Jesse Rosen welcomed everyone by stating that the theme of the conference is the New Reality. He talked about Daniel Hudson Burnham, the architect who designed Orchestra Hall and prepared “The Plan of Chicago,” which laid out plans for the future of the city, including the lake-front park. Jesse then described the “bean sculpture” in Millenium Park, officially known as Millenium Cloudgate.

According to the Millenium Park website, “Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.”

His point was that the “bean sculpture” reflected the skyline of Chicago in a new way — in a way that we all should explore and embrace as we go forward.

The keynote speaker was Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the  Knight Foundation. He talked about a John Cage concert he went to while a student at Wesleyan University. The concert included a piece involving ball bearings – it was “an epiphany” for him in terms of what music is – it opened his mind to many things.

Ibargüen is a journalist and former publisher of The Miami Herald and of El Nuevo Herald. He related how he was talking with Howard Herring from the New World Symphony and they began drawing parallels between newsrooms and orchestras.

How can music survive in an MP3 world? What is the new business model for newspapers as they’ve given their product away on the Internet?

He told the story of watching the election returns with his wife, who received a message on her Blackberry – it was from Obama! He considers the Obama campaign to have been brilliant in their use of new technology to build community – his wife felt personally connected to his victory that night because of her message from Barack!

Ibargüen talked about www.spot.us, a website for free-lance journalists launched in October 2008 in San Francisco which is building community in a way that formerly only experts did. He mentioned the YouTube Orchestra (see Polyphonic’s first-hand article about this experience) as an amazing new concept, and the Magic of Music initiative of the Knight Foundation in 1994 in Florida.

Ultimately, he questioned the authenticity of news that comes from bloggers and citizen activists rather than established news organizations. In the past, a newsroom was insular and a finished newspaper had thousands of eyes going over it before it was published – now it goes out on the Internet. Similarly, music composition can incorporate everything, and the digital experience is creating a totally different consumer mindset – for both music and the news.

Click here for a complete transcript of Alberto Ibargüen’s remarks.

Friday, June 12^th

[First, my apologies for taking so long to get this written. I spent the weekend visiting college buddies in Madison WI and just never managed to find the opportunity. When I did have a bit of down time, I put up Yvonne Caruthers’ latest post from China instead of my blog – seemed more important. I’ll keep blogging all week, to fill in the holes I’ve left in this account.]

Friday at conference started out with a performance by the Chicago Youth Orchestra at Orchestra Hall – I arrived about half-way through Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel and was totally impressed by the quality of the performance. The horn players nailed every horn call, and the orchestra sounded just wonderful.

Jesse Rosen, League President, then gave his President’s speech. Jesse has a very relaxed, informal demeanor, and spent his time outlining as many positive events that have transpired in the orchestra world in the past season as he could find. But addressed the bad times as well.

He began by introducing Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest). The League partnered with Feeding America  in a food drive at concerts at  over 250 League member orchestras in all 50 states that raised over 200,000 pounds of food. Many of the orchestras involved in the food drive partnered with many other local organizations, and some held contests. Indeed one orchestra had a contest to see who could stuff the most food into a tuba. Jesse cautioned that, in homage to Chicago’s legendary tubist, Arnold Jacobs, the delegates should “lay off tuba jokes!” – a line that got a huge round of applause and many laughs.

In a more serious tone, the motto of Feeding America is, “food fuels the human spirit.” Jesse aptly made the comparison that orchestras also feed the human spirit. He went on to say that the partnerships many orchestras forged with other organizations in collecting food for the needy showed that orchestras care about the collective health of our communities where we live.

Vicki told two stories: one about the movie The Soloist which tells the story of Nathanial Ayers, a Julliard-trained cellist who ends up on the streets of LA due to mental illness, and is befriended by a newspaper reporter. Nathaniel is one of the 25 million people served by Feeding America.

The second was about a letter, received by a food bank in Norfolk VA, that contained a check for $15,000 from a donor who had never given before. She had heard about Feeding America on national media, and checked to see that the national organization served her own community. The check was part of her husband’s severance check – he had recently been laid off by GM but they wanted to share what they had. A pretty amazing story.

Jesse then turned his attention to the economic downturn, stating that attendance is still high despite the economy. He talked about the Louisiana Philharmonic, who were one of the “first responders” after Katrina in terms of playing a large role in healing New Orleans. They began by playing in area churches and 4 years later, they’re still playing in those churches because of the community ties. [Ed. Note: Polyphonic recently published a spotlight on the LPO http://www.polyphonic.org/spotlight.php?id=16.]

Jesse mentioned how musicians in Atlanta and Baltimore have initiated conversations about how to cope with the recession; musicians in other orchestras are following their example. How “Beyond the Score” in Chicago is really making a difference in the way that audiences relate to the orchestra. How the Dallas Symphony premiered a work by Steve Stucky, “August 4, 1964,” celebrating the 100^th birthday of LBJ and his role in the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. About Michael Morgan and the Oakland East Bay Orchestra celebrating their community heritage with a performance around the Persian New Year.

