[Dixielandjazz] Now here's a thought for Jazz Performers

[Stephen G Barbone]

Now here's a way to get your Jazz Festival audience involved. Have  
them choose your encore.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

May 16, 2009 - NY TIMES  - by Stephanie Clifford
Texting at a Symphony? Yes, but Only to Select an Encore


Cellphones are hardly applauded in concert halls, where it’s  
considered gauche to have them turned on, much less to pull them out  
during a performance. So at a recent Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra  
concert of classics like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, it was a little  
surprising when the conductor instructed audience members to take out  
their phones.

Symphony administrators had decided to let the audience choose the  
encore by text-messaging votes: “A” for Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown,” or  
“B” for Wagner’s prelude to Act III of “Lohengrin.” (“Hoedown” won by  
23 votes.)

“There was a little hesitation on the part of the musicians at first,  
like, ‘What?’ ” said Samuel Banks, a 28-year-old bassoonist in the  
symphony. “It’s the cardinal sin to have your cellphone go off during  
concerts. It’s better to fall asleep than to have your cellphone go  
off.”

The symphony, faced with aging patrons, is trying to appeal to a  
younger audience. And, like other arts organizations, it is trying to  
make performances more interactive, adding a sprinkle of “American  
Idol”to the temples of high art.

Along with the Indianapolis Symphony, the New York Philharmonic has  
also asked audience members to choose encores via text. In recent New  
York performances of Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” by a small opera  
company, attendees used text messaging to decide which couples would  
end up together. Museums, too, are using mobile technology in audio  
tours.

It’s a shift for arts organizations, which typically select their own  
programs rather than ask for audience feedback. (Text “1” if you want  
Ophelia to live. Standard rates apply.)

The Indianapolis Symphony began offering text voting at its casual  
Happy Hour performances last fall. Rather than making audiences spell  
out, say, “Mussorgsky” on their keypads, ExactTarget, the company that  
ran the voting, simplified the process by having the audience members  
text “A” or “B” for their choices, said R. J. Talyor, a product  
marketing manager there.

Mr. Banks got over his initial distaste when he noticed that, if  
anything, fewer cellphones rang during the Happy Hour concerts. (He  
says he thinks it’s because younger audience members remember to set  
their phones to silent mode.)

“Vaudeville, cabaret, they’ve been taking requests for centuries now,  
and we’re a little late in getting on board,” he said. “We’re giving  
the patrons really their only opportunity to impact the programming,  
and it is very small, but it’s a nice gesture.”

Attendance at the Happy Hour concerts has risen throughout the year,  
said Jessica Di Santo, a spokeswoman for the symphony.

The New York Philharmonic began asking audience members to text- 
message votes for encores at last summer’s concerts in New York City  
parks. It will repeat the project this summer.

Last year at the Philharmonic’s June 24 concert in Central Park, about  
2,000 votes were sent, and an orchestral arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s  
“Purple Haze” beat out Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

Daniel Bartholomew, a 38-year-old academic adviser at Yeshiva College  
who attended the concert, cast his vote for Hendrix.

“It was less passive than just sitting there and listening to music,”  
he said. “I don’t think a classical concert has to be so formal.”

Museums are also using cellphone technology: mobile phones are  
streamlined replacements for clunky audio-tour handsets. The Walker  
Art Center in Minneapolis asks patrons to call a local number and  
enter a code, listed next to a work of art, for information about that  
piece. More than 500 museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, the  
Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Portrait Gallery, use a  
service called Guide by Cell, which offers audio clips.

In at least one case, mobile technology has been part of a director’s  
message. Gina Crusco, the artistic director of the Underworld  
Productions Opera Ensemble, asked audience members at a recent  
production at Symphony Space in Manhattan to select which of the six  
main “Così Fan Tutte” characters should end up together. (In most  
productions, after scenes of false identities meant to test women’s  
faithfulness, two sisters end up with their original fiancés, with  
their maid and the instigator of the test, Don Alfonso, standing by.)

“It reflects the fact that there are many outcomes,” Ms. Crusco said.  
“Rather than putting it in the hands of the men to forgive them or  
not, we see that they could do any number of things, and then it’s up  
to the audience to fuse an ending that makes the most sense  
dramatically.”

Of course, when a director asks concertgoers to participate in a  
performance, some patrons might respond in unexpected ways.

What if a bored audience member texted something like, “End this  
concert now”?, Mr. Talyor, the product marketing manager at  
ExactTarget, was asked.

“They’d get a message back, saying, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t understand  
that request,’ ” he said, laughing.




Steve Barbone

www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband