Last night in Birmingham…
NewsA regular concertgoer reports:
I usually sit on the side circle At Symphony Hall, but was moved up to the higher level by the CBSO because my usual seats were being used by the wind and brass players of the CBSO in the John Luther Adams choral work.
I was sitting two levels above the orchestra – not the best viewing place!
I have attached a photo which I took just before the conductor walked on the stage.
Yes, a very poor audience, probably put off by a 45-minute work by a composer little known in this country.
I have been to over 2600 concerts in SH since it opened in 1991 (more than anyone else). I have heard many fantastic concerts and some dreadful music as well.
Although I probably wouldn’t go to hear last night’s new work again, I found it interesting and challenging for the wonderful choir. I have heard far worse in my past concert going!
The Grand Tier hasn’t been used since the pandemic, for any CBSO or visiting orchestra concerts, unless they were exceptionally popular.
The ticket prices don’t help.
Prices range from £16 to £59, this season. Next season the higher prices go up to £62. Some have gone up over £10 a ticket. These prices include a ticket charge of £3.50 per ticket (This is set by B.Music who runs Symphony Hall, not the CBSO). If 4 people go, that is an extra £14. It would be fairer if it were £3.50 per booking. If you book 7 or more concerts in one go, this £3.50 is cancelled. If you book 12 or more single concerts, in one go, you get £10 off each ticket, but even that is very expensive in these difficult times.
The cheapest seats, at £26, are the first 4 rows of the stalls, but if the stage extension is used, like last night, 3 rows of the cheapest seats are removed.
I can’t understand why anyone would want to sit in these seats as, being so close to the orchestra, you get most of the sound from the violins or cellos and you can’t see most of the rest of the orchestra properly. You can’t get the balanced sound of a symphony orchestra in these seats.
As far as I could see the new CEO wasn’t at last night’s concert.
At the same time their CEO Emma Stenning thinks she can turn this around by telling the audience they can take selfies, drink alcohol and eat ice cream during the concert. She is dangerous and out of her depth.
It’s shocking she isn’t seeing what’s happening. How can she be so ignorant?
Too busy doing non essential stuff rather than looking after what matters for the musicians and audiences of the CBSO, never take your eye off either.
Can someone explain why she needs six people to look after Learning and Engagement?
Good news, she has one person looking after Audience Experience
Not shocking, alas! Easy to be ignorant when you know no better! But after reading all the criticism of the CEO (most seemingly justified), I come back to an issue that has been discussed in this forum many times – Boards of Directors. It seems to a certain extent senseless to vilify a CEO with no professional background in orchestra administration. Yet this is the person the Board of the CBSO wanted to manage the affairs of its orchestra. I have absolutely no idea why, and it would be extremely interesting to have the Chairman go public and spell out in precise detail why such a wrong appointment was made – wrong at least in my view.
As we have seen so many times, so many Boards are comprised of allegedly the great and the good who not only know virtually nothing about how to manage the performing company they oversee, but who also – judging by their lack of regular attendance – have precious little interest in the first place. A Board‘s 2 primary functions are the appointment of the Artistic head and the CEO. I do not know who sits on the Board of the excellent CBSO, but I would love to have been a fly on the wall when they opted to appoint someone with no background and seemingly little interest in professional music management.
Hmm, drinks, ice cream and classical music? Sounds like a good time to me. What’s not to like?
At an outdoor festival, seated on a lawn, fine.
Inside a concert hall? Bollocks.
Our audience is being priced out!
£62 for each ticket. But what is Emma doing with this?
The money subsidises the ‘Black composers’ concert where every seat is only £12. Her theatre (and personal) friend Tom Morris? The money subsidises his interactive concert where every ticket is £10. The unpopular concerts with expensive strobe lighting and films? Also subsidised.
And the whole time she sits there drinking her way through concerts to stop getting bored.
Whenever she gets feedback she says ‘there is a variety of opinions’ and continues her destruction of this orchestra.
Has she considered for just one second when drinking how distracting it must be for people behind her?
Typical entitled behaviour.
Does she have a problem? It’s absolutely normal to sit for 40 minutes without needing to drink.
I’m sure she expects her orchestra to pay attention for 40 minutes. Why shouldn’t she?
There are lots of people who actually can’t sit still and quietly for even smaller amounts of time. One can notice them everywhere, they make a lot of noise and mess to be noticed. But will such people pay the ticket price for ruining the experience for the ‘still normal’ concert goers, while everywhere else they can just annoy strangers for free?
As sad a picture as one could see. I too was at the opening of SH in 1991 and remember it over many years as a vibrant, well-run venue. Maybe it wasn’t always full but attendances were great and many concerts did sell-out. Now it’s all rather different and depressing. Not everything can be placed at the door of the CBSO CEO but a lot of it can.
This criticism of Emma is appalling. Old white men who go to concerts think they know better than she does. She has years in theatre, what do you have?
Emma has a revolutionary way to make concerts better. Drinks and food are only a first step. Her ambition is to lower institutional barriers that uphold racism and elitism. She is updating classical music for the modern era.
We read the complaints and see misogynists who are stuck in the past. Emma is in charge at the CBSO, not you. Why don’t you give it a chance and eat your words later?
Finally: being a ‘donor’ means you support Emma. Your money does not give you a bigger say. That is the definition of power and elitism.
Give her a chance and she will make classical music better.
Just a few corrections to your comments are needed. I am not a donor, but a 75-year-old pensioner, who struggles to afford the concerts.
I have never said I know better than Emma about the theatre, which she knows more about than many people.
Emma has never worked in classical music, so even as an amateur who has been to over 7700 concerts (of all kinds) since 1963, it is not difficult for me to know more than Emma about classical music.