Jesse tells me that the League plans to open membership to all administrative staff and musicians who want it next fall, and he’s working on getting Symphony magazine distributed among musicians.

To sum up, Jesse insisted that collaboration is the right thing to do for art because it grows more connections and creates a synthesis. Orchestras are resilient and have deep roots. Basically he thinks we’ll survive because we’ve figured out how to do so in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. Orchestras can adapt. I’d say stay tuned for more about that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alas, I didn’t stay for the New Music performance because I had to attend to some email messages that had come in that morning, finish packing and check out of my room. I heard from others that it was a really interesting concert, featuring the CSO’s MusicNOW with performances of music by Osvaldo Golijov, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jeremy Flower, and Michael Ward-Bergeman.

Everyone then traipsed back to the hotel for another round of Toolboxes and Perspectives – again too many interesting sessions presented simultaneously.

1) Beyond the Chicago Symphony’s “Beyond the Score” – I took notes (by hand – remember the near riot of the day before!) during the performance and will describe it in some detail in another post later this week. I really wanted to attend this one but was committed elsewhere.

2) Getting the Most out of Social Networking, about how orchestras can use Facebook, Twitter, etc.

3) El Sistema USA: Taking the Next Steps – I did attend this session and took copious notes. I plan to turn this into an article, so stay tuned for more information. Dan Trahey from the Baltimore Symphony headed for Venezuela immediately after this session and will be sending “postcards” of his trip to me while he’s down there with 18 music educators and his group, The Archipelago Project. We’ll get those up on the home page of Polyphonic shortly.

4) A Hard Look at Today’s Economy – self-explanatory

5) Difficult Conversations – another session I really wanted to attend, with ICSOM Chair Bruce Ridge, League Board Chair Lowell Noteboom, Jesse Rosen, and Peter Kjome, Exec. Dir. of Grand Rapids discussing how orchestras can deal with the current financial pressures in terms of compensation, admin. head count and contracts. The hard stuff.

6) New Models for Consortium Commissioning: Expanding the Repertoire/Growing Community Connectivity – another session I wish I could have attended, particularly given my conversation with Jeffrey Biegel the morning before. I’ll try to get some notes from the presenters.

I wish these sessions were presented several times, so I could attend more than one. As I said above, I’ll get into El Sistema USA in much more detail soon.

At this point in Conference, everyone was getting pretty brain-dead and I was thrilled to hear my phone ring and find Bruce Ridge on the other end. We met for lunch in the hotel restaurant, sitting near Lowell Noteboom and his wife – Lowell wanted to know why I hadn’t been at their session, furiously typing away ( I guess I now have a reputation for furious typing!). I wish I had been there but then I found the El Sistema session fascinating (and I was typing furiously there as well!).

At lunch Bruce looked really tired – he’d left North Carolina in the wee hours to get to Chicago in time for the session, and was flying back early that same evening. His travel schedule on behalf of ICSOM is daunting, to say the least (I’d say grueling!). But he was in his usual good spirits and we had a grand visit – it’s always special to find some time to catch up with Bruce. We talked a lot about the role musicians should be playing in “officially” consulting to orchestras in trouble – or actually to any orchestra. At this point, the concept of paying a musician to consult with an orchestra about future planning is just not out there. Bruce and many others in ICSOM, ROPA, & OSCM and SSD are doing this already but without much significant recognition from the administration side of our industry. This could be a significant career path for some of us who’ve spent time serving in so many capacities – we just need to make the admin folks realize how much knowledge we really do possess, and how much that should be worth to them in $$$.!

After lunch I stopped in briefly at a Development round table session to see how they were addressing the economy, and then went in search of a “quiet corner” with WiFi to write this blog. I found the corner and wrote two sentences but then realized that my “corner” was on a central traffic route for delegates. Lots of meets and greets, and then Aaron Flagg and I had a chance for a private conversation. Aaron, a musician member of the League Board, is the incoming Dean of the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, and will be living just a few blocks from the HSO administrative offices downtown. He had lots of questions and I had lots of advice (for whatever it’s worth…) about his move to Hartford, whom he should get to know sooner rather than later, the buzz about his arrival going around town, etc. Good stuff.

Then I had to boogie to get to the rental car place before they closed and headed off to visit Yale friends in Wilmette. Saturday morning I drove up to Madison WI where I met with several people I hadn’t seen in 37 years. What a wonderfully fantastic weekend – a dear friend from college drove all the way over from Minneapolis for a visit.

