, including our own personal integrity as artists.

I would like to express a less held opinion about what makes a great new music event.  Metrics does not tell the whole story, at least in the arts.  Some of the most memorable (and culturally significant) concerts I’ve attended over the decades were not necessarily crowd-pleasers or standing-room only events.  Success in the arts is not always measured by outcomes expressed numerically.

It seems to me that a number of arts organizations today have given in too easily to the cult of metrics as a measurement of performance, opting for quantitative rather than qualitative analysis.  While new music ensembles are searching for new works that draw in the crowds, I have grown quite disappointed in the quality of some of the music presented in recent years.  And while this is admittedly a subjective opinion coming from someone who happens to be an opinionated and biased composer, I’d like to objectify my views here if possible.

Here are just two examples of bothersome trends that have emerged…

1) There is an annoying tendency to make new classical music palatable and hip by bashing the tradition it evolved out of.  The trend has become so pervasive that both talent and arts organizations have gone to the extreme of rejecting their own product (and core values) as toxic.  A case in point is that some ensembles are now leaning toward exclusively performing music drawn from the traditions of folk, rock, pop, jazz and world-music. This method of approach is typical of an overall populist movement aimed at diminishing the rich tradition and history of European classical music in exchange for a quick and transitory nod of approval from the general public. Not only is this a tactic that will not work in the long term, it’s simply a mistake to think it will become a viable trend for music ensembles and orchestras that have a core repertory and history.  Vernacular and folk music can stand on its own, and it always has.

2) Another silly fad that humors me is the notion that whatever comes from New York City is representative of the pinnacle of arts and culture.  Speaking as a former New Yorker, this is simply a myth.  In fact, I’ve discovered there is much talent in the local community, and it is too often over-looked.  Frankly, as someone who has attended concert venues all over the world in major cities and local villages, I find that locally-grown vegetables and talent is usually the most nourishing.  The risk is that smaller communities have an inclination to be self-conscious and provincial, and as a result over-compensate by importing “big name” talent in the hopes of feeling world-class.  I would hope that most communities harbor a sophisticated audience and that they can be trusted to make a distinction between what is simply new and interesting versus what arts-administrators and curators tell them they should like.  I don’t care for the recommendations of self-appointed, self-proclaimed, professional cultural-filters.  I prefer my arts raw and uncooked.

In general I find myself becoming more dissatisfied with the quality of the product itself at new music concerts – not the idea of a new music event per se - but dissatisfaction with pieces that seem to be simplistic and shallow compositionally.  Increasingly I come away with an impression that most of the works are similar - utilizing the same palette of pretty sounds and toe-tapping rhythms rather than an emphasis on the more abstract attributes of structure, form, pitch-organization, and fresh ideas.

An example of what I would call a success story is exemplified by a number of seasons recently etched into the noble history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  For the first years in which James Levine was BSO Music Director (starting in 2005), he commissioned works that may have caused heartburn for a few BSO’s artistic administrators.  His commissions included challenging but important works by “modernist” composers Elliott Carter, Charles Wuorinen, and Milton Babbitt, just to name a few.  Levine also explored the rich repertory of 20^th century works heard less often today, such as a concert version of Schoenberg’s 12-tone opera Moses und Aron.  His programming was adventurous and courageous, while at the same time unabashedly challenging for audiences.  Yet, his legacy with the BSO and the history that was made during Levine’s tenure is unquestionable.  The music he selected wasn’t always popular, but audiences bought tickets, came to Symphony Hall, and they listened.

Another example of an artistic success story stems from the period 1971-77 when Pierre Boulez was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic.  It is hard to describe the excitement his presence brought to the cultural life of NYC during those years.  I witnessed it firsthand.  Not only did he challenge his audiences, but he angered and alienated the old-guard establishment – including the classical music critics of the NY Times (e.g. Harold C. Schoenberg).  Yet, Boulez forged ahead with an intensity and conviction about his art that we seldom observe today. His impressive legacy with the NY Philharmonic is something that will live on.  Time has proved him right, and any misgivings about his programming, empty seats in Philharmonic Hall, or bad concert reviews that occurred during his tenure are now but a mere footnote in history.