Most of the regulars who go to concerts would know more and I’m sure that there are people around that know more than I do.
Tim is it true that management have sent letters to some CBSO visitors who they believed were not showing full support for Emma? Have you had anything?
Yes.
I’m sure people would love to know more facts? From someone with first-hand experience such as you.
Could you ell us what prompoted you to wheel on the “old white men” sneer? What is wrong with being an old white man? Is there a passage in the Bible where God condemns them?
Are you a drinking buddy of Emma’s?
I hope you and Emma will have the good sense to remain seated during the performance – it would be most distracting if you and she were to stand whilst the musicians are playing…
What evidence do you have for your last statement? I suggest very little – and rather more pointing the other way. The issue of pricing, for example, has nothing to do with the gender of the CEO – and everything to do with her judgement. To manage an orchestra properly you have to know and love orchestral music and its audience – white middle clas and all……
‘As far as I could see the new CEO wasn’t at last night’s concert.’
Was the bar empty?
If she needs a drink to get through Debussy’s Nocturnes then she’d find a full Sibelius symphony tough.
Hi. This criticism of our staff is unacceptable. Under our Respectful Behaviour Policy we have the right to deny individuals’ access to future concerts if such behaviour continues. The CBSO is a place of joy and your criticism of CBSO management affects the mental and physical safety of our orchestra.
If you want to learn more you can read the Policy on our website.
This says everything about the priorities of Emma and the new management.
If you want to talk about ‘respect’, let’s talk about Emma’s recent actions towards players and visitors who actually love classical music.
Resign.
“The CBSO is a place of joy”
But not of anything else? Is there evidence for this?
Dear tovarish Stalin, I promis to shut up!
What a pathetic and prissy little response , especially to people who have loyally supported the CBSO for decades. Really u should be ashamed at trying to divert genuine criticism into a matter of personal antagonism.
Is this a joke, or are they serious?
Best of luck with unmasking the pseudonyms of social media users.
— Charles Phillip Arthur George M-W III
This comment merits further investigation, and publication.
“Although I probably wouldn’t go to hear last night’s new work again…”
A recurring problem for almost all new music.
I have often felt that a valid test of any new music is “would you want to hear that again?”
“…a very poor audience, probably put off by a 45-minute work by a composer little known in this country…”
Yup. They’ve been burned before. More often than not, the new composer has presented something that the listeners wouldn’t want to hear again.
People talk about a need to expand the repertoire but these once-and-done works aren’t accomplishing that.
For whatever it’s worth, plenty of people (myself included) are happy to turn up for John Luther Adams’s music here in the States.
The sad thing is the CEO is convinced she has the solution and is showing no signs of stopping.
Drinks allowed. Official policy on phones: ‘happy for you to take photographs and short video clips at our concerts’. Encouraging phone screens on in the hall during the concert to read the programme.
Remember this is a woman with zero music experience who did not know she ‘liked Rachmaninoff’ until she got the job.
There is now an announcement before the start of CBSO concerts that photos should only be taken during applause. That seems to me to be a backdown on the earlier pronouncements.
It is a slight backdown but nowhere near good enough.
The official policy says:
‘We are very happy for you to take photographs and short video clips at our concerts. We ask that you are mindful of disturbing artists and other audience members and suggest that you take pictures and videos during applause breaks.’
I asked for clarification after the recent subscribers’ letter and was referred to their generic policy, unchanged from before.
It is a backdown, but what’s more important is that it is lazy and incompetent for the CBSO management to make such announcements without taking the trouble to amend the wording (quoted by Subscriber) in the FAQ section of the CBSO website.
Absolutely disgusting and so incredibly demotivating to all of the musicians that the new Chief Executive doesn’t even show up for her own concerts. She really really needs to go.
Still better than the time she stumbled out the CBSO Centre in full view of everyone halfway through a performance.
I’ve heard people allude to this story. Do you have more details?
I’d also be too embarrassed to go if I were Emma.
But not as embarrassed as the orchestra who are being told by Emma that their concerts would be improved if the audience can drink and take selfies. Or when her focus at the season opening was announcing the ‘orchestra’s ambition of further developing an anti-racist approach to work’.
Why become CEO of an orchestra if the music is not your priority?
More unhelpful “journalism”Norman. Was it a slow news day?
We haven’t seen any other orchestra getting such attention over exactly how many people are in the audience (but only if it’s not well sold, let’s forget about the few weeks of great audience turn out shall we?). Or even more interestingly, where a member of the audience is or isn’t sitting.
This isn’t news it’s destructive and persistent bullying of The CBSO.
You must be new here. The topic of attendance at the Met has been an ongoing diversion here for several years, often illustrated.
wokeism has destroyed the MET and is also poison here in the UK – just look at Vienna or Berlin where the halls are still full
we just don’t get it here and it’s just dreadful
We have cancelled our subscription (20 concerts) for the new season and will only go to 3. We will not spend thousands of pounds to have the new CEO encouraging people in the rows in front to drink through the music and record the concert on their phones.
Funny how commenters here seem to think the world is coming to an end because someone near you is, god forbid, drinking? Are they making you drink or take photos? No. Do you go to sporting events or movies where people do so? I’m sure, and you lived to tell the tale. Get a grip, people!
That is not the issue, Carl. The proper question is does it disturb other members of the audience? I do not know the answer to that; if it does, however, good manners should bring it to a halt. A concert is a shared experience, which requires focus, mutual respect and goodwill. If only a few people want to drink, and most do not like it, that should be the end of it. Of course, if majority opinion is actually in favour, that is a different matter. I do not believe it is very difficult to ascertain that with a quick survey of the listeners.
Really sorry you feel the need to do this; especially considering these things weren’t brought in by Emma.
