jwilzewske: audience development

Showing posts with label audience development. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Chamber Music for Dressage Freestyle (kür)

I want people to feel that it’s not just a kur but something like art. I hope people have a physical feeling as they hear the music—for me it is so special. I want them to be excited as they listen and watch. I think there’s a lot of emotion in it... My music before was mostly French, and this kur has some international music, but I’m also using some music by Polish composers... It’s difficult to put a name to this music, but it’s like a mix of classical with trance.”
— Michal Rapcewicz, FEI World Cup 2009.

T his November 2011 post about the Spanish Riding School in Vienna has in 6 weeks’ time received a surprisingly large number of pageviews and outclicks.

M ost of these new visitors to CMT (and searchers who land on CMT) are equestrians, dressage riders looking for suitable music with tempi in the 140 to 160 bpm range that will suit the biomechanics of their horse and that will offer a chance to dramatically differentiate themselves from the other competitors… these are horse people who are tired to death of riding trite ‘pop’ music for their dressage tests.

B ut some of the horsey CMT visitors landing on that November lippizaner blogpost have come from TCP/IP addresses that indicate they are from Conservatories and from chamber music ensembles’ websites. Are these visitors merely musicians who in their spare time are hobbyist dressage amateurs? Or are they instead seriously looking to program new repertoire for dressage and thereby expand the market for their chamber performances and recordings? Are any of them composers, I wonder?

A nyhow, the traffic does stimulate thought! Possibly some composers would be intrigued by the prospect of writing for dressage... consider it in the same way you would composing for ballet! It is far easier to get commissioned by serious dressage riders to do some ‘miniatures’ than it is to get hired to write a ballet score. [Typically, there is a very brief leader or intro (the rider must enter the arena within 20 sec of the start of the music) to establish the mood/atmosphere and tempo and rhythmic structure of the piece—enough to cue the horse and rider. The dressage rules stipulate that the maximum length is 5 minutes of music. In many jurisdictions, there is no minimum time limit; however, most kür music is a bit longer than 3 min. Depending on the choreography, saying what you want to say in 3’30’’ or 4’20’’, say, is far more crisp, focused and dramatic (and competition-winning) than pointlessly dilating the piece to the max 4’59’’.]

A nd possibly some chamber music ensembles would be interested in recording such works... providing CDs or MP3s for dressage tests.

P ossibly ACF or other sponsors of new music would set ‘dressage to music’/‘freestyle’/‘kür’ as a subject for a future competition and call-for-compositions. Possibly one of the national dressage organizations would commission some compositions for kür.

T hink Bach WTC Bk 1, Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C minor, BWV 847 (prelude), with a dark-angel Sviatoslav Richter-esque tempo. Nothing too delicate! Nothing too subtle! The music will be amplified, typically in a large echoic arena or open space—so you need clear orchestration with not too much polyphony or rhythmic complexity. Think confident, ebullient, full of impulsion! Think music that is emblematic of divine almighty beauty, whatever you conceive that to be! Think intimate and individualistic sound that will showcase the equine dancer! Think ‘What music would a beautiful, balletic horse love to dance to?’

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The Assertive Sonic Self: Anne-Sophie Mutter, on Making Every Note Heard in a Large Hall

W orld-class Mozart interpreters will have a carefully worked-out sound world in mind for each piece, and a profound sense of the music’s underlying rhetoric—that is, the language of tension and release that unlocks Mozart’s phrases and allows them to unfold as statements of great eloquence and often subtle but deep emotion... The best argument for playing these works without a conductor is that the soloist and orchestra can communicate directly, without an intermediary.”
— Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe.

A ttended BSO’s opening last night, with Anne-Sophie Mutter performing (and conducting) Mozart violin concertos Nos. 3 and 5 with a ~20-instrument ensemble of BSO members. Admirable in all respects. Her pianissimos were fully audible, and the ensemble had sensitivity and control over its dynamics to let her sound come through.

I n part, the contrast and audibility are a result of the somewhat wider, European-style vibrato that Mutter chooses. Such ‘focus’ and projection of the voice and ‘self’—all that comes from the tiny violin box!

