Yesterday’s post about the paradox of choice, increasing audience expectations, and creating a perfect storm for a let-down explains the problem with why we don’t clap in concerts.
You see, if we are trying to re-create the polished perfection of a studio recording on stage, we are setting ourselves up for failure. As my colleague Jason pointed out on Monday, if a regional orchestra is trying to emulate the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall, or even an edited studio recording, they are going to fail. If I can choose from so many arts offerings, if everyone is promising high-quality performance and stellar musicians, I better have a perfect night out, just like Barry Schwartz wants his perfect jeans.
But you know what? I don’t care how it happened (Alex Ross and other arts marketing people can tell you all about that). I care about what we are doing to change it.
Like the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s new program, the Night Shift. Others have experimented with the format, but I don’t think many people have done it with baroque music.
Or consider the pet projects of Paul Haas (disregard the fact that the company I work for presented his REWIND show – I wasn’t around at the time) who is constantly re-evaluating the concert experience and trying different experiments, like REWIND and Tweetheart (with nerd darling Jonathan Coulton).
Even the San Francisco Symphony’s Davies After Hours, coming on the heels of a more traditional concert, is a great way to shake up your concert experience.
All of these are great ideas, and I’m so glad that we are pursuing new avenues. I’m worried that the danger of this throw-ideas-against-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks approach means that some combination of the following is happening: 1. new projects are underfunded, 2. new ideas aren’t taken seriously, 3. fear of the new means these ideas get scrapped if they don’t show immediate return, 4. there’s not enough time to build and audience, and/or 5. it takes the focus away from the core art. These are all concerns that I know we can find solutions for. Every artistic administration staff is made up of wonderful creative people. Now is the time to take risks.
July 28, 2010 at 2:53 pm
How does changing the concert format (the atmosphere) change what happens onstage (the music)? It seems that just because a concert starts later, the musicians are still likely to try to give the most polished performance they usually would.
July 29, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Hi Marc! I don’t think the concert format affects the music onstage, per se. I’m more interested in the packaging, and engaging people in a reliable, sustainable way.
The subscription model was the Way Things Work for so long. Now we need to start thinking about it in a new way.
August 11, 2010 at 2:10 am
Hi Maura,
Magnificat recently had the experience of performing period music in an environment similar to the Night Shift or Poisson Rouge concept when KDFC presented our CD release party at Yoshi’s. This was a particularly unusual juxtaposition as the repertoire was music written for a 17th century Milanese convent – about as far as possible from an upscale jazz club as it could be. We anticipated, and even to some extent looked forward to, the clink of glasses and the nightclub bustle and were surprised that the audience of 200 or so was absolutely silent during each of the pieces, following concert protocol and saving up their applause for the spaces between. I was reminded of the two Sigur Ros concerts I heard (one at the Warfield and one at the Paramount) in which the audience similarly listened in silence. Perhaps some music compels silent absorption and others – like OAE’s concerti grossi perhaps – more easily adapts to a casual atmosphere.
Performers are definitely affected by the ‘perfection’ made possible in recordings, but I’m not sure audiences are ‘let down’, given a reasonable level of professionalism. There is so much that can only be experienced live and even the casual concert-goer gets that and most often doesn’t notice or care about the occasional out-of-tune note or ragged entrance. Most audiences are looking for emotional nourishment and beauty, not technical precision (though that can be thrilling of course.)
As for the necessity of seeking out new venues – this is certain and it’s not just the cash-strapped artists and ensembles that need to be taking risks – presenters also have to be willing to promote such experiments. And, of course the donors and granting agencies that really keep art alive need to help in these innovations as well.
August 11, 2010 at 7:53 am
Hi Warren, I’m not worried about perfection on stage so much as the total audience experience throughout the night, going back to the paradox of choice theory referred to in the previous post.
September 14, 2010 at 12:53 am
Hi Maura
Thanks for highlighting those interesting examples of new concert formats. I can see how it would work well with baroque music, or any music that was written with the expectation of a vocal audience (I’m thinking of Mozart’s letter about his Paris symphony and how he had deliberately written passages to which he knew the audience would respond noisily). Current composers shouldn’t think less of creating new works which are designed to survive and thrive in a world of background noise.
There’s a bigger problem with the performance forms that have evolved with the expectation of a silent audience – from my own perspective, I’m thinking of song recitals in particular, where composers evolved uses of thin textures, pianississimos and other such things (usually performed in halls with very lively acoustics) that don’t work without every member of the audience being up for keeping very very quiet – which of course is just as much a form of audience participation as clapping or shouting or singing along; but whether it’s one of which large numbers of people are capable of in modern times is open to question e.g. the traditional minute’s silence to commemorate a death is frequently replaced at British football matches these days with a minute’s applause, since minute’s silences are so easily disrupted by a tiny minority who can’t or won’t keep quiet for 60 seconds. (On the other hand, I watched a cabaret performance of some light classical songs last month, in which the format and setting obviously expected, allowed and encouraged the audience to chat, drink etc, but during which the audience sat rapt, spellbound and almost totally silent.)
I watched an outdoor, amplified stage performance of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in London last year, performed by one actor and about a million children. During the show there was obviously some sort of trouble on the South Bank since we were buzzed by several police helicopters, rendering the words pretty much inaudible, but not really marring the enjoyment of the audience. It struck me how fragile much of our own art form is by comparison. Will that fragility prove fatal to its prospects of survival? I guess that depends on our own ingenuity and ability to respond together, as performers and audiences.
September 14, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Thanks for sharing your experience!
October 6, 2010 at 7:49 am
[...] Pair the unconventional with the conventional. The unconventional can stand on its own. Don’t sully the traditional with the contemporary. People don’t like new music.* Try things before there is a plan, and don’t ask anyone or it won’t get done at all. You will get in trouble if you do things without telling everyone. Even if those things are good things. Give up some control. Carefully craft everything. New ideas are good things, but they might not show return right away. [...]