I’m surprised people can’t see that Emma has listened to the feedback but maybe people just don’t want to see that and don’t want to give her a chance.
Hope to see you at a few more than three of our concerts next year; there are some really good ones that the orchestra would love to see you at.
If you really care about the music, or the orchestra (a valued part of your community?), or about being a participant in the music-making process, are you really going to deny yourself the pleasure of hearing a lot of concerts of music you otherwise would like to hear just because someone else in the hall is having a drink? Seems you’re either a very fair-weather concertgoer or just overwhelmingly inclined to cut off your nose to spite your face.
That said, by all means tell the management you don’t like this new policy. I’m not too bothered by people drinking but definitely draw a line at phones.
Why are you surprised? You hire someone who knows nothing about music and says she wants to turn the CBSO into a social justice group. Of course you get mission statements, respect policies, drinks and cameras in the hall.
The shocking thing is she is still forcing it through. I’ve heard such upsetting stories from close players in the orchestra who obviously cannot speak up.
Imagine building a playing career for years then the CEO asks you to go on stage playing Beethoven’s Eroica to a video of Victoria Wood complete with flashing lights. Emma sitting back in the concert with a drink and a smile on her face when the rest of the audience were sending complaint letters and asking for refunds.
At least her theatre friends are getting paid well for their lighting equipment…
I thought Emma Stenning said people would come more if they could drink, eat an ice cream and take a selfie instead of listening to the music?
They decided the pub is cheaper.
The problem is clear.
1. Emma is alienating her audience. She tells them they will enjoy their concerts more if they are filled with films, lights, drinks, everything other than MUSIC. Bumping up ticket prices to pay for her new gimmicks.
2. She is not getting a new audience to replace what the audience she is losing.
She is making a laughing stock of the CBSO players by criticising concerts as boring and encouraging everything that distracts from their playing.
We (donors and subscribers) are sharing our feedback and we get patronising messages and policies back. It is the talk of our concerts when we go.
My husband and I want to keep donating but if Emma stays another year we will stop. We are not having Emma sit there with her fingers in her ears throwing more of our money away.
What a shame the turnout was so low. The last few CBSO concerts that I went to recently have been well-attended. There was a good review of this concert in The Guardian – I posted a link to it in the Comments section of the previous SlippedDisc thread on this topic.
The concertgoer quoted above paints, in my opinion, a fair portrait of the situation. When I received last year’s season brochure, I marked all the concerts I wished to attend, but had to eliminate about half of them in order to be able to afford purchasing tickets: I bought tickets for 19 concerts. For the new season I have bought tickets for 24 concerts. The bulk discounts and exemption from booking fee provide quite a saving, but demand quite an upfront sum to be paid well in advance.
From the point of view of the orchestra, I can see it makes sense to attract new faces to come along and fill empty seats, rather than to charge less for tickets so that the likes of me could attend more concerts. They did a brilliant job last week, by the way, with their well-attended Final Fantasy concert: mainly folk I’ve never seen at CBSO concerts who got a good welcome from Principal Clarinet and self-confessed gamer Oliver Janes. The audience really appreciated it, and I would be surprised and disappointed if some of them didn’t try out something else from the CBSO in the future: I’m sure they could be reeled in for Mahler or Strauss concerts!
Blame this on nothing but John Luther Adams, the charlatan’s charlatan, the fraud’s fraud. Music that no musician enjoys playing; music that listeners pretend to enjoy listening to. It’s completely worthless.
True, the guy’s a joke. Nothing but endless gimmickry and pretension.
How crazy do you have to be to see this and think: ‘I can make this better by putting drinks in the hall and helping the orchestra take an anti-racist approach’.
Hang your head in shame Emma!
When will Emma Stenning realise that her actions are destroying the CBSO? She started with a small problem and her mismanagement has made it infinitely worse. Every choice she forces through alienates more people.
We renewed our subscription to support the CBSO, not Miss Stenning. We renewed because we love music. If she does not enjoy concerts then that is her choice. How dare she try to ruin our concerts with drink slurping, internet browsing, photographs, telling us like a headmistress we must be joyful?
I feel sorry for the players.
She needs to resign before she does more damage.
Don’t forget that if you have to drive in you pay a £8 Fee as well.
How can the CEO think she can turn this around with beers in each half plus an anti-racism education for the orchestra?
When the hall is so empty, why make this audience member move to such a bad seat?
No kidding. At the very occasional badly-sold concert I have attended, patrons have been offered the best-available seats in the stalls so that the players face out to a full-looking audience. Patrons in higher balconies are offered the opportunity to move down to lower tiers (or down to the stalls, if there are some available).
There is some feeble argument that patrons who paid full price will be resentful, but the occasions of this in my long experience of several presenting organisations could be numbered on the fingers of one hand.
It remains to be seen how the CBSO will respond to the current difficulties: a big reduction in funding, stretched personal budgets for concert goers and a large concert hall to fill. Selling classical music to a public in a depressed city in the throes of a financial crisis provides a considerable challenge.
The immediate response to this problem, promoting the new concert programme as a “Season of Joy” does not inspire confidence, the title being more apt for a harvest festival in a local church. If the CBSO regards itself as a leading international orchestra, it will require greater imagination than this.
How has this happened so suddenly? Just looking at its recent history, this is the orchestra that built the careers — as they contributed to building the orchestra — of Simon Rattle and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, two of the most in-demand conductors in the world.
I understand financial problems and the issue of getting audiences back after Covid, but Birmingham, according to many posters here, has a large and enthusiastic — and knowledgeable — audience. Why on earth would they hire a CEO who does not appear to appreciate or understand any of this?
Speaking of: why isn’t Simon Rattle screaming in defense of the orchestra that launched his career? Or is his jerryfication a point of no return for those still in England?