T hese Mozart concertos are wonderful, innocent things—ones that might merit less vibration in a smaller, more intimate venue. But the aesthetic rationale for vibrating more demonstratively in this way is clear, I think—the reason comes from the acoustic requirements of performing in a large hall like this, packed nearly to capacity with people as it was last night. In other words, authenticity in performance is not just faithfulness-to-the-text or appropriate in an historical performance practice sense. It presents a clean and stylistically coherent rendition, and one that takes into account not only the dialogue with the ensemble but also the dialogue with the audience under the conditions and constraints that prevail in the performance space. In this case, the wider-than-usual vibrato was in no way an affective, romanticized conceit, but instead was an accomodation to the realities of the large hall—an accomodation on behalf of us in the audience: Mutter communicating with us directly, as directly as she did with her ensemble colleagues.

M utter’s cadenzas were inspired—fresh as if they were improvised on the spot, and especially beautiful, magical. She makes you believe that the story she is telling is true, a personal fact, and you are the first one she is telling it to. Why we go to hear serious music, performed live.

Friday, May 14, 2010

An Accumulation of Energies, Nameless and Named: Evening Chamber Music in Prague

O nce you’ve seen the signs about it [The Most-photographed Barn in America!], it becomes impossible to ‘see’ the barn,’ said Murray.
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others.
‘We’re not here to capture an image; we’re here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies...’
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
‘Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see [and hear] only what others see [and hear]. The thousands who were here in the past; those who will come in the future. We’ve agreed to be part of a collective perception.”
— Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985).

A ve Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Virgo serena.
Ave cuius conceptio,
solemni plena gaudio,
celestia, terrestria,
nova replet letitia.
Ave cuius nativitas,
nostra fuit solemnitas,
ut lucifer lux oriens
verum solem preveniens.
Ave pia humilitas,
sine viro fecunditas,
cuius annunciatio
nostra fuit salvatio.
Ave vera virginitas,
immaculata castitas,
cuius purificatio
nostra fuit purgatio.
Ave preclara omnibus
angelicis virtutibus,
cuius fuit assumptio
nostra glorificatio.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.”

W e hastily ran around the small central core of Prague—the Stare Mesto (old town) and the Hrad (castle). The evenings were dark and delicious.

W e found the astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall to be especially interesting, both symbolically and from an engineering point of view. At the top of the hour, the clock features a procession of figurines of the 12 apostles, preceded by the figure of Death (you can see him in the picture above, on the right-hand side) pulling a rope in his right hand, and inverting the hourglass that’s in His right hand. Each evening, we attended one or two concerts featuring Mozart, Vivaldi, local Czech composers—at the baroque Church of St. James, for example. The evenings had more renditions of Ave Maria than I ever knew existed.

E ach night from 8 p.m. onward you can find many—dozens?—of these chamber performances—in churches and other small halls. Very modestly-priced. Small ensembles, quartets, trios, duets, violin and piano, cello and piano, violin and piano and voice, voice and harp, violin and harp and organ/harmonium, string trio with trumpet, violin and harp and flute--anything and everything. Mostly, these are short programs less than 1 hour in length, cash admission collected at the door, with repertoire picked to appeal to a touristic audience and insure a nice extra income for the performers, many of whom are professional members of standing orchestras or chamber ensembles in and around Prague.

I nvariably, there is at least one version of Ave Maria.

F amous and familiar as it is, the most frequently performed is the version by Charles Gounod, who added melody and words to J. S. Bach’s first prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier. Mozart’s K.554 is the one next most common version on offer. Brahms’s Op. 12.

A ntonín Dvořák’s version, the one composed in 1877. Another one, Verdi’s, for his 1887 opera Otello.

R ussian composer César Cui’s obsession: he is one of several composer ‘repeat offenders’ who have set the text at least three times: Op. 34, for 1 or 2 women’s voices with piano or harmonium (1886), and as part of two of his operas: Le Flibustier (premiered 1894) and Mateo Falcone (1907). Anton Bruckner wrote three different settings...

S ettings by Bruch, Byrd, Elgar, Verdi, Saint-Saëns, Rossini, Stravinsky, Schubert, Massenet, and Perosi as well as versions by less well-known composers, such as J.B. Tresch.

J acques Arcadelt’s setting: in reality, a 19th century arrangement by Pierre-Louis Dietsch, based on Arcadelt’s three-part madrigal, ‘Nous voyons que les hommes’.

F ranz Schubert’s ‘Ellens dritter Gesang’ (D839, Op 52. No. 6, 1825), performed with the Ave Maria prayer sung in place of the original text.

A lso, Josquin Desprez, Orlando di Lasso, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Nights are cool, chambered Grace, full of Marys. Collective, maintained perception—sort of like DeLillo's most-photographed barn, or like Motif #1.