I promise I’ll fill in the gaps in this account of the League Conference in the next few days so keep checking back. As long as the large graphic link is up on the Polyphonic home page, I’m sill adding entries. Then we’ll move it to the blog list for a while.

Another full day. We started early, with the League’s Annual Meeting breakfast at 7:45 in the ballroom. In the past the Annual Meeting has been a formal (paid) luncheon with a keynote speaker. In order to reduce the conference by a day so that more orchestra executives can come, it’s now a continental breakfast (free), so the turnout was good.

I had made plans to meet Jeffrey Biegel, the piano soloist, to talk about his new plans for another piano concerto commissioned by a consortium of orchestras — he’s done several in the past. This one he wants to be global, with 100 orchestras each contributing $1000. Check back this summer for an article about orchestra consortium commissions.

At the annual meeting, the 2008-09 ASCAP awards were presented, Robert Hanson, Music Director of the Elgin Symphony for the past 35 years, was given special recognition, and the Helen Thompson Award was presented to Graham Parker, Executive Director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

We all then traipsed over to Orchestra Hall, just a block away but it was raining. All the weather websites had said it would be nice, so who thought to bring an umbrella? I had to run back up to my room for my laptop, so I got there a bit late — just in time to see Jesse Rosen and Nick Webster present Henry Fogel with the Gold Baton, the League’s highest honor. Henry got a rousing standing ovation, and seemed very moved to have such an award presented in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, where he’s spent so much of his professional life.

Next was Beyond the Score with the Chicago Civic Orchestra — Martha Gilmer of the CSO had discussed these programs briefly at the opening session, and I was prepared for a lecture-demonstration of how they put these programs together.  So I booted up my computer and lowered the screen to reduce glare, and prepared to take notes. I caused a mini-riot in the balcony!

A gentleman behind me pointedly asked me whether I planned to have my laptop on during the concert and I told him I was hoping to write an article and would keep the screen down, but needed to take notes. Suddenly a woman behind him went nuts (I guess you could say ballistic!), called an usher, created a huge commotion! The man explained to me that it was a concert, and I quickly shut down the computer. Suddenly I was descended upon by ushers, glaring and hovering. The man came to my rescue and explained that all was resolved amicably and he and I chatted a bit, but the woman was still fuming. I had decided to use my laptop as a table on which to hand-write notes on a pad, and I guess she thought I was going to boot it back up when the ushers weren’t looking.  Turns out they had sold tickets to the general audience for this concert — no wonder they were annoyed by my computer glare! I’d had no idea it wasn’t just us League delegates in the hall, nor that it actually was a real performance, not a demonstration. Ah well — makes a good story.

The Beyond the Score performances was amazing. The CSO is in the midst of a 3-week Dvorak festival, so they were exploring the New World Symphony. I’ll write more about this performance this afternoon, giving credits and details, but basically they had an actor playing Dvorak and two narrators, one presenting history and Dvorak’s life and the other discussing the structure of the music. A video accompanied the script, which included many well-chosen excerpts from the symphony performed by the Civic Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder. The synchronisation  between the performers, the orchestra, and the video was impressive.

Back to the hotel in more rain, a few emails to Eastman, then I attended an invitation lunch for Development staff (I got an invitation through my HSO email where I write the grants part-time). I couldn’t find the room – no signage – so missed the presentation, but the discussion was interesting. Everyone is hurting — what to do?

The afternoon’s Musicians’ session was about building a career from multiple employers. Hosted by Bob Wagner of the New Jersey Symphony, two Chicago contractors explained how they do business. We had about 15 attendees and the conversation got pretty lively.

Next came a general session of musicians, general managers, operations staff, and artistic administrators to hear more about Churn — how to get first-time concert attendees to come back. This was a big presentation at last year’s conference, and Jack McAuliffe (formerly with the League) gave some statistics of the results some orchestras have had putting these findings to work. I spoke with Jack briefly about linking to the Oliver Wyman PowerPoint presentation on the League website from Polyphonic, so I can write an explanation of the findings of the research study. Looks promising, so again, check back later this summer. In the meantime, take a look at the League’s website for many of the materials presented at Conference.

The last session was Peer-to-Peer Roundtables — 22 round tables set up in a ballroom with representatives from many orchestras and organizations presenting a program, an idea, a solution, etc. We could pick 3 out of the 22 — each had 20 minutes to present their solution, and did so 3 times. I listened to a woman from the League explain how to use social networking (Facebook, Twitter, MeetUp.com, etc.) to attract younger audiences, Margo Drakos from InstantEncore.com explain how their free Web 2.0 technology lets orchestras provide immediate downloads of performances and other concert material, and Beth Perdue Outland of the Indianapolis Symphony describe their Peregrinos Project — a commissioned work exploring Indianapolis’ expanding Latino population with composer Gabriela Lena Frank.

A reception was then held in the Exhibit Hall for all delegates, with much meeting and greeting.