I don’t know what the practice is in England but elsewhere music directors I know have been chary of sticking their oar in to new policies at their former orchestras.
Emma Stenning, the new CEO, recently commissioned a new policy that threatens to ban people who criticise her management from CBSO concerts.
At least one letter has already been sent to a regular subscriber for decades because he asked a photographer to be quiet when the orchestra was playing. Emma said it could make the photographer feel unwelcome.
It says everything about this woman that her priorities are everything except music.
But it is okay for this long term subscriber, and therefore supporter, of her enterprise to be made to feel unwelcome? What is this broad smoking?
John Luther Adams isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I seem to remember NL was said with his music a little while back.
no wonder as the woke media killed classical music in general as most directors did – in Europe the so called ‚Intendanten’ are responsible for the exodus as audiences had enough and the youngsters aren’t interested to see the same shit they watch on TV on stage – no one will understand this – voila
I attended my first CBSO concert in 1966. I became a subscriber in 1970 going to the Town Hall regularly. (Hugo Rignold, Harold Gray then
everybody’s favourite Louis Fremaux).
Later we all moved to Symphony Hall. And exciting times ahead in that world – class facility.
I can’t recall a poor concert. Some difficult music on occasions, often newly written, raising hostility but keep listening!
We moved from the Midlands to Pembrokeshire in 2006 leaving behind the beloved CBSO. I remained a ‘friend’ making a small contribution to CBSO funds.
I had not been to Sym Hall recently until April 10th 2.15pm. Imagine what a treat it was to see Ben Grosvenor (piano), and a fantastic performance of Berlioz – Symphony Fantastique. That piece stayed with me ’til the following weekend at least! Meeting Kazuki, too! My place in Sym Hall that day reminded me of the years Of pleasure brought by these great players. THE CBSO. Remember these players play their hearts out for us every time.
Controversy and bickering is a threat to the future of our Arts scene. So is lack of finance! An even bigger worry.
The CBSO needs all the support it can get; let’s maintain it.
If you fancy a day trip out come to Welshpool on June 22nd to listen to The Welsh Chamber Orchestra with Anthony Hose and baritone Jeremy Huw Williams.
My next day trip – 19th June Mendelsson’s ‘Italian’. Can’t wait!
CBSO and Symphony Hall – a world -class service. Support the CEO and the whole outfit.
‘A world – class reputation made in Birmingham’.
Alan Caunce – supporter 1966 –
How balanced was the orchestral sound at that seat?
I wonder why Emma Stenning stayed away.
At least it’s more polite than turning up uninterested.
I had to sit behind her once and she spent the whole concert slurping drinks and fidgeting. She had a free, front-row balcony seat and showed incredible disrespect to everyone who had her in their eyesight as well as the orchestra, who played brilliantly despite the circumstances.
She shouldn’t be CEO of an orchestra if she treats high-quality music with contempt.
I find it unbelievable that all you do is criticise this fantastic British orchestra.
When funding is at an all time low all you do is give unfavourable reviews – these musicians work tirelessly to produce fabulous concerts week after week.
Do you actually play an instrument ? Do know what skill is taken to produce concerts of this level week after week.
I’m sick of reading your criticism.
No one on this post has criticised the wonderful orchestra.
If funding is so bad, why is Emma throwing money at making sure the orchestra has an anti-racist approach to work (did she think they were racist before she joined)? Why is she throwing money at expensive lighting and multimedia set-ups for her immersive concerts when the last one resulted in negative reviews and audience members asking for refunds?
Nobody is criticising the orchestra or musicians. If you read more carefully, it is targered at Emma and her recent actions.
So what?
The most expensive tickets are £59? I pay roughly that in $ for mid-range tickets in Milwaukee and they usually sell 1,000 tickets each concert
That’s two pictures published on Slippedisc of the inside of Symphony Hall that I can see myself in…
On the point made by your correspondent about ticket prices, I sat in the back row of the Upper Circle and paid £12.50 for my ticket. This included a CBSO package discount and BMusic membership. The concert programme can be downloaded for free and students and benefit recipients can get in for £5. It’s difficult to think of a cheaper night out in Birmingham.
As for last night’s attendance, it was thin, but more mainstream programmes have attracted much healthier numbers throughout this season.
What is Emma Stenning doing to improve this?
This season we have had strobe lighting, encouragements to use our phones during concerts, food and drinks in the hall (Stenning takes full advantage of the drinks: this is an open secret in Birmingham since it is so distracting to those who sit near her), videos streams playing over Beethoven symphonies.
Cash-strapped audience members have had concerts ruined and have asked for refunds: Stenning refuses refunds and instead revently used donor money to create a policy that threatens bans against people who speak up against her.
Next season? In Stenning’s own words:
‘The CBSO has appointed two creative associates; Professor Nate Holder and production company MishMash. Associates will hold the role for a year-long tenure with the aim of encouraging new thinking around the CBSO’s work to attract young audiences and support the orchestra’s ambition of further developing an anti-racist approach to work.’
Last month we found out she bumped up prices in normal concerts to £65 per ticket: at the same time all Symphony Hall tickets for ‘Black Voices’, Nate Holder, MishMash and her film project with Tom Morris (her theatre colleague from Bristol) were reduced to £10-£12.
She constantly talks about joy and respect but does everything possible to attack music and music lovers.
I pulled my donation and many others have too. We need the CBSO Board to step in and stop Stenning before she brings the whole orchestra down.
There is something very nasty-sounding about raising prices of a Symphony Orchestra for patrons of symphonies and orchestra while reducing them for anything else.
But consider what you’d have to pay for even a cheap seat lost somewhere in the vast crowd (or standing room) at a Taylor Swift concert. Sadly, that’s the way of this world. So what can classical music performance do to survive and increase in popularity? No one seems to know. Simply throwing more money at it doesn’t seem to help.
