Some people just don't get it

It's been too long since I posted to this site. In fact, when I saw that it had been almost one month, I was shocked. Of course, I have an excuse. As many of you know, I was just appointed music director of the Murfreesboro (Tennessee) Symphony Orchestra. I am quite enthused about the position. Murfreesboro is a great town with a lot of potential for a great orchestra. Maybe I will write more about the job later, but for now I want to grind my axe.

Anyone who has read this blog or talked to me personally, knows that I have an axe to grind when it comes to orchestral programming. The reason that I am going to talk about the subject yet again is that I read an article lately, written by a conductor whose orchestra was near bankruptcy. I couldn't believe my eyes. The guy was defending the traditional approach to programming and his orchestra almost ceased to exist! For those of you who don'tknow what I am talking about when I refer to the "traditional approach" to programming, here we go.

Most orchestras perform the usual overture, concerto, and symphony (in that order) on their regular concert programs and then have a separate pops series. In most cases, it's the pops concert ticket revenue that keeps the traditional programming alive. However, that is usually only true for orchestras with big budgets. It's different for smaller orchestras.

In the case of smaller orchestras, there are usually five or six regular, classical-type concerts (usually they are called the masterworks series) and two or three pops concerts. Unfortunately, in the case of small-budget orchestras, there are not enough pops concerts to pay for the regular concerts. And, the regular concerts are usually money-losers. Okay, I hear objections at this point. Some of you are saying, "No orchestra is able to make it on ticket sales alone." To which I reply, "Of course not." However, audience members start as ticket buyers and become donors later on. If an orchestra's audience is thin, so are the donors (unless the orchestra is relying on one or two BIG donors which, of course, is foolish with a capital "F").

So, orchestras go right along with this method and sometimes sail right into oblivion. I guess some conductors think it is better to not exist than to lower their standards, which is where I come in.

I believe that it is perfectly okay and even preferable to combine classical and popular music ON THE SAME PROGRAM. Who is it that decided a concert can only feature one genre of music? It certainly wasn't the famous composer Felix Mendelssohn (you know him--he wrote the tune that people play at the end of weddings). If you look at his concerts (around the middle of the 19th century), he programmed new classical music, old classical music, and arias from operettas (the 19th-century equivalent of the Broadway musical), all on the same program. BLASPHEMY!!!! Another guy who did the same was the march king, John Philip Sousa. He would perform "Turkey in the Straw," an aria from "La Boheme," and a march, one after the other. And, guess what? He was EXTREMELY successful. (At this point, there are conductors who are looking down their noses saying, "But he was a BAND DIRECTOR, not a serious musicians. I'm not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole!).

All of this is common sense: play what the people want to hear. Of course, introduce them to music that challenges them, but for goodness sakes, don't bore them to tears or drive them out of the concert hall. After all, isn't it better to get people in the door who have never heard classical music by providing entertainment as well as culture? (I seriously think that there are some conductors who would just as soon perform for their 200-300 converts than to "lower their standards". To use an analogy, that would be like a pastor of a church only preaching to the saved and not trying to reach the unsaved!)

One thing I want those conductors to do is to tell me what pop music actually is. Why is the overture to Candide classical but West Side Story is pop? They were both written by Leonard Bernstein. Or IS West Side Story classical but My Fair Lady isn't? I get confused. Then there is Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. Most conductors will lower themselves to play that on a regular concert, but they wouldn't perform Gershwin's songs with the rhapsody. Why not?
Some would say because the rhapsody is of a higher quality. Who decides that? As we used to say in the '70s (or was it the '80s?), "gag me with a spoon"!

Some people (conductors) just don't get it. For those of us who do, we can rest assured that we will at least have an orchestra to conduct. The "serious" folks will have to pry the baton out of my cold, dead-but happy- hand.