There is good news.  Without a doubt, the level of musicianship and performance in the musical field today has skyrocketed over the past decades – both qualitatively and quantitatively.  Performance standards have improved significantly.  But with more options for the public there is also more competition for the ears, hearts, and minds of intelligent listeners (not to mention their credit cards).  Challenges will always exist, as will niche markets. Contemporary classical concert music is not for everybody, and this fundamental fact should be understood and acknowledged.  It comes with the territory.

In the perfect world we should reach for, and aspire to, music that is much more than a quick sensory fix and a frivolous night out on the town.  New music is rich and broad.  It reaches out to encompass the unique assortment of standard instrumental ensembles that evolved from a long-standing tradition of classical music.  Symphony orchestras and string quartets don’t need to be reinvented.  They already exist.

I don’t think that tradition deserves to be “trashed” in order to recreate something new and original simply to entice the vaporous interest of a transitory and evolving audience.  Nurturing the long-established musical communities and traditions that already exist is not only the best, but only prescription for sustained, long-term growth.  If you can’t beat the establishment, join them.

If you program, create, and perform great, challenging new music; people will come to hear it.   You may not sell-out the house, or even break-even, but your dedicated fans will follow your journey and hang in there with you for the long-haul.  If you desire mega-audiences worthy of rock-stars or the fame that’s often associated with it, it’s unlikely to occur in this remote outpost of the business.  Follow the genre of music that you really love the most and in time an audience will find you and truly appreciate what you do and how you do it.

Integrity.  It’s that simple. 

In summary:

It may sound counter-intuitive, but the prescription for artistic success and sustained, long-term growth in the field of contemporary classical concert music is to embrace the “core values” of the past, not “trash” them.  Long-standing traditions of classical music have worked for generations and continue to provide context for consumers in search of meaningful experiences in the digital age.  What makes contemporary music attractive is its complexity, the challenges it places on musicians and audiences, and the fact that every listener is asked to invest themselves in the process of understanding the work.  New music should be: rich, experimental, confrontational.  Success is this field should not simply be measured by the number of filled seats, but by the impact that music has on the continuous evolution of our culture.

Contrapunctus I by J.S. Bach

Contrapunctus I  by J.S. Bach

from

Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080

 

 

 

A new work for bass clarinet...

Bye Bye Boston

I was born in NYC, but Boston MA has been my long-term temporary residence since 1973. For just over 40 years I have walked the winding cow paths of this great city, but will soon be saying goodbye.

When I arrived in town things were different: Window panes would randomly pop off of the newly constructed John Hancock Tower and shatter on the street below, a ride on the “T” cost only a quarter, and the local baseball team suffered under the “Curse of the Bambino.”

But an abundance of wealth in the cultural scene is undeniable. My Boston’s “Then and There” included the “Here and Now” new music series at the MFA, rush tickets to weekly Boston Symphony concerts (which often included world premieres that were broadcast by WGBH’s “Evening at Symphony” on TV), and a community of musicians and composers that were (and still are) by any standard a world-class act.

I’ve resided in the Fens, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, the North End, Brookline, Allston-Brighton, Somerville, and (since 1990) Arlington. I’ve found the entire Boston-metro area to be densely populated with people of exceptional talent. I’ve been fortunate to have met and worked with so many amazing and gifted musicians who have made this remote outpost of New York City their home.

Although I matriculated at Berklee, New England Conservatory, and Brandeis, the city itself and its numerous universities and conservatories served as my collective open classroom and musical sandbox. Over the decades I attended concerts and experienced world premieres numbering in the thousands - a few of which have included my own work. (I’ve actually saved every printed concert program for concerts that I attended since 1973, and the collection would fill a dumpster).

The names and faces of the musicians whom comprise the BSO has refreshed - at least once - as has the orchestra’s roster of famous and infamous music directors. For me, it’s hard to imagine not living in a city with an institution like the BSO or without all of the fine chamber ensembles and new music groups that have made this place their base: BMOP, Dinosaur Annex, BMV, Collage New Music Ensemble - just to name a very few.