The problem with that frequently-made comparison is that people who pay hundreds dollars to go to concerts by rock stars usually only go once a year or so. And Taylor Swift, to take your example, performs concerts in a given city once in — what? every five years? ten years?
A top-level symphony orchestra will be giving two to four performances of each of 30-odd programs each season.
The two just aren’t comparable.
I’ve been to see cbso twice this week for the first time in ages. Both fantastic. Last Friday’s Best of Ballet was fun and packed out, and probably paid for last night’s more interesting programme with its brand new John Luther Adams work and much smaller audience. It was sad to see so few people there although it’s always been the case that the more popular concerts cross subsidise others, and cbso have always done a good job delivering a varied but viable season. After reading SD’s constant digs at them recently I didn’t know what horrors to expect but turns out it was the same brilliant cbso as ever. My young daughter loved both concerts too.
Deeply sad to see the sympathy hall half empty it beautiful concert venue
The CBSO is a brilliant orchestra but Emma is causing an incredible amount of upset and damage.
You wouldn’t ask someone who can’t add up to be your accountant.
You wouldn’t ask someone who can’t read to be your lawyer.
You wouldn’t ask someone who can’t drive to drive you to the airport.
So why is Emma in this role? It is well-known she has zero knowledge of music. In concerts we see her fidgeting her way through, bored like a child. She said in a talk that she didn’t know who Rachmaninov was until last year!
The CBSO audience is loyal and passionate, but she is pushing them away even more by patronising them and believing that she knows best.
You can’t expect an orchestra to do well under someone who is not passionate about music. She should show some respect and resign.
VERY WELL SAID!
Unfortunately, opera companies keep hiring directors who know nothing about opera and proudly proclaim their ignorance.
The results are for all of us to see.
Wise words – and I hope the CBSO Board have read them.
The new management under Emma Stenning has been dreadful.
On one hand they say they are in a dire financial position and begging us for donations. On the other hand Emma is spending tens of thousands of pounds on technicians and equipment (apparently from her old theatre buddies in Bristol) because she says concerts are better with flashing lights and smoke machines.
She’s asked her close friend Tom Morris (her biggest Bristol theatre buddy) to host an interactive concert later this year. All seat prices lowered to £10. Where is the money coming from for this?
Booking charges, like standing charges on utility bills, have been rising steadily and moved from per booking to per ticket.
LSO at the Barbican tickets start at £10 and £18 is sides of Balcony, which is fine. Best seats are £70. At the Festival Hall, prices start at £15 and go to £75
Symphony Hall has by far the best acoustic. Barbican seating is comfortable, spacious with good sightlines and you feel close to performers. Festival Hall cheap seats you need binoculars and ear trumpet!
Pity it was so poorly attended.
The matter of a ‘booking fee’ per ticket is mentioned. I have never understood this – it seems like a method to screw more money out of the attender. It is applied when you book online, which requires no manual effort on the part of the box office staff. They should be grateful that people pay to attend the event and shouldn’t have the effrontary to pull this flanker.
I really hope attendance in Birmingham grows and I’m baffled by ticket price increases by any of the world’s best orchestras who aren’t filling halls.
Keep us updated.
Concerts have simply become redundant : you get a better sound at home , 90% of the time at least – a better performace , usually a much better one.
And then you spare the time to get to the hall , the burden of staying stil for 2 hours , the cost of food and parking and gas.
Most conductors are dull , the Makela dance or the Dudamel salsa don’t provide a specific sound or interpretation. So why bother ?
If you do not understand the live concert experience, there is no way to explain it to you.
I do not mean that as a patronising comment. Unlike theatre and dance, music is indeed well served by technology and you are entirely correct that many, if not most, recordings are better — and considerably more convenient and less expensive — than what you might hear in a hall.
Best analogy I can offer: the same is absolutely true of rock/pop concerts, yet young — and some older — people pay vast sums to attend them. THEY know about the electricity of live performance instinctively. Weighed against the other factors — limited sight of the performer(s), the whole business of parking, maybe the cost of a meal and drinks, and in some cases babysitters — they still want to “be there.”
I know classical admirers feel differently about their admiration of a Martha Argerich or a Yuja Wang than pop fans feel about Taylor Swift and Lady Ga-Ga. And the differences are of kind as well as degree. But there is still the appreciation of being there as something actually happened that appeals to some, who understand that a musical artist is just that — a human interpreter of great music — and not just the medium for some perceived version of perfection.
If it does not do anything for you, then there is no point in your going. Your case is perfectly well presented. But I fear its seductiveness to more and more people in more and more arenas.
There are two strains driving through society that are damaging to it in every way — the massive increase in technology that makes people more interested in texting each other than in being with one another, and the post-pandemic refusal to return to DOING anything, from attending work in workplaces to doing their shopping in person — in shops — to eating out rather than ordering in to going to events they used to enjoy for their commonality with their fellow man.
Such attitudes have driven shops and restaurants out of business, and businesses of all sorts struggle to get their workers to show up at all. I’m afraid that your wonderful recordings come from a dying industry — I assume you are not referring to streamed music when you wax lyrical about listening to music in the comfort of your own home. And the struggling recording industry requires artists who have made a reputation –generally by playing to audiences.
Artists are in some ways like athletes — also at risk in some areas for lowered attendances at games, matches, races, tournaments. Athletes know the difference between extensive training and being “match-tough.” SO DO ARTISTS. You do not want to be hearing the recordings — presumably –of artists who have spent hours practising but have not played for audiences, where they — if not you — discover the magic of music when played for appreciative people, and where their real abilities are tested.