Friday, July 24, 2009

S°HIP Musica Nuova: Turbulent Love, Teleported from 17th Century Italy to Here & Now

O biondi capelli
Che preso m’havete!
Di voi cosi belli
Amor fa le reti.
Acciò che frà l’ombra
Secùra vi tendi.
E mille poi prendi
Di cuori rubella—
O, biondi capelli!”

[O, blonde hairs
that have captured me!
From you, blond ones,
Love spins nets
that must securely stretch
Amongst the shadows,
there to capture
Thousands of hawt hearts
O, fair hawt hearts!]
— Giovanni Ghizzolo, ‘Ahi, quanto ne godo’.

M usica Nuova’s S°HIP performance last night at Emmanuel Church in Boston was thoroughly enjoyable.

T his Musica Nuova performance was part of S°HIP’s twenty-third season, which this year runs for seven weeks (30-JUN through 06-AUG) with events at various venues in and around Boston. Focusing on works from the Renaissance through 18th Century, SoHIP embraces eclectic programs and productions like Musica Nuova’s, as well as more ‘conventional’ HIP (historically-informed performance) interpretations.

T he Emmanuel Church’s Lindsey Chapel, a narrow 12 meters wide by 25 meters long, was acoustically well suited to the size and sound of this ensemble and the 80 or so attendees who turned out for the performance. The conceit for last night’s ‘Turbulent Love Songs’ program was romance in the modern workplace/office. On the steps and floor of the chancel at the front were arranged a filing cabinet, coffee pot, and two back-to-back office chairs and desks where Ms. Keil and Mr. Scoggin conducted their business activities, shuffling and stapling papers, texting on their mobile phones (whence, the program's subtitle ‘BlackBerry^® Jam’), and so forth. The nature of their office work is grey, drudgerous, and uninspiring—and each is hoping to find meaning in Life through other non-commercial pursuits. Mr. Scoggin (Tirsi) makes an amorous overture to Ms. Keil (Filli), and the succession of songs carries the pair through a tumultuous arc from initial besotted mutual infatuation, to disappointment and annoyance, to pique (Tirsi pitches the flower he has given to Filli on the floor in disgust), to reconciliation and finally loving rapprochement that comes with each realistically gauging the sentiments and potential that the other offers.

da Gagliano (1582-1643)—Lo vidi in terra
d’India (1582-1629)—Lo viddi in terra
Rossi (1597-1665)—Fanciulla so io
Piccinini (1566-1638)—Prelude
Caccini (1551-1618)—Ardi, cor mio
Caccini—Dolcissimo sospiro
Caccini—Non più guerra
Cima (1570-1630)—Sonata
Ghizzolo (?—c.1625)—Odi, Filli, che tuona
Ghizzolo—Ecco, felici Amanti
Steffani (1654-1728)—Sia maledetto Amor
Frescobaldi (1583-1643)—Partite sopra l’aria della Romanesca
Monteverdi (1567-1643)—Voglio di vita uscir
Ghizzolo—Tirsi mio, caro Tirsi
Piccinini—Toccata IV
Monteverdi—Eri già tutta mia
Caccinini—Sfogava con le stelle
Ghizzolo—Perche piangi pastore?
Ghizzolo—Ahi, quanto ne godo

T irsi’s and Filli’s carryings-on generate paper-hurling, flower-pot slamming, Aeron-chair thwumping, stapling/paperclipping frenzy, and a couple dozen traversals of the chancel steps in un-historically-informed indignant manner. “Boy meets girl; boy gets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back!” Sort of a white-collar ‘Pajama Game’ veering toward the caricature of ‘The Office’. The singing and playing, though, are entirely ‘HIP’ and faithful to the idioms of the 17^th Century.

I nstrumental interludes were well-chosen—enhancing the narrative arc and pace of the love story and also showcasing, in turn, the particular strengths of Cartreine’s, Lemire’s, and Shalem’s playing. Scoggin’s and Keil’s singing was masterful; each brought a rich voice and dramatic poignancy to his/her role. The two navigated the tremendous intricacy of the 17^th Century Italian texts in a manner that seemed, to us in the audience, nearly effortless. Amazing, in fact.

I can only imagine that this light-hearted, dramatic production would be successful in engaging young audiences and those who love musicals. In other words, this program would be highly effective for chamber music presenters whose goals include ‘new audience’ development and marketing to those who might not otherwise think they would like 17^th Century music.