Over my years I’ve supported myself with various forms of employment; some of which have been at Boston institutions that no longer exist: Briggs & Briggs, Brigham’s, and Scudder. I also worked as a car salesman, a night watchman, as a bagger in a supermarket, a Professor, and at a fish processing plant in Gloucester. It’s been quite an extended layover.

And while so many of my great friends, teachers, and colleagues have sadly departed the stage before the last time, much still happens in this energy-charged venue of a city. It’s a place with options and choices abound. One can never grow bored in Boston since there is just too much to do, more restaurants than you could ever visit, and Classical and Early music up the wazoo.

The city has an old-world charm and European feel. Yet, at the same time it fosters a parochial community where everyone knows what everyone had for breakfast [fyi, I had instant oatmeal today]. Boston-area weather is full of surprises. You can have a mega-storm on April Fool’s Day.

My bags are packed. The car has a full tank of gas. It’s almost time to go. Willemien and I will start our migration down South. We will drive to our new home and begin the next phase of our lives.

Goodbye Boston! It’s been a great place to hangout for 40 years. We will miss you.

Finger Painting

The notion that music is a uniquely multidimensional art-form revealed itself to me rather early in life. Mrs. Biller, my first grade teacher at Springhurst Elementary School in suburban New York, was an accidental catalyst that brought this heady issue to my attention over a half century ago.

I have no lost love for Mrs. Biller. I flunked her class and had to repeat first grade again. She was a nervous, rigid, and inexperienced public school teacher who didn’t know how to deal with kids that were outside of the box. But unknowingly she presented me with an intellectual challenge that I’m still grappling with today.

It’s not a simple matter if you think about it. The issue broaches root-concepts such as time, space, multiple dimensions, and the essence of reality itself – all heavy stuff for a first-grader who could barely tie the shoe laces on his filthy Converse sneakers.

Mrs. Biller laid out a large, coarse sheet of white construction paper on each student’s desk. Her class was instructed to put on smocks and open a collection of finger paint jars before us. When everyone was ready, Mrs. Biller walked over to the phonograph, picked up a record album, took the LP out of its sleeve, and carefully placed the shiny black vinyl disk on the turntable. She did not announce what was about to play.

“Now class, listen to the music and paint what you hear.” Mrs. Biller nervously dropped the needle somewhere near the beginning of the first track on the album and music began to pour out of its tiny internal speaker. We heard the sound of a symphony orchestra, scratchy and without much bass, but it was the recording of an orchestra nonetheless.

First graders usually go with the flow. Nobody questioned who the composer or conductor was, or which orchestra was performing it. In retrospect, it was most likely the first movement of a Beethoven Symphony – something with a discernible pulse as I recall. I don’t think Mrs. Biller cared one iota about the music. She most likely selected the composition randomly and thought that “classical music” was beneficial for our developing little brains (a notion that educators maintain to this day). For her this was an experiment of sorts or a way to preoccupy her adorable students for a few minutes with an activity other than pelting spitballs at each other projected through drinking straws.

The music that blared from the phonograph was really inspiring, intense, quite beautiful, and full of emotion. It penetrated my soul. My colleagues around me were already hard at work sticking their fingers into paint jars and (more or less) randomly slopping large globs of paint onto the virgin pages of pristine paper sitting before them.

I paused to listen, and to think.

How should I attack this problem: “to paint what you hear?” I knew that this was going to be a very subjective exercise. I hoped that whatever artistic “solution” I choose was not going to be meticulously scrutinized or end up jeopardizing my forthcoming academic career. Given the limited number of options available within the medium of finger-paint; I didn’t fear that I would fail the exam, but I was also a bit timid, concerned, and hesitant about the prospects of a promising outcome nonetheless.

However, this hands-on exercise did force me to confront (on some level) a key issue about how ideas are communicated by their particular medium, and how music is distinctly different than visual arts (and vice versa).

