Re: Re: Baseball-A Music Related Commentary


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Posted by Jay Bertolet on August 31, 2002 at 13:47:26:

In Reply to: Re: Baseball-A Music Related Commentary posted by Mark Wiseman on August 31, 2002 at 10:52:53:

"Why is it that the best attended symphony concerts are always the pop concerts?"

Absolutely not true. At least down here it's not. In our situation, the best attended concerts are the ones that include the chestnuts of the repertoire. Pops concerts, while sometimes drawing good attendance, are not the money makers they used to be.

Now, if you want to look for a reason why popular music (either true pops stuff or more popular mainstream classical selections) is taking such a beating with its image, you need look no further than the concert reviewers of most newspapers. Here is south Florida, the FPO has been through a pretty rough financial time. Part of that process was the restructuring of how the FPO programs concerts. The musicians were asked to help solve some of the institution's financial problems and we weren't going to agree to do that unless we could see the future programming done in such a way as to not alienate our audiences with overly esoteric repertoire. We changed some programming last season, put together a complete season for this year, and the ticket sales increased dramatically. In fact, the increased ticket sales kept us from having a total disaster and meltdown, something we were on the brink of having. Subscription renewals for this season are at a record pace. Considering these issues, it would appear that everything is rosy.

Don't ask the newspaper critics. They have accused us of "dumbing down" our programming. They have constantly taken pot shots at the musicians for not programming adventurous works. Of course, they don't mention the increased ticket revenues, the much larger audiences, or the fact that they will continue to have an orchestra to kick around because of the programming changes those very same musicians made.

Why is it that the press takes such a hostile view toward the programming of music that is interesting to our audience? Can you say "yellow journalism"? If these guys don't have some controversy to write about, they feel they aren't doing their job. Unfortunately, there are just enough moronic people who believe the tripe that is spewed by these "critics" that they just might damage the orchestra to the point that it does disappear. I have to wonder how they'll feel about reviewing dinner theater when we're gone.

In any event, know that there are still some working musicians left who have taken a stand against elitist programming that potentially alienates the people we perform for, our patrons. As long as we have a voice, we haven't forgotten who pays for the concerts and what they like to hear and we'll continue to program music for the audience, not for the critics. Press be damned.

My opinion for what it's worth...


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