Live inside the League of American Orchestras
OrchestrasA report from our observer, Susan Hall:
The League of American Orchestras held its annual meeting in Houston,Texas from June 6-8. About one thousand representatives of orchestras across the globe attended. In the US, there are 1224 symphony orchestras. Texas has 161, 31 more than the entire country of Germany.
Europeans envy American orchestra’s access to big private money. Americans envy Europe’s access to public funds. The big difference between the two spheres is musical education. US public schools have by and large given up teaching music. In Europe, most children are exposed to Zoltán Kodály methods from the start. Audiences have been built for centuries in Europe. Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute offers teachers free guidance, but sometimes the teacher is a tone-deaf basketball coach.
The League provides institutions with help in matters they can’t address themselves. The League provides sophisticated data, federal government lobbying and mentoring. Participants from Anchorage, Alaska, bearing salmon and fresh ideas, joined Houston Symphony executives and musicians offering musical performance and many questions.
Events for the entire group included a moving address by composer Gabriela Lena Frank on the importance of telling a story – this applies of course not just to a composer and interpreter, but to CEOs talking to their boards and development officers reaching out to the community. Highest honors were awarded to Lee Koonce of the Gateway Foundation and the Chicago Symphony.
A concluding lecture offered insights into music composed in Afghanistan where music is banned.
Sandwiched between the big events were often surprising and clearly useful programs available through exhibitors. From next-generation apps offered by ‘easy-connect’, a Viennese firm that has just completed apps to build community and curate content for the Metropolitan Opera. Many companies are offering video and live music combinations. From Chattanooga, Film Score in Reverse offers silent films like “One small Step,” cued to live orchestral performance as Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong land on the moon. From Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club in Mississippi comes a BB King song orchestrated for symphonic performance.The Savannah Symphony has already used it to enthusiastic response. Youth orchestra administrators thought Blues might be perfect for them.
Paul Scarborough’s Akustiks is joining with Schuler Shook to build Masterpiece Hall in Winona, Minnesota (pop. 30,000). A local citizen has written the check for the building, designed with the best acoustics and lighting possible. $20,00,000 is set aside for free tickets and transportation to the venue. Just as tiny Winona will draw people in for classical music performance, the Ground Zero Blues Club is a local springboard from which blues symphonic performance can take place across the country.
The determination, grit and passion of the participants hung in the air and buzzed in conversations among colleagues at workshops.
A performance of Richard Strauss’ Salome by the Houston Symphony capped the second day. The stage was packed. A pathway had been built so Salome could weave her way through the orchestra. Lighting by Jim French reflected off the walls, enveloping the audience and drawing us in. Superb singing by the principals, Jennifer Holloway, Mark S. Doss and John Daszak, worked with the orchestra conducted by Juraj Valčuha to make this a stunning opera experience. Symphonic performances of operas attract audiences. As orchestra organizations stumble toward the future, the support of the League under the leadership of Simon Woods in practical matters as well as flights of fancy is clearly appreciated.
So called arts advocates in the United States, increasingly indistinguishable from advocates for wokeness and political correctness, love the type of statistics that compares Germany with Texas in the orchestral realm in the above text. Germany has almost exactly half the area of Texas and almost three times the population. How many of the Texas orchestras are amateur, and how many give more than a handful of concerts in a season? What portion of the concerts consists of pops events, or accompaniments to films (an increasing trend in the USA)? Taking all of these factors into consideration would result in a more meaningful comparison.
Why don’t you do that and report back? Easy to complain when you aren’t doing anything.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but the reason I became an orchestral musician was to do the Blues.
And I’m always open to The Dance of the Seven Veils being done on stage not far from where I’ll be seated. No need for binoculars.
About those seemingly large number of American orchestras: most of them are made up of players are unpaid volunteers. Amateur or “community” orchestras abound. Many others are small groups that only give 4 or 5 concerts a year. When it comes to full-time professional groups there aren’t so many. So Texas may have 161 orchestras, only two, Dallas and Houston (and maybe Forth Worth) are the only ones that are competitive with the world-class groups.