As I listened I could hear the raw elements of musical sound before me: pitch, rhythm, tone color, dynamics, and their multilayered, entwined, and interlaced internal dance over the course of musical time. It’s a complex pattern and the brain has to work at full utilization to keep up with the rapid-fire, real-time unfolding of auditory signals. Music is complex and multi-dimensional, if nothing else.

Finger painting on the other hand is a bit more limited. Visual art (and photography) is not prone or designed to represent the flow of ideas intuitively across a designated span of time. It generally captures snapshots of an event, and freezes a single image into a momentary, static memory. The continuum of organized sound on the other hand relies on time to make its case. Other than the example of a musical score which mechanically represents musical information in arcane symbols and instructions to be realized at a later stage, in performance the flow of time is a non-negotiable prerequisite for musical communication. How could one possibly paint a complex musical work on a static page of paper using nothing but your fingers? What’s a first-grader to do?

Listening to what was probably a Beethoven symphony, I knew intuitively that the composer was speaking a different language. The composers’ composition evolved in a logical progression of musical phrases, ideas, and form. All of these interdependent musical elements are at the core of its discourse. I immediately realized that ideas of this magnitude would not easily translate into a primitive finger painting limited to just two dimensions on the single piece of paper.

The complexity of Mrs. Biller’s assignment didn’t faze my fellow classmates. They were already hard at work on their mini-masterworks, busy moving their little arms back and forth according to the musical ictus, and enjoying every moment. As the music got louder, they would mash the paint deeper into the page. Growing bored, they would reach for more water colors to add into the mix, subconsciously searching for visual analogs to represent strings, winds, brass, and percussion. It seemed that their earnest fingers attempted to find true expression in Beethoven’s magical notes, but failed in vain.

I sat alone, staring at the empty page of paper in front of me. The jars of finger paint on my miniature desk beckoned for attention. Out of the corner of her eye Mrs. Biller noticed my hesitation. She smiled in her uniquely annoying way and sternly encouraged me to dive in… “Go ahead Jimmy, it’s not so difficult.”

Looking for a way out, I scanned around the room for encouragement, helpful hints, or a creative solution that I could potentially borrow or outright steal from a fellow classmate.

By now Beethoven’s music was getting more intense. It was still early in the symphonic work, and the movement had not yet reached its development section. Yet, by now all of my classmates had literally covered their pages with thick amounts of paint. Not only was their artwork generously coated, but the different colors of their paint had thoroughly mixed and their pages were quickly transforming into similar shades of United Parcel Service brown.

Mrs. Biller didn’t seem to notice. While the narrative discourse of the music was clearly far from complete, most of the artwork was over-done. The increasingly earthly tones of my classmate’s creations indicated the broad stroke marks of their busy little fingers. Their movements were now occurring with one large hand gesture at a time. Each successive wave of their hand over-wrote the preceding image that previously existed on the page.

Their visual solution did not appeal to me, nor did it represent the music as I heard it in any way. I felt that they were all headed down the wrong path - effectively turning Beethoven’s amazing symphony into mud. All I remember about their finished work is that everyone else in the class came to the same collective result. Miraculously, they arrived at similar variations of the same artwork – “Brown on Brown.”

With an informed feeling from the musical form that the music would continue on, I took my time to think about the sounds, the possibilities of visual expression, and considered an array of images that seemed to express similar feelings as the music. I began creating something with bright colors that was totally abstract, and which seemed entirely appropriate to the situation at hand.

Mrs. Biller was in a quagmire. She could either turn off the music before the movement had ended, or let her students continue to make a mess with brown paint. She decided to let them make a mess and post the results on the bulletin board after the thick crusty brown paint had dried.

In the end I enjoyed listening to the music. I also enjoyed creating a finger painting that was loosely “inspired” by the music. I did not attempt to record, translate, or notate sounds in a visual or graphical way since that would result in what seemed to be an inherently flawed exercise that would never come to fruition. But I did return home after school that day with a better understanding of the differences between music and visual art. These differences are quite profound, and they at the heart of human perception, art, and our interpretation of reality.

On that day I found music to be the more complex of the two art forms. Music contains mysteries that even a first grader will marvel at, if you are wise enough to leave them to their own devices.