[Dixielandjazz] Classical Orchestra's Seek Out "The New Audience." Shouldn't We?

[Steve barbone]

The declining "audience" is not limited to OKOM. Here's an interesting take
on what the Symphony Orchestras are doing to build their audiences. See
paragraph 4 for a description of the problem. Sound familiar?

Cheers,
Steve

New Overtures at the Symphony By DANIEL J. WAKIN  August 21, 2005 NY TIMES

YOU do not have to know anything about classical music, a St. Louis
Symphony-linked Web site says. You do not have to dress up "like a
fancy-pants." Then there is this ringing recommendation for a musical
experience: "Yes, it will be possible to get your Brahms on and enjoy
yourself at the same time."

The appeal is for the Seven 18 Club, a concert series meant to lure young
professionals with preconcert drinks and postconcert socializing with young
orchestra members - one of whom doubles as a sultry model on promotional
materials. 

It is enough to make traditional music lovers cringe. Which, in fact, is
part of the idea. 

As audiences seem to grow older and the public turns its attention away from
concertgoing, orchestras around the country are adopting a wide array of
methods, from the trivial to the thoughtful, to bring more people into the
concert hall. They are hunting for the neophytes, the dabblers and mainly
the ungray.

This fall, a slate of innovations will be on display for the first time:

€ At the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's "Classical Connections" series for
the under-40 set, you can speed date, take salsa lessons or exchange résumés
before the performance, a shortened concert with onstage commentary and
occasional video.

€ For six Friday nights, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra will play a
traditional program for the first half of the evening, but then provide the
choice of chamber music or jazz in the lobby for the second half.

€ The New World Symphony, a high-level training orchestra in Miami Beach led
by Michael Tilson Thomas, will play four 20-minute concerts in one evening,
each on the hour, from 7 to 10.

€ Under-30's attending a Spokane Symphony Beethoven concert will receive
free "Beethoven Bash" T-shirts.

€ The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's "Beyond the Score" series offers a "live
documentary" on a major piece - film clips, an actor reading letters,
comments from the conductor and musical examples from the orchestra -
followed by a performance of the piece in the second half of the program.

€ Peter Schickele, of P. D. Q. Bach infamy, will be the host of three short,
early-starting concerts of old war horses at the otherwise reliably staid
New York Philharmonic.

Trying nonmusical methods to lure concertgoers is not new. For at least a
decade, orchestras - particularly smaller ones - have introduced shorter and
earlier concerts, onstage commentary and film-score programs to broaden
their appeal. More recent innovations include video screens in the concert
hall, hand-held electronic devices to provide running commentary and musical
programs built around pop culture themes.

But a recent surge in experimentation tempts one to wonder if orchestra
executives and their increasingly influential marketing departments might be
panicking. In any case, the ferment of ideas just may change the symphony
concert experience.

"I'd like to believe that a great performance of a great work is enough,"
said Simon Woods, who until last season was president of the New Jersey
Symphony Orchestra and is now chief executive of the Royal Scottish National
Orchestra. "We want to cling onto the essential greatness of the music we
play, and we sort of hope that will communicate. It's terribly disappointing
when it doesn't. 

"The reality now is that we are under a lot of pressure to try new things
and look at things in a new light. I think that the classical music field
has been a little complacent. We've said, 'We get it, so you should get it.'
Now we should say, 'We get it, so how can we help you get it?' "

Mr. Woods added, "What I don't think has been figured out is what works and
what doesn't work."

Everyone agrees, on the other hand, what inspired this surge of
experimentation. The facts are stark, the arguments well rehearsed.

Few major orchestras can fill their halls night after night. Over the decade
that started with the 1993-94 season, according to the American Symphony
Orchestra League, total attendance at 1,200 orchestras dropped from 30.7
million to 27.7 million, while the number of concerts rose from 27,000 to
37,000. Most major orchestras are earning less and spending more.

Crucially, subscriptions - a critical part of orchestra finances - are
declining. And every subscription not renewed is yet one more batch of
tickets that must be sold just to stay even. Single-ticket sales usually do
not make up the difference.

Why are audiences shrinking? It's the great debate in the classical-music
world, as pervasive a topic as race in South Africa or real estate in New
York: Is the business of classical music as we know it dying?

Pessimists say it is at least on the decline, and blame a lack of music
education, shorter attention spans, an image-obsessed culture and a vast new
world of entertainment options. Another point of view says classical music
is alive and well, with more listening than ever occurring at home or in the
car. Maybe, this line of thought goes, the problem is not demand but supply:
too many orchestras are playing too many concerts.

"It used to be orchestras had very small staffs and gave many fewer
concerts," said Joseph Horowitz, the author of the recent book "Classical
Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall." "This is the nub of the
issue. It's a surfeit of product that's causing many of the dysfunctions."
That, he says, and the lack of charismatic music directors, amid an
overabundance of marketing directors. (Most orchestras did not even have
marketing departments until the 1970's. Today, a staff of a dozen is
typical.) And there are always practical considerations like concertgoers in
suburbs spreading ever farther from downtown concert halls, difficult
parking and expensive tickets.

But if orchestras have simply lost touch with the public, others argue, then
change is healthy. A 10-year, $12 million research and financing project by
the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, called the Magic of Music
initiative, found that in the 15 cities studied, only 2 percent to 4 percent
of adults regularly attended their orchestras' concerts. Yet the potential
market nationwide was estimated at about 27 percent.

Researchers divided that quadrant into categories like active and casual
audiences; "sophisticated low-frequency alums," many of whom would attend if
invited; dabblers; and "uninitiated prospects." They spoke of orchestras as
"delivery systems" for "product," providing an "entertainment experience."
Focus on what the audience wants, the study said. Loosen the definition of
classical music. Pay more attention to social functions. And offer lots of
visual stimulation.

"It's been one-size-fits-all for a long time," said Alan S. Brown, a
consultant and the project director of the Knight audience study. "Today's
cultural consumers are demanding more intense experiences."

And orchestras are cooking them up and dishing them out. The Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra, a leader in what might be called the fun-factor area,
has a Thursday night series that provides free dinners. The doors to Music
Hall open at 6:15, and concertgoers hit the buffet line, taking an entree
and salad and sitting at tables in the hall's 20,000-square-foot ballroom.
"College Nite" concerts feature postperformance parties twice a year, in
which students nibble appetizers and listen to a local band (not the
symphonic kind).

Paavo Jarvi, the music director, and orchestra musicians make appearances.
The orchestra's CSO Encore! group, for young professionals, is sponsoring a
"Dressed to the Nines" party at the hall for opening night, when a Beethoven
symphony - no need to say which - is on the program. At the beginning of
last season, the symphony even sold "Paavo's Baack" T-shirts, a surprising
accessory to Mr. Jarvi's intelligent music-making and serious demeanor.

"We're just trying to snap it up a bit," said the orchestra's spokeswoman,
Carrie Krysanick.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is shaking things up too - shaking, but not
stirring - with Symphony With a Twist, a series of four concerts preceded by
martini bars and jazz in the lobby. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's version
is called Bravo. 

IN Houston the focus is less on the party in the lobby than the visuals on
the stage. The Houston Symphony projects images of the musicians, arms
sawing and fingers flying, and the conductor, baton a-waving, on large
screens in the hall. (The Omaha Symphony, the San Diego Symphony and the
Philadelphia Orchestra have all tried similar experiments, as did the New
York Philharmonic.) "We have to recognize that this is a visual generation,"
Evans Mirageas, an orchestra marketing consultant, said. "They are used to
seeing things more than they are used to hearing things."