A Heartening Quote

A YO friend sent me this quote this morning. Timing couldn't have been better.
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime
in your life." - Winston Churchill

The Deaf Youth Orchestra of West Yorkshire

Wow. This is wonderful! I wish I could go to the concert.

It will be the Deaf Youth Orchestra of West Yorkshire's premiere after forming in 2006 under the guidance of charity Music and the Deaf.
Many of the children taking part had never played an instrument until the orchestra formed but have become experts despite their disadvantage.

Bring Home the World

Here's an interesting twist. Bring international students to visit and play with your youth orchestra:

This year there will be 120 young musicians-from Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, the United States and Venezuela-in the orchestra. While here, the performers will stay at the homes of Loudoun families.

What do you think of that idea?

Alabama is culturally 'Third World'?

Twice in the last few weeks I have heard knowledgeable people comment that, when it comes to culture, Alabama is essentially Third World. I tend to react that, really, it's not that bad. But then I read articles about programs like the National System of Venezuelan Youth and Children's Orchestras and find Scotland wishing their music education was as good as Finland's:

We desperately need a national music strategy that embraces education and community; engages young people of all ages; engenders quality and high standards, and is uniform throughout the country. There are fantastic examples of this elsewhere in the world, not least in Finland. Why not seize this opportunity to assimilate all the best ideas, including the Venezuelan one, and create an all-embracing blueprint for nurturing Scotland's musical talent?

Since Birmingham can't even imagine the standards that Kenneth Walton says have been drastically lowered in Scotland, I guess I'll have to concede--and then get to work to see what can be done to change it. How about you?

Sum of the Parts: Nick+Kids+Open Mind=MYO ≠ Avg B'ham YO

Comment by Robert Levine from the Engaging Art blog:

...orchestras are also instruments, and like instruments, they don't play themselves. When a Strad is played out of tune, it's not the Strad's fault. It didn't much matter what kind of violin Heifetz played, except perhaps to Heifetz. It's impossible for an orchestra to play at its best for a bad conductor. It's just impossible. And it's almost as hard not to play well for a really good conductor...

I have seen a lot of youth orchestra rehearsals. Most of the time, a pile of good reading material is a must. Every once in awhile I sense something special that will keep drawing my attention back to the rehearsal and the magazines slide unnoticed off my lap.

The first time I was aware of an invisible connection between the conductor and the students, where he was drawing more from the youth orchestra than the sum of its parts, was with Bob Frelly, who conducted All-State Festival