George Steel
Conductor and Artistic Director, Miller Theater (Columbia University)

Photo courtesy of George Steel

The Elements of Style: What attracts me to a new music concert

· Free drinks: A concert is a celebration. It should feel like one. Any gesture of hospitality is always a lure.

· Unapologetic programming: Nothing makes a program more drab more quickly than the sense that works are being played out of duty or for the sake of appearances. Play music you are crazy about.

· An ensemble of flexible size and instrumentation: There is too much music for the Pierrot + percussion band. If a group has more than ten players, it is manifest that they have the will and desire to explore more interesting repertoire. It follows that if a large number of players have been persuaded to play a piece, it is more likely to be persuasive music.

· Not too many solo works: Unless the concert is Berio's Sequenzas, a string of solo works is seldom inviting. Variety is a prime attractant.

· Truth in packaging: Marketing materials should make plain the composer's dates, the date a piece was written, and, if possible, the size of the ensemble. Composerly mumbo-jumbo about pieces should be avoided. Also, any brochure that uses the word "kaleidoscope" is a veiled cry for help. Nothing invites an audience better than a good photograph of composer and ensemble.

· No Beethoven: I don't know why Beethoven crops up on so many new music concerts. No composer, no matter what influences they claim, will withstand comparison with Beethoven. The practice of putting a common-practice-era work on the second half to make the audience stay to listen is an admission of defeat. I hate it.

· Music I don't know: I go to new music concerts to hear new works.

· I care if I listen: It is a tautology that needs repeatings -- a composer whose work ignores the audience will seldom attract an audience. A concert is a public event, not a private devotion; every advancement in the science of music is not cause for a concert. Precompositional design that is concerned more with structure than affect tends to yield works better seen and not heard.

· A sense of fun: What more need be said?


Eugene V. Carr
Former Executive Director, American Symphony Orchestra & President, CultureFinder (The Online Address for the Arts)
Web site: www.culturefinder.com

Photo courtesy of CultureFinder

Whenever I go to a modern dance performance I'm usually thrilled by the air of expectation in the house. People are eagerly waiting to see what their favorite dancers and choreographers are up to. I go to new music concerts with the same mindset. I try to be open to new things and look forward to being surprised and challenged.


Dean Stein
Executive Director, Chamber Music America
Web site: www.chamber-music.org

Photo © Peter Schaaf

I've always been a bit of a history buff -- not so much academically as romantically. For example, I love the theater and try to see the off-off, off and Broadway productions that crowd a typical New York season - experimental works, revivals, classics, "star" vehicles. When I'm at the theater, I feel that I'm part of a vast continuum of emotions. Lately, I've been thinking about hearing live, new music concerts in a similar way.

Music written now is also part of a continuum, only the "medium" is different. Beckett's spare plays challenge audiences (and actors) as the works of Morton Feldman challenge listeners and performers. Writing music, like writing plays, has been happening for centuries. The history buff in me wants to hear what writers and composers have to say about my own time.


Jessica Lustig
President, 21st Century Music Management, Inc

Photo courtesy of Jessica Lustig

When I attend new music events I feel a sense of adventure and hope. The adventure comes when I'm not sure what the music will sound like. The hope is that I may be lucky enough to be among the first to hear a work that will make a lasting impact on many people. If I am familiar with a composer's music, when listening to a new piece I'll look for what has changed, as well as what has been integrated into the composition from older works.

When I hear music of a composer who is unfamiliar to me, I'll listen for a distinctive voice that grabs and demands my attention. Although nothing matches the thrill of being a witness to a new musical creation at a premiere, and it is also very satisfying to hear a work a few years after the premiere, knowing that with each subsequent performance, its chances of entering the repertory increase.


Matthew Sigman
Former editor of Symphony magazine
Currently an executive with R.R. Donnelley & Sons, a board member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra and of the American Music Center.

For several years, while I was on the editorial staff of Symphony magazine, it was my honor and anguish to edit the late great Ralph Black, a man whose wit and wisdom and kindness and love for music was matched only by his stalwart procrastination and indecipherable scrawl.  Ralph knew the human heart and pocketbook pretty well, and when it came to the challenges of getting a body into the concert hall he knew every trick in the manager's book.  Yet one of my favorite Black "notes" pertained not to the symphony, but to the opera. "Nobody every goes to the opera the first time," he used to say, "they are taken."  Well, that's still somewhat how it is for me and new music.  Unless I know the composer's work, or I'm a friend of the composer's, or a friend of a friend, or I've been invited by the composer's publisher or mother or lawyer, or I've heard a snippet of something on the radio, or the work is on a program with a work (contemporary or otherwise) that I love. . . Then usually I find myself in a seat in a concert hall at the behest of someone else who has good taste and an extra ticket.  Here's how it usually works:

Matthew: Hey Fran, I'm going to be in your neighborhood tomorrow afternoon.
Fran Richard: Yeah, meet me at O'Neals around 6:00.  We'll get a drink.
Matthew: Sounds great.
Fran:  Oh, and there's a performance of so-and-so's oboe quintet at Merkin at 7:30.  You wanna go?
Matthew: Sure.

And thus am I taken.

  

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