And, à propos of this thread, if Emma Stenning does not find herself to be one of those appreciators, she ought to remove herself from this particular fray and go off and rescue some theatre or other.
“you get a better sound at home”
Depends on the equipment.
Interest in HiFi (and I mean an interest in “fidelity”) is not what it was a few decades ago. Audio compression, mediocre multi-room systems designed primarily for convenience, and bass obsessed “audiophiles” muddying the waters with excesses and extravagant claims, have not in my opinion widened the appeal of accurate reproduction.
Excellent equipment is still available, but it’s a niche interest.
I absolutely love the SH, and for years have travelled a round drive of 100 miles to concerts.
However, no more. Last year’s literal “doubling” of the cheapest prices in the Grand Tier ( the only area that, as a Pensioner, I could afford after petrol costs ) totally priced me out. I protested to the new CEO ( who took over two months to reply ) and just got a load of waffle about rising costs, not her fault, etc etc
If you are driving 100 miles round-trip for a concert, the higher ticket cost is probably the least of your concerns. Assuming your car gets 25 miles per gallon, you are spending about GBP 24 just for petrol. Plus wear and tear on your vehicle. And that assumes you assign zero value to your time.
Photographic proof of the effect that phony composers like Adams have on audiences. But he wins lots of awards!
Just curious, what elements do you consider this indicative of?
I cancelled my subscription. Too many concerts ruined by the CEO telling people to use phones.
Audrey, at recent concerts (including Thursday) there has been a clear but polite announcement over the tannoy to say that audience members should only take photos or video during breaks in the music or when the orchestra are taking their applause at the end of the performance. From my seat at the back of the hall, I saw 100% compliance. At a Birmingham Classical concert given by the Czech Symphony Orchestra last month, no announcement was made and the young woman sat next to me was using her phone throughout the whole concert. What upset me about that was she missed the concert because she was giving all her attention to the phone.
I completely agree that on top of already high prices the per ticket booking fees at B:Music are very off-putting, and they are not even waived if you buy in person at the box office. I would attend more concerts in Birmingham if this were not the case.
A poor audience for this but there have been several full houses and superb concerts. The full houses tend to be for the weightiest works – like Shistskovich 8th – the Damnation of Faust. Last weeks matinee with Dvorak 7 was superb and a good audience. The Vespers sort of effective but very very monotonous. It didn’t seem to be an atmospheric sound and it had very thin musical ideas. A lot of it was tedious descending scales and moving from high pitch music to very low. The Sibelius was top notch.
But for me the big problem is transport. The train service from Wolverhampton and Stafford is unreliable and every evening concert has the stress of worrying it might run late.
The concerts are worth the trouble and they have changed the phone policy and are making announcements. Next year’s programme has separate events with a/v effects as well as a very good programme of mainstream concerts.
Not surprised to see this. The new CEO Emma Stenning is crazy beyond belief. She lowers the quality – remember when she reduced a Beethoven symphony performance to the CBSO playing it as background music to a film about inspirational people such as Victoria Wood and Nelson Mandela? Plus asking people to take drinks in and take pictures?
She couldn’t stand the criticism she got after and dug her heels in. Mission statements, threats to ban subscribers who complain in public about her, personal letters to rebuke audience members for their behaviour (the ones who questioned her approach, not the ones disrupting concerts with their phones and beers).
This is what happens when an unqualified person thinks her crazy agenda and public image is more important than the orchestra.
Nobody is criticising the CBSO. The problem is Emma’s.
This is what Emma is saying! Concerts with old music are boring and unpopular. Why optimise for old white men?
Guess what? Emma has introduced many higher quality, immersive concerts in the next season that will fill more seats.
Dvorak Symphony No.9 in collaboration with Black Voices: all seats £20. Black composers concert: all seats £12. Come and listen to support Emma!
Emma’s project concerts will sell more seats than this and prove that her vision for the orchestra is right.
Quite a fun parody, this. Well done.
I love “Emma Suporter” because (s)he seems to be “channeling” Emma herself to all of us here at SD.
Desert island. The strange death of European musical heritage.
If he were better known in the country there would hardly be any audience at all.
Crying shame, because John Luther Adams’ music is interesting, clever and beautiful. But it’s been the same.story for every with orchestral concerts; if you’re going to play contemporary music you either have to have a really big name conducting it, or sweeten the medicine with a big fat Rachmaninov or Dvorak or something in the 2nd half.
His music is none of those things. It’s the music of someone who doesn’t know anything about music.
What plays well in Seattle may not in another context, like the West Midlands.
I’m proud of the orchestra and loyal audience celebrating music in Birmingham despite Emma Stenning’s best attempts to sabotage the CBSO.
Tell us more about what you thought of the performance as a whole, Christopher. Were you blown away…by the brass!
But at least you can use your phone ….
As a classically-trained musician entering their sixth decade, past experience cries out to me that new, unfamiliar music often drives away audiences. And common sense would also seem to say that appealing to a small sub-set of an already small group of the population, for example, an ethnic minority within the group of those who might attend a live classical concert, is also hardly likely to fill venues.
It seems to me that technology offers a hitherto undreamed of possibility for offering new works to a larger audience. By live-streaming a concert like yesterday’s, anyone with connectivity and an interest in John Luther Adams could have heard the piece. It wouldn’t even need to have been performed before a live audience.
Live-streaming also offers a solution to the problem of commercialising an activity that appeals to a largely aging demographic that finds the prospect of getting to a live venue challenging or impossible. After many years as a season-ticket holder I myself am now largely housebound caring for the parents who I had hitherto taken to live concerts. Many churches with an aging congregation have done this successfully at minimal cost. What would be the difference?
There would undoubtedly be issues that make this more complicated than it sounds. But knowing the audience rather than vainly attempting to appeal to everyone but reaching no one would be a big step in the right direction.