BTW, culture won out tonight — I went to the new wing of the Chicago Art Museum and stayed until closing. I’ll try to find out how the pub crawl went …

Today was a very busy and full day at Conference. I had a lovely luncheon with Dr. Brandfonbrener — we discussed all sorts of health issues plaguing musicians while I played with her little dog Rosina and looked out at Lake Michigan.

Back at the conference I attended a session hosted by Peter Pastreich, former CEO of the San Francisco Symphony, about the structure of orchestras. I took many notes and will turn this into an article for Polyphonic, so stay tuned. Peter has accepted a position with the Philharmonia Baroque San Francisco (visit this site for more information: http://www.philharmonia.org/). I saw Peter’s son Michael at the concert tonight and he said his father is very pleased at the prospect of settling down again, after many years of traveling and consulting.

The Toolbox sessions are always hard to choose, with 5 or 6 simultaneous events happening. I attended two: one on arts in education – lots of information about reports coming out soon, which I’ll add to this blog later, and one on musicians’ hearing issues presented by the Association of British Orchestras. The ABO PowerPoint presentation will be up on the League’s website soon, and I’m hoping to turn this into an article for Polyphonic as well.

The opening session featured remarks by Jesse Rosen, CEO of the League, a keynote address by Alberto Ibarguen, President and CEO of the Knight Foudnation, and a discussion by Deborah Rutter and other arts executives in Chicago about arts organizations that collaborate with the Chicago Symphony.

It’s late and I have an early breakfast meeting with Jeffrey Biegel, piano soloist, so I will write details about the opening session tomorrow. Many interesting thoughts were presented.

The CSO all-Dvorak concert was lovely: In Nature’s Realm, the Cello Concerto with Alisa Weilerstein, and the 9th symphony. I hadn’t been in Orchestra Hall in years — the string sound felt like it was being presented on a pillow – lush and yet so roundedly quiet. Alisa and the orchestra received standing ovations.

The Tune Up party was across the street in the Museum of Art. We went in the front door and walked all the way through the museum to the new addition for the reception. What an amazing place!

My friend David Gier, Music Director of the South Dakota Symphony, is receiving yet another ASCAP award tomorrow morning — his 4th in 4 years! He must be doing something right out there to have introduced so much contemporary music to Sioux Falls. He’s invited me to join him and Frank Oteri (founding editor of NewMusicBox) and others for a Chicago pub crawl tomorrow night – but that’s when the museum is open. What’s a girl to do?

As I was leaving, David and I came across Frank, who was trying to figure out when he could come back to visit more of the museum. When I told him about the Thursday late night hours, he solved my dilemma — pub crawl is delayed so everyone can go to the museum! (I’m not really a pub crawl kind of person, but hanging out with all these new music folks for a while should be most interesting!)

I’m pleased to be here in Chicago at the 2009 Conference of the League of American Orchestras, and to once again blog Conference for Polyphonic readers. (Note: The League’s conference is just “Conference” — we are “at Conference” — I will “blog Conference” — no article necessary or desired!)

I arrived late Tuesday afternoon — lots of weather delays for everyone — and checked into the Hilton Palmer House, a lovely older hotel 1 block from Orchestra Hall and the Chicago Institute of Art. My room is quite small but very elegant. I took a walk over to the parks after I’d settled in a bit and to my delight, the Grant Park Orchestra was rehearsing in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millenium Park. What an amazing outdoor sound system they have set up over the park — arching metal poles over the field with speakers everywhere. The sound was just wonderful. And a curved metal walkway over the highway cuts off the sound of the traffic while looking quite elegant.

The new addition to the art museum is also something worth exploring — the Tune Up party after tomorrow night’s Chicago Symphony concert is in the new wing. And I noticed that there’s free admission from 5 to 9 Thursday night — you’ll know where to find me then!

The conference officially starts at 1:00 this afternoon. Yesterday and this morning the League holds OLA (Orchestra Leadership Academy) seminars, for an additional fee, on a variety of topics such as financial management, developing a public relations strategy, and guidance for governance leaders. I’d signed up for a diversity seminar but it got canceled, so I’m going to have lunch with Alice Brandfonbrener this morning. She’s America’s pre-eminent expert on music medicine, and teaches at Northwestern University, though she tells me she’s vainly trying to retire. She has written for Polyphonic (http://www.polyphonic.org/article.php?id=44) and we’ve emailed each other many times, but have never actually met. Should be fun — she lives right on the lake.

Here’s a brief overview of Conference: this afternoon we have a constituent meeting and then a “Toolbox” session – 5 0r 6 sessions offered simultaneously. Often hard to pick just one! The official Opening Session is at 4:15 with a kenote speech by Alberto Ibarguen, President and CEO of the Knight Foundation and music by the CSO Percussion Scholarship Group. The CSO concert (all Dvorak) and the Tune Up party are later tonight.