“Texas has 161, 31 more than the entire country of Germany. ”
I’m in Texas and I’m doubtful of this factoid. I would curious to know what counts as an orchestra in Texas and what counts as an orchestra in Germany.
“US public schools have by and large given up teaching music.”
I think what has happened is that the students in the ineffective music appreciation curriculums of the past have grown up, are now on school boards, and have reasonably decided that such things are not worth funding. “Why are we spending three hours a week teaching fifth graders to distinguish between a clarinet and an oboe when they can’t yet read at a second grade level?”
I never heard of any school curriculum giving 3 hours a week of music appreciation, even when I went to public school in the 1960s. One musicperiod half the year and one ‘art’ period the other half was the norm. Even in my last year of high school when I was a putative ‘music major’ I had three periods of music and seven mandated periods of chemistry. Not until high school was a single piece of classical music presented, either. US education has always been heavily geared toward ‘STEM’ even before that catchall term for corporate productivity training was invented.
Germany has 129 full time, year-round orchestras. Texas has 2–Dallas and Houston. Germany has 83 full time, year round opera houses. Texas has two part time opera houses with very a very limited number of performances–Dallas and Houston. Houston calls itself the Houston Grand Opera even though its orchestra only has about 35 or 40 regular position.
You shouldn’t quote a misleading number like Texas having 161 orchestras without noting all but two are part time ensembles with minuscule budgets and often mostly occupied by amateurs. (Fort Worth is better but still with a limited season.) But of course, everything has to be bigger and better in one of the most politically backward and gerrymandered states in the USA.
The star feature of the League of American Orchestras Conference was the Houston Symphony. Along with the Houston audience, those important and knowledgable visitors were treated to a spectacular production with world-class singers and a fabulous sounding Houston Symphony. Conductor Juraj Valčuha led an energetic, unified, and remarkably well-balanced performance. This level of performance does not happen without a ton of preparation and hard work, along with deep commitment in equal parts by conductor and orchestra.
Music Ed. In the U.S. for decades has been scrutinized and chiseled away upon by school districts nationwide. Any parent that has talented/motivated children towards serious music achievement must take it to the private teacher(s) level with few exceptions. More and more it is becoming a niche interest as evident now by the demise of higher education arts programs and performing organizations.
The tailspin will certainly continue as administration heads have the notion that a concert is a ” show ” and knowing how to teach ” all styles” is deemed stellar to only teaching and promoting serious art music and systems.
I was planning to attend this conference but when I saw that the emphasis was on wokeness & not orchestras, I decided against it.
Sure, the featured speakers were women and minorities. Great, but they are not necessarily leaders in the field who I wanted to travel to Houston to hear. Nor were they worth the outrageously high cost the League charged to attend this conference.
I appreciate this well-written & overly positive spin on the event, but seriously – how can with any knowledge of our field say that Texas has more orchestras than Germany? As others have pointed out, scores of small volunteer or part time community orchs. do not equate with Germany’s many full-time orchestras. This factoid is one more proof that USians are unbelievably disconnected with the international orch world. They’ve lost sight of what a professional orchestra actually is & what it does.
Maybe I’m wrong, but to me this conference looks like a glorified meeting of high school and college band & orch directors & a bunch of heads of volunteer & part time ensembles – wannabe pro orch administrators – who prioritize political correctness over making music.
This organization has lost the plot. They’ve lost awareness of what orchs & arts organizations should be accomplishing. I assessed that this conference would be a waste of my time & money & despite this glowing, inflated report, I still think I was right.
“how can with any knowledge of our field say that Texas has more orchestras than Germany? As others have pointed out, scores of small volunteer or part time community orchs. do not equate with Germany’s many full-time orchestras. This factoid is one more proof that USians are unbelievably disconnected with the international orch world.”
No, it says that the particular USian who wrote that is disconnected. I expect that the orchestra professionals at that conference are very well aware (and envious) of the difference between the situation of orchestras in Germany versus that in the US.