Suzanne Cartreine, harpsichord
Amanda Keil, mezzo-soprano
Scott Lemire, theorbo
Josh Schrieber Shalem, bass & treble viola da gamba
Thann Scoggin, baritone

C o-founding Musica Nuova last year, mezzo-soprano Amanda Keil and lutenist Scott Lemire collaborate with Suzanne Cartreine (harpsichord), Joshua Schreiber Shalem (viola da gamba) and Bradford Gleim and Thann Scoggin (baritones).

M usica Nuova takes its name from Giulio Caccini’s 1602 book of songs ‘Le Nuove Musiche’. Caccini was one of the pioneers of monody, a vocal style that involves intensive ornamentation, rhythmic textures, and expressive harmonies. These songs were precursors to modern opera and oratorio.

S uzanne Cartreine, harpsichord, is currently pursuing a MusD in Harpsichord and Historical Performance at Boston University. As a pianist and harpsichordist, she performs solo and chamber music in New England and Canada. As a choral singer she has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Academy Chorus, among others. Suzie is the organist and Director of Music at the First Parish Church of Stow and Acton, where she conducts two choirs and oversees an active music program that engages over 100 volunteer musicians each year. Under her direction, they have just produced their first CD, In dulci jubilo, a collection of Christmas music. Suzie teaches piano and has a BA in Physics from Macalester College in St. Paul and a MMus in Piano Performance from Temple University.

A manda Keil, mezzo-soprano, has appeared in the role of Florence Pike in Albert Herring and as Third Lady in The Magic Flute [both with the Intermezzo Young Artist Program], Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus [Opera del West], La Chatte in L’enfant et les sortilèges [MetroWest Opera], the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe [MIT], and Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea [OperaHub]. She has appeared with The Boston Camerata in Tristan et Iseult. Amanda holds a masters degree in voice and historical performance from Boston University, and a bachelors degree in French horn performance from The Hartt School.

S cott Lemire performs lute, theorbo, and vihuela, in solo and continuo roles. In addition to Musica Nuova, he has appeared with Sette Monti, Ars et Amici, New York Classical Guitar Society, and Williamsburg, Virginia, Music For A While. He has also performed with several New England orchestras including productions of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and New England Conservatory’s production of Cavalli’s L’Egisto.

J oshua Schreiber Shalem studied cello with Maxine Newman at Bennington College where he was a member of the Bennington Cello Quartet and the Early Music Ensemble. Josh is founding member of the ensembles Seven Times Salt, an English Consort, and Longy & Away, a consort of viols. He is currently completing a Masters of Music at the Longy School of Music, where he studies with Jane Hershey. In addition to his performance and Feldenkrais activities, Josh is active in Boston’s Jewish community as an educator and cantorial soloist.

T hann Scoggin, baritone, has appeared as soloist with numerous ensembles in such diverse concert repertoire as Monteverdi’s Selva morale, J. S. Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions, Telemann’s Der Tod Jesu, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Mass in C, the Requiems of Fauré and Duruflé, and Arvo Pärt’s ‘Passio’. His operatic repertoire includes the roles of Leporello in Don Giovanni, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, and Betto in Gianni Schicchi. He took his Bachelor’s degree at UNT, where he studied early music performance with Lyle Nordstrom and Lenora McCroskey. Before relocating to Boston in 2007, Thann appeared regularly with the Dallas Bach Society, Orchestra of New Spain, Texas Choral Artists, the Helios Ensemble, and the University of North Texas Collegium Musicum. Besides Music Nuova, Thann currently performs with Exsultemus, the Boston Secession and the choir of the Church of the Advent.

T he next SoHIP event will be 7 Hills Renaissance Wind Band (16th Century German Wind Music from the Hapsburg Courts) on Tuesday, 28-JUL.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Rolf Wallin: How to Build an Audience Through More Iconoclasm, Not Less

CMT: ‘Concerning King’ (2006), by the 50-year-old Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin, was performed last week by Attacca Quartet in New York. This Wallin composition originates in a mathematical analysis of serial time-samples of the acoustic frequency spectrum of a recording of an antiwar speech given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Riverside Church in 1967. Edgy staccato passages, without much lyricism. Challenging to listeners and performers alike!

DSM: Fractious. A long musical exhortation, like the best of King’s civil rights speeches, for the listener to personally do something to make things better in the world.