Thursday is the annual meeting and award ceremonies (ASCAP, Gold Baton to Henry Fogle, etc.) in the morning followed by a Chicago Civic Orchestra concert, then more constituent meetings, Peer to Peer Roundables where about 20 orchestras or organizations offer a solution they’ve discovered or developed to some problem (more tomorrow about this), and then an all delegate reception. Thursday night I’m off to the museum!

Friday starts with a concert by the Chicago Youth Orchestra, another Toolbox session, and constituent meetings all afternoon. The Grant Park Festival Orchestra and Chorus have a concert Friday night in the Pavilion.

The exhibit hall opens today at noon — lots of vendors: arts management companies, Pops acts, music publishers, acousticians, lots of consultants (marketing, fund-raising, education, management, etc.), and services (telemarketing, ticketing, travel, etc.). It’s fun to wander around. I remember being a bit amazed at my first conference (many years ago) at all the services I’d never really thought about that are necessary for our “industry” to function. Several people are here from my orchestra, Hartford Symphony, including Terry Gellin, our new Development Director. She came to us from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art recently, so this is her first conference and first glimpse into the orchestra world as an industry — I’m eager to hear her perceptions.

Finally made it back to CT around 9 last night – United canceled my Sunday evening flight so I spent an unexpected extra night in Denver.

The big blue bear sculpture at the convention center? No story. I asked at the convention tourist booth. Looking it up online, I found that the 40-foot tall, blue bear is a creation of Lawrence Argent, and is titled “I See What You Mean.”

According to a city of Denver website, the artist has described I See What You Mean as a stylized representation of native fauna. As the bear peeks inside the enormous facility at the conventioneers, displacement and wonder pique curiosity and question a greater relationship of art, technology and whimsy.

“My public artworks are part of a larger whole,” stated Lawrence Argent. “I am an artist that utilizes assorted mediums and venues to engage the viewer in questioning the assumed and provide a vehicle by which stimulus opens a plethora of responses that defy verbal articulation.”

Like I said, it’s a big blue bear.

Artistry as Civic Engagement – The Role of Performing Artists in Serving Their Communities

The Saturday morning 8 AM session was probably the best session I attended for musicians. It focused on examples of musicians reaching out to their communities in very real ways.

The panel was moderated by Alan Fletcher, President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival. Panelists: Michael Morgan, Music Director, Oakland East Bay and Sacramento Symphonies; Jerod Tate, Member of the Chickasaw Nation and Artistic Director, Chickasaw Music Festival; Robert Wagner, Principal Bassoon, New Jersey Symphony; Gaylon Patterson, Asst. Principal Second Violin, Memphis Symphony; and Lisa Dixon, Director of Community Engagement and Operations, Memphis Symphony.

Michael Manley of the League asked me to videotape the session so that we can stream it on Polyphonic, and fortunately we were able to do so. Bob Wagner also has a PowerPoint presentation to go along with his remarks. So I’ll put it all together as an article; check back in a couple weeks.

Closing Session

The final session of the conference was an NPAC 21^st Century Town Meeting on the Performing Arts, held in a ballroom at the Convention Center. Over 1200 delegates attended.

NPAC held a caucus each day for 90 minutes, assigning delegates to tables to mix up the constituencies. The purpose of the caucuses was to develop a vision for the performing arts in America going forward.

A group of representatives from each arts discipline had met for a long time before this conference – I believe it was ongoing for 4 years – to put together a starting point of beliefs and statements about the arts in America. The caucus groups were then charged with defining these statements and coming up with action statements to achieve them.

The caucus process was facilitated by AmericaSpeaks, a non-profit that has facilitated similar projects so that large numbers of people can participate in decision-making about an issue. Some of their other projects include a statewide discussion about health care policy reform in CA in 2007, community congresses in New Orleans after Katrina involving 4,000 people, and Listening to the City, where 5,000 people participated in a town meeting in NYC to help design key principles for the redevelopment of Ground Zero.

I attended the Wednesday caucus but just couldn’t make it to the Thursday and Friday sessions. AmericaSpeaks published a fancy newsletter each day: The Daily Caucus. I quote from these:

• Wednesday the groups discussed the elements of a shared vision for the future of the performing arts, as presented by the NPAC committee.
• Thursday they identified and prioritized the opportunities and challenges that will have to be met before we can reach our goal.
• Friday they began to identify strategies to turn challenges into opportunities and opportunities into successes.

On Saturday, there were three main areas and 5-8 possible action statements or strategies each for a National, Local, and Individual vision/advocacy. The delegates were assigned tables by geographic region, and everyone had an electronic device that enabled him/her to vote by pointing the device at the main dais while pushing a number. Loud music played when it was time to vote, and the device displayed a green light when the vote was counted.

