Arts Advocacy: Page 2

Facebook brought me the news this morning that George Cleve died yesterday. I knew he’d had health issues for a long time, but this hit me like a brick anyway. I first worked for George in 1974 upon my return from studying at a rather strange school in Switzerland known as the Institute for Advanced […]

Polyphonic thought it would be interesting to take a look at the lives of “typical” members of regional orchestras, where the orchestra doesn’t pay a living wage. Obviously there is no such thing as a “typical” regional orchestra musician – we all do different things to make ends meet and earn enough to pay the […]

Claiming to be the oldest continuously performing orchestra in America, the Handel and Haydn Society celebrates 200 years this year. The Society gave the American premiere performances of Verdi’s Requiem in 1878 and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1879. The Society was created at the conclusion of the War of 1812, giving a performance of […]

Recently I attended a presentation by Mitchell Korn, who conducted an in-depth analysis of my orchestra’s educational programs. He had many critically interesting ideas to convey to us musicians, and kept coming back to “professional development.” I think, for most of my colleagues, this conjurs up a vision of a truly boring session with some consultant […]

Michael Stugrin, writing in the spring 2015 issue of Symphony magazine (page 42), presents an interesting overview of a new trend among orchestras − performing with amateurs. Most orchestras have been doing “side by side” performances with their local youth orchestra for decades (I played such a concert with the Boston Symphony at Symphony Hall way back […]

Within this Darwinian analysis of higher education, what is the state of play in the performing arts and where exactly is their place in our contemporary world?

While there is plenty of negative press about the struggle of orchestras in the 21st century, here is a New York Times article about recent successes at the Cincinnati Symphony that is quite encouraging.

The Guardian recently published an edited version of NY Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert’s 2015 Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture.  In the lecture, Gilbert describes his view of where we are today – how orchestras are doing some serious soul-searching to discover what role they will play in their communities going forward.  Orchestras are trying all […]

In “today’s arts climate,” which is often characterized by tales of diminishing audiences, revenue, and interest, why would anyone start a new orchestra? That is a question that Jennifer Melick considers in an intriguing article in the recent Symphony Magazine.  Melick spotlights eight recent orchestra startups and looks at the goals and creative ideas behind […]

Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker, always has interesting things to say about classical music. In a recent essay written for Symphony magazine, Mr. Ross writes about the role of politics in classical music by posing the question: Do musicians and composers have an obligation to speak out on political matters? He […]