“And common sense would also seem to say that appealing to a small sub-set of an already small group of the population, for example, an ethnic minority within the group of those who might attend a live classical concert, is also hardly likely to fill venues.”
Opening a comment with “as a (whatever victim you identify as) person” is counter productive and should be avoided.
However, as a person who is “black as the ace of spades” (to quote Monty Python) I agree entirely. 99% of the time you might as well not bother. I can’t even get younger family members to go and boy, have I tried.
I wish administrators would stop using people like me to impress and to make themselves feel better. It’s patronising and extremely irritating.
Remember fondly the Rattle years with packed houses. Much has changed and difficult to put a single reason for it.
Why would someone in Birmingham feel welcome there now? Emma Stenning ruins the concert experience with drinks, phone cameras and patronising story films. And to top it off she threatens to ban music lovers who question her.
At least our terrific audience are there to enjoy incredible music.
When Emma turns up, how do you think it feels to play with her sitting there bored, telling our amazing audience that they will enjoy our concerts more if they take drinks inside and make videos?
She lost all remaining respect when colleagues gave a lunchtime chamber concert at CBSO Centre and she stumbled out halfway through, disrupting players and audience alike.
We are so grateful to our audience. Many are paying £65 per ticket even after being threatened with bans from Emma.
I know of one extremely loyal visitor of many years who was distracted by a noisy photographer during a concert. Emma sent him a direct letter, ignoring his concern and attacking him for making the photographer feel unwelcome. We still see him in the audience giving us his support, yet he has been told he could have his tickets cancelled if he steps out of line again.
If Emma treats her audience this way, imagine how she treats her orchestra.
I wish they’d open the cheaper grand tier seats back up. If the concert doesn’t sell well they can always move people down a level.
To me, those prices seem dirt cheap!
The poor audience is the price for very unfamiliar music being played. Whoever planned this concert must be made aware of the economic repercussions of such choice if the orchestra is to survive. Blow the Arts Council with its demand for novelties.
Choose rare music but mostly choose composers whose names resonate .
Take Sibelius. There are a dozen symphonic works hardly ever played today, all of a high standard. The Fourth Symphony was the first work I heard conducted in SH by the young Sakari Oramo. When was it last played there I wonder? Malcolm Arnold told me it was the masterpiece of the 20th century. Put on more rare Sibelius and other composers of known qualities but of their less well known works. Contemporary and new commissions must be controlled but not ignored.
13 years ago! These are the Birmingham performances since SH opened.
CBSO Stephen Kovacevich S H 03/04/96
Gothenburg SO Neeme Järvi S H 19/04/96
CBSO Sakari Oramo S H 11/05/00
CBSO Sakari Oramo S H 30/09/03
CBSO Sakari Oramo S H 20/09/07
Tampere PO John Storgårds B T H 08/12/07
CBSO Robert Spano S H 01/12/11
Sibelius, like Mahler, has become rather mainstream.
Over here in Europe, my impression is that managers are programming Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner etc. over and over again, thinking it will fill the halls, but in fact they are causing the market to become oversaturated.
I mean does the World really need more Mahler with Thielemann, Mäkelä or Gatti, for example?
One might bash the CBSO or their management, but this says as much about music “lovers.” They don’t know what they like; they like what they know. And this evening they had a very well known and excellent work – Sibelius 5th. And they had a premiere by a relatively well known and successful modern (albeit American) composer. It’s one thing for people to stay away from music they know they don’t like – I won’t go to a show with any of about a dozen well-known piano or cello concertos unless another piece on the program is a real “can’t miss” – quite another not to go because they don’t know it at all. How are you ever going to get a pleasant surprise this way? The new pieces can’t all be gems but if once in a while you hit a real winner, isn’t it worth it?
That said, pop music fans aren’t any better; go to Paul McCartney, Queen +AL, the Stones, the Who, etc… they don’t want to hear anything new – they want to hear the greatest hits. Taylor Swift fans may be open to hearing her new material, but in large part because it sounds a lot like the old.
Consider the relative demographics of McCartney, Stones, Queen audiences and those of Taylor Swift.
Then consider that both groups usually sell out.
I think the clue is in the phrase “greatest hits”…….if attending a Stones concert and they didn’t play Sympathy for the Devil and Satisfaction I would be a little pissed off!
No wonder. Emma Stenning’s attitude stinks and pushes away people who love music.
Not a drink in sight! This loyal audience clearly cares for music.
Embarrassing that in comparison Emma drinks her way through the concerts she attends. What a way to show in public your opinion of music and your own orchestra.
That’s really sad to see. The poor musicians who work so hard for such a small crowd.
When the environment is so tough, why would you want a CEO who knows literally nothing about music? Putting phones and drinks in the hall will not solve this: the fact that Emma fights for that just makes it even worse.
Looks like Chicago Symphony audiences just fill it in a touch more but they are usually about %60 empty.
“Take all the photos you want, especially of the performers performing. But do NOT take pics of poorly attended hall!”
When exactly was this photo taken? The writer says “before the conductor entered.” Was that just before, 10 minutes, 30 minutes?
One minute. I should know, I took it!
The writer wrote “just before the conductor entered”.
The writer said “just before”.
Will the CSO be the next BIRMINGHAM!?!?
Why are ticket prices in Birmingham so high? At The Glasshouse in Gateshead earlier this year, £65 got me FIVE top-price seats for the Bruckner weekend: three world-class performances of his symphonies, his Great Mass with full orchestra and choir, and his String Quintet.
Antwerp, they’re not. To pay £62 for a ticket you’d have to only come to one concert a year. Discounts start with a package of only two concerts. Book twelve or more and the discount is £10 per ticket. My ticket is normally £12.50.