Here are the results (one national, local, and individual strategy for each item):

1. Our communities do not sufficiently perceive the value, benefits, and relevance of the arts, which makes advocacy and building public support for the arts a challenge at every level.

National: Organize a national media campaign with celebrity spokespersons, catchy slogans (e.g., “I Got Milk”), unified message, and compelling stories.

Local: It was a tie – 1) Create an arts coalition to get involved in local decision-making, take leadership positions, and strengthen relationships with elected officials AND 2) Forge partnerships with other sectors to identify how the arts can serve community needs.

Individual: Build relationships with non-arts groups, including governments, corporations, community development organizations, etc.

2. The potential of arts education and lifelong learning in the arts is under realized.

National: Devise an advocacy campaign to promote the inclusion of performing arts in core curricula.

Local: Mobilize and collaborate with K-12 and higher education institutions to strengthen arts education and arts participation as core curriculum.

Individual: Lead lifelong education programs that actively involve people in multi-generational groups. “Make the arts part of a lifelong wellness plan.”

3. The increasing diversity of our communities creates an opportunity to engage a variety of ages, races, identities, and cultures in our audiences and organizations.

National: Charge national service organizations [e.g., the League] to create dialogue at convening, create training programs, promote diverse art and artists, and partner with grassroots organizations who are already connected to diverse communities.

Local: Open an honest dialogue across community groups and sectors to share priorities and identify barriers to participation.

Individual: Discover arts in your community offered by cultures other than your own and establish peer relationships.

I imagine the League’s website will have a much fuller report on this project next week or the week after. It’s difficult to give you a sense of what was going on without your seeing all the choices throughout the 4 days.

The crowd on Saturday was very buoyant – people cheered when their choice won, and several spontaneous waves swept through the room. When all voting was done, Eric Booth had all the organizers came up on stage to take a bow. He made a big point that diversity, which was rarely mentioned a few decades ago, was now one of the top three priorities.

Eric had an interesting metaphor – the trim-tab. Huge oil tankers cannot be steered in the normal way because the strain on the metal will tear them apart. A trim-tab is a rather small metal piece that is attached to the rudder of an oil tanker – it changes the flow conditions of the water around the boat such that the rudder can be moved and the boat can be steered without breaking apart. So small ideas can move large recalcitrant objects or beliefs.

Finally, Diana Reeves came out and performed for 10-15 minutes. A nice ending to a very, very full conference.

At an afternoon session for the League, Jesse Rosen asked Señor Abreu to tell the attendees a bit about Venezuela, so that everyone could gain a greater insight into El Sistema.

Because his remarks were translated, I was able to capture his entire response, which follows:

When Venezuela was still an undefined territory, it was one of the poorest regions of Latin America. For example, foreign commerce was limited to two ships per year. Agriculture was limited to coffee and cacao, and the population was mainly made up of rural people.

At the end of the 18^th century some cities started developing, especially Caracas. Near the city lived a priest who had studied in the conservatory in Rome. Towards the end of the 18^th century he brought to Venezuela the first music sheets. This was an important moment among composers in Venezuela, especially among poorer composers.

But after Venezuela attained its independence in 1830, the country had many years of civil war that made the country and the population even poorer than before. When oil appeared in 1917 the country was not prepared to receive this wealth. And an explosion of wealth occurred. At that moment the country realized how backwards it was, educationally speaking.

As a consequence, universities and colleges were created to compensate. In 1930 the first Philharmonic Orchestra of Venezuela was created with 70 foreign musicians and 10 Venezuelan musicians. Until 1975, this was the only symphony that Caracas had. Maracaibo, the 2^nd largest city and the oil capital of Venezuela, had a second orchestra made up of 99% Polish musicians.

Meanwhile, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico had developed strong orchestras with national musicians. The Venezuelan economy had transformed itself in such a way that a strong industry developed and technification of the county followed.

The artistic career/occupation had no established hierarchy. At that time, youths were urged by their families to become engineers, oil engineers, lawyers, etc., but not artists. I myself had to abandon my musical studies to pursue a university career in economics. I studied from when I was 16 until I was 33; it was 1975.

Then oil prices rose from $7 to $40 per barrel and a whole new possibility of reforming the education system opened up. I left the position I had in the Ministry of Planning to return to music, but not as a performer or conductor but as a musical educator. I also renounced the traditional way of making music, which was a Latin American model that copied the European model of theoretical studies, based on 1-to-1 teaching of an instrument with no orchestra practice, which made musical studies very boring. Many youngsters simply left their musical studies. For every 100 young students, only 2 were left in the upper grades, and the only orchestra that existed had not taken charge of educating new musicians.