CMT: Yes. Wallin’s music has the blunt forthrightness, innocence, and stark beauty that are characteristic of a Norwegian temperament and outlook. It’s music that’s insistent in asserting discordant facts, but simultaneously expansive and optimistic. It strongly indicates reasons for hope, if only you will act! Rolf studied in Oslo at the Norgesmusikkhøgskole (Norwegian Academy of Music) with Finn Mortensen and Olav Anton Thommessen and later at the University of California where he studied under Roger Reynolds and Vinko Globokar. Wallin’s music combines an intuitive gestalt with mathematics, such as his use of fractal algorithms in his compositional technique, which results in music that sometimes resembles Xenakis or Berio. In 1987, Wallin received Norwegian Society of Composers Award for ‘…though what made it has gone’. He currently still resides in Oslo.

DSM: With a performance such as the Attacca Quartet just gave, I think each faction of the audience hears what they already knew about. But they can’t help but learn something new, too. And when they leave the performance venue, they are aware of a whole different kind of music; whole new meanings. Older folks like me can see the art, musicianship and virtuosity that are part of new music at its best. This stuff makes you think, but it also makes you feel! Ideally, it may motivate you to Do, rather than just Consume or Experience. The aleatoric and other effects—they just propel and demand a greater degree of listener ‘investment’ in deriving the meaning than more canonical pieces typically do. The balance between the performers and the audience is more like jazz, that’s all.

CMT: And aleatory and electronica didn’t spring de novo from the heads of Kraftwerk or Brian Eno; they grew out of a century of musical experimentation. That’s part of what younger audience members find out in this. Fifty to a hundred years ago, Varèse was searching for, and finding, new sounds long before electronics could provide them. Cage more or less invented industrial music, using found industrial objects. Those and a legion of less well-known and under-appreciated members of the avant-garde. Wallin and others younger than he are merely carrying that banner forward and innovating entirely new banners!

DSM: Reading the New York Times’ reviewer Vivien Schweitzer’s comments, I wonder whether we were hearing the same performance! Attacca’s performance of Wallin was vibrant and thrilling and unsettling, not ‘long-winded’! And it’s seldom that we in the U.S. have the privilege of experiencing this kind of inspired aesthetic cross-pollination. Marketers and presenters are understandably uncomfortable with crossing boundaries and can hardly risk doing anything other than stick their music, and their audience, in easily identified, familiar, sanctioned categories. They dread offending those touchy patrons who will tolerate nothing that is unfamiliar or unproven, nothing that is uncomfortable. So the repertoire gets constricted—regardless how innovative the performances of canonical works may be. But we need more new music and more category-busting events if we are to evolve a new music that is both artful and speaks to growing audiences looking for bespoke ‘experiences’ rather than shrinking audiences looking for uncontroversial balm.

CMT: Outreach programs and ‘Young People's Concerts’ á la Bernstein clearly don’t ‘work’ in terms of increasing audience and paid butts in seats. The London Sinfonietta’s ‘Ether’ concerts do to a degree succeed in bridging the gap between yesterday’s avant-garde and tomorrow’s.

DSM: But much, much more quantity—and much, much more varied offerings than are currently on offer—are needed. In other words, one solution to an already over-crowded classical music market is not ‘less’ product but ‘more’! Just not necessarily more of the same canon.

CMT: One solution is to leverage the famous Chris Anderson ‘long tailed’ distribution—the economical packaging and wider accessibility and ‘push’ marketing of performances tailored to ever-narrower market segments and ever-more-specialized affinities.

DSM: We’ve talked several times in months past in this blog, about the relationship of musical composition and nonlinear systems—Roger Reynolds, Iannis Xenakis, Milton Babbitt, and others. Is Rolf Wallin using things like strange attractors (Lorenz Attractor algorithms) or Mandelbrot sets to generate his motives—surtout dans la phase “précompositionnelle”?

CMT: Well, go email him! Go to Oslo and ask him!

[Wallin, ‘… though what made it has gone’, Hilde Torgersen, mezzo;
Kenneth Karlsson, piano; from CD ‘MOVE’ 1.4MB MP3]

C ette notion que des ‘instructions de travail’ simples peuvent générer une musique imprévisible au niveau des détails, mais qui néanmoins corrèle avec les procédures, m’a beaucoup fascinée, en tant qu’alternative plus ‘liquide’ à la notion d’œuvre, alors que l’œuvre au sens traditionnel est ‘cristallisée’ ou ‘coagulée’.”
— Rolf Wallin.