Norman, have you asked Emma Stenning to respond to the hundreds of comments about the CBSO’s management that have been posted here over many weeks?
Most arts administrators would be pleased to get so much feedback, even though much of it is negative. It would enable them to reply and – one would hope – respond by making changes.
I’m reminded of the cartoon of the proud parents watching their son at his Army passing-out parade: “Ooh look, everyone’s out of step with our Johnnie”…..
…..or Emma.
Hasn’t Ms. Stenning made it clear that freedom of speech — I mean criticism of her policies — can result in long-time subscribers being banned? (How do you ban people who have paid? I have never yet met an orchestra that doesn’t do everything in its power to avoid refunding actual, already-spent, money).
One can hardly expect her to take into consideration the views of people who participate in a blog that is open to all sorts, including people like me who have no stake in CBSO outside wanting all good orchestras to survive and thrive and whose views are on policies as reported here.
I’m not sure she has. This may be a hoax
It would be funny if it wasn’t so devastatingly sad: as it is I and other long-term CBSO subscribers are feeling incredibly and increasingly angry about what’s being done to our wonderful beloved orchestra.
The CBSO is not a dispensable little organisation for theatre folk to treat as a plaything. It is one of the absolutely best international orchestras and THE jewel in the crown of our great city’s cultural life. Our musicians are the best in the world. It is far, far too important to fail yet as things stand it is being left to do so.
It has been brilliantly led over the half century that I have been following its development, both artistically, by Louis Fremaux, Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, Andris Nelsons and Mirga, and by dedicated staff and trustees including Stephen Lloyd, Beresford King Smith, Ed Smith, Wally Francis, Stephen Maddocks and the recently retired board chairman David Burbidge.
It beggars belief that it has been taken over with such sheer incompetence by a lady who apparently finds music boring and either doesn’t show up to concerts at all or who drinks her way through them. She has sent threats to many of us who spend our life savings buying tickets and donating to the orchestra when we have the temerity to challenge her madder decisions. This situation CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE.
What is the new chairman Lord Hall doing to take this situation in hand? He lives a long way from Birmingham and we don’t see him often.
I am afraid that the musicians and administrative staff alike must be feeling incredibly demotivated. At the concert this week we said goodbye to a lovely member of the office staff who has clearly had enough after being responsible for the fundraising for 15 or more years. She will be a hard act to follow and I can only hope they manage to continue her excellent work raising more donations for the orchestra.
It’s who they are. Give them the tiniest suspicion of power and just watch them abuse it in the most inconsiderate fashion in order to achieve the most irrelevant and destructive aims.
I started visiting Birmingham Symphony Hall/Town Hall around 2005 and attended 7 or 8 classical concerts per year until Brexit/COVID. Living almost 120 miles away I was faced with a two hour drive to get there but the quality of the concerts and the hall during that time made it well worth it. Sadly no more. For me there is a perfect storm of adverse circumstances. Since Brexit/COVID and before Emma arrived things had started going downhill and we now have a perfect storm. I’d like to mention a couple of other things that are designed to deter my attendance at Symphony Hall. The re-development of the city centre has meant that Paradise Circus car park is now closed. This was really handy, cheap and relatively easy to get to. Q-Park is now the only real alternative and in my experience it’s expensive. My problems would have been solved if only Birmingham had a decent park and ride east of the city. But it hasn’t. The other issue is that the motorway network closes down at 9pm around Birmingham and it’s a major fight to get home. On top of this there is the bankrupt council, the new CEO and her policies, the increase in ticket prices and finally the effect of Brexit and COVID. Plus there just aren’t enough interesting concerts for me to make the effort anymore. Why should I visit Birmingham when I have a very good hall with excellent transport links in Nottingham? Unfotunately us “old white men” (and women) seem to be the enemy now and the “woke” politburo are in full control. Criticism will not be tolerated.
Redwick wrote, “the motorway network closes down at 9pm around Birmingham”
Really?
On numerous occasions once a concert has finished and I hit the road I find that sections of either the A4540 or A34 have been closed and the diversions are fully clogged with traffic. To top it off they also close parts of the M6 or M42 too. And what’s worse is that seems almost impossible to know in advance when these closures are planned. It also happens in other parts of the country because of night time maintenance but Birmingham seems to suffer more than most because of the concentration of motorways in the area.
Why am I reminded of a puppy with a slipper? Or more like the school yard bully constantly taunting. Well at least the Met, YNS, and the chap from Chicago are being being ignored.
Also question springs to mind. How long before the conductor entered was the picture taken? Just before? 10 minutes? 30 minutes? Within minutes of the house opening?
I would assume that “just before the conductor walked on the stage” means just before the conductor walked on the stage.
Just as the conductor was about to walk onto the stage. ie less than a minute.
I went to the “Otello” concert by the Washington D.C. National Symphony Orchestra yesterday. Gianandrea Noseda conducted. Their midsize and acoustically superb auditorium was only 70% full. Rush tickets were only $22. I sat in upper tier, amazing sound!
It was one of the finest Otellos I have ever heard sung, acted and played!!
I don’t know about Friday but Sunday was pretty close to full.
I agree that it was fabulous.
Generally NSO concerts are much more fully attended on Saturdays than on Thursdays.
I rarely attend Friday concerts.
I assume you were on Thursday. I went on Sunday and the auditorium was much more than 70% full.
And yes, it was a great Otello.
Antagonize, and take for granted your loyal (and most valuable) customers at your peril – it has nothing to do with race, historic injustices or social engineering.
Ask any commercial enterprise that has dropped the ball on customer loyalty – it costs a fortune to rebuild a battered reputation.
When arrogant ideological crusades take centre stage, art inevitably suffers.