I was not willing to follow the educational musical program that was present then, and we started with some musician friends of mine to select some students from Caracas and other cities in February 1975. With those few kids, we started preparing a repertoire. For that I asked some music friends to prepare the musicians in the different parts they had to play; these friends were also professors of their instruments. This very informal group of teachers was already a seed for a new way of teaching music.

The school was for the orchestra, not the orchestra for the school. So in this way there was an inversion of the relation of the didactics of music, and at that moment we dared to give our first concert. It was very important for that first concert to have great impact so that some of the important figures of the country would understand the importance of art.

I didn’t want to give this concert in the concert hall but in the sight of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We invited all the diplomatic core and some ministers. At that time Mexico’s President was visiting our country. I asked to play before the formal gala dinner. When the Mexican President heard the orchestra, he commented to the Venezuela Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he wanted to invite the orchestra to play in Mexico. And that was the beginning of a journey of prestige for the orchestra.

Nobody had expected it, and at that moment music started being socially important in Venezuela as well. It is an essential feature of our project that it is founded on the principle that a youth orchestra is not going to be an mediocre orchestra. It starts with the orchestra members’ self esteem. They must consider themselves sufficiently excellent to represent the country in other countries.

When the orchestra received acclaim outside the country, I was asked, “Maestro, what must we do to continue?” I said, “I don’t want money. I want the state to recognize its responsibility in the music education of its students, and that a state foundation be created dedicated to the youth orchestra. And that this foundation not be considered as part of the Ministry of Culture but as part of the Ministry of Social Development.”

Because it was with the children of the streets, the poorest children and the rural children, that we wanted to make the experiment. That is when the project was born as an experience of making orchestra music on a daily basis. Within the framework of the social objectives of the state. That’s the essence of the project, where it starts.

We finally obtained funds from the state. The first instructors who dedicated their time were the first formal professors of the system. The system of music education was created by the state centered on orchestra practice. Practice that had to be and still is daily. Accompanied by the individual education at the highest level and driven by two elemental processes: first, to be proud to be a good orchestra – self esteem, and second the principle of healthy competition between the orchestras.

Each province hoped to have the better orchestra in the system. Each mayor hoped to have a better orchestra than the other mayors. And then followed the principle of international competition.

Now it’s not only a youth orchestra but a network of youth orchestras, practicing every day. It demands a lot of the students: to play original works, and we nurture healthy competition. We confront the orchestra constantly with trips around the world – we have 3 or 4 tours this year.

We can conclude that Venezuela sees in its orchestras a symbol of the highest things it can achieve. This is not new – it was true in Plato’s Greece. But today it is seen as a new renaissance that we should transplant to all the rest of the arts, and it would be wonderful to obtain the symbol of these orchestras as a symbol of the best of society.

We’re expanding to all other Latin American countries. We’re doubling every year (in the number of youth orchestras). If we consider the academic alliances with the US through institutions like the League, this can become a continental project. A symbol of what the Americas really mean.

]]> http://adrinan.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/jose-antonio-abreu-founder-of-el-sistema/feed/ 0 adrinan http://adrinan.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/thursday-afternoon-june-13th/ http://adrinan.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/thursday-afternoon-june-13th/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:58:17 +0000 Ann Drinan http://adrinan.wordpress.com/?p=17 ]]>

The League held its annual luncheon and annual meeting at noon, and announced this year’s winners of the MetLife Awards for Excellence in Community Engagement, the Bank of America Award for Excellence in Orchestra Education, and the Gold Book Awards for Symphony Volunteer projects.

Lowell Noteboom, the League’s Board Chair, presented an award to Bruce Clinton, Treasurer of the League and long-time symphony supporter.

Then Lowell gave a tribute to Henry Fogel’s long career in radio, in orchestra management, and at the League, accompanied with great photos of Henry in the kitchen, Henry with his dog, Henry at the radio station in Syracuse, and Henry with his 20,000 CD collection. Henry will be stepping down as League President at the end of June, to be succeeded by Jesse Rosen, current League Executive Vice President.

Henry has been traveling the country during his tenure at the League, visiting over 125 orchestras and mentoring countless orchestra administrators. He is beloved by so many because of his willingness to share his wisdom and experience.

The League has planned a most unusual parting gift for Henry – they have already raised $40,000 to commission a new orchestral work to be performed by a consortium of orchestras and dedicated to Henry. The Executive Director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra was most eloquent in asking other orchestras to join in the consortium – there are currently 5, including Reno and Memphis.

I’ve never seen Henry speechless before, never mind verklempt! (I got a little verklempt myself.) He was absolutely stunned and overwhelmed at the gift, and said that he guessed he didn’t have control over his staff as much as he’d thought he did!

It was a really lovely tribute to a man who has done so much for orchestras all his life. I remember meeting him for the first time at Wolf Trap when Paul Judy founded the Symphony Orchestra Institute and asked me to be on the Advisory Board. Paul had stashed champagne in a cooler near the stage, and we all gathered at the intermission of the concert to toast the birth of SOI. I started to tell Henry what an honor it was to meet him and he just brushed it aside, preferring to get down to real conversation. He’ll stay involved with the League next year as a consultant, continuing to visit orchestras and fundraising.

Henry and Jesse talked a bit about the future of the industry and we adjourned to the plenary session.

Radical Ideas from Beyond the Border

Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony, was the moderator of the NPAC session on Friday, which featured renowned African dancer and choreographer Germaine Acogny and Venezuelan Music Educator José Antonio Abreu, who founded the El Sistema movement. Each interview (with translator) was preceded by a short video showing the artist at work.

In Ms. Acogny’s case, it was about her International Centre for Traditional and Contemporary African Dances in Senegal, which is a school for dancers from all over Africa. A few interesting comments:

• She strongly believes that the students must have a solid grounding in their own traditional dances before they can interact with dancers from other places. Tradition vs. innovation.
• She considers her school to be a modern sacred forest, where traditional initiation rites or rites of passage were held.
• She did an international tour with a show about the Rwanda genocide. She said that the idea of the show was to help people get rid of their inner feelings of vengeance. “Shows can help to change people and this is the role of art – to change people.”

José Antonio Abreu then came out and talked about the founding of El Sistema. He appeared later that afternoon at a session for the League and, because of the translation pause, I was able to transcribe almost everything he said about the history of Venezuela and the history of El Sistema. So I’ll put that up in my next post.

In this session he focused on the fact that music education had been only for the elite, and he wanted it to be for everyone – to build a strong system of music education for social change and improvement. El Sistema now has 265,000 children and young people involved after 33 years, but he wants it to grow to 1 million children. There are currently more children doing music in Venezuela than doing sports! They’ve started to create similar programs all throughout Latin America.

He talked about music education as causing a transformation and dignification of the person. The program has been very successful in combating drugs, alcohol, and pornography in the poorer sectors of the country.

Marin asked him how we could copy the program in the US and he said that we need to interconnect the initiatives we already have (in terms of excellent music schools, teachers, instrument availability, etc.). He then went on to urge the US to interconnect with the rest of the continent, and invited the Denver Youth Orchestra to come to Venezuela to give a concert with one of their youth orchestras. (The Executive Director of the Youth Orchestra accepted his invitation at the afternoon session!)

More in the next post.

I then went to a session given by Eric Booth, Teaching Artist Extraordinaire, who passed out a rubric for teaching artists that was prepared for Young Audiences in 2003, and was refined by Polly Kahn and Heather Noonan at the League for orchestral teaching artists. Eric broke us into groups of 4 and 5, and we each went over a page of the rubric in depth, sharing our comments with the whole group at the end.

Interesting thoughts from Eric:

The AP exam in studio art is graded by rubric – the only AP exam to be graded this way. And it has the highest agreement amongst scorers than any other AP exam.

The word “rubric” comes from the Latin word for red. Jesus’ words in an early Bible were printed in red. Thomas Jefferson cut out all the red words from his Bible, bound them together, and carried them in his pocket as his rubric – the essential core information with everything else stripped out.

“Nobel prize winners are not better problem solvers; they’re better at problem identification.”

It was a fun session, particularly as I was sitting with a few old friends in the back of the room and we were getting a little punchy as it was getting late in the day of the almost last day of the conference.

]]> http://adrinan.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/thursday-afternoon-june-13th/feed/ 0 adrinan http://adrinan.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/turning-first-timers-into-life-timers-addressing-the-true-drivers-of-churn/ http://adrinan.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/turning-first-timers-into-life-timers-addressing-the-true-drivers-of-churn/#comments Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:02:39 +0000 Ann Drinan http://adrinan.wordpress.com/?p=16 ]]>

This morning, bright and early again, was a presentation for Artistic Administrators, conductors, and musicians of the big research project that’s being featured at the conference this year. This was a truly fascinating session – the results of a study of nine orchestras by Oliver Wyman, the world’s third largest business consulting firm, about how to get first-time single ticket buyers to start coming back. The presentation contained a huge amount of information and I have not had time to assimilate it all. Plus the presenter skipped over a lot (because of time constraints) to focus on repertoire issues.

The PowerPoint presentation will be available on the League’s website in a few days. I will summarize my notes once I can actually see the slides up close and will probably turn this into an article, rather than include it on the blog, because the information is so compelling.

One sore point – one issue the study addresses is which solo instruments these first-timers prefer. The results are not surprising: piano, violin, cello, horn, trumpet, clarinet, flute, viola. The problem is that it was presented as a horizontal bar graph, and the line next to viola was so short, I had to ask if this was supposed to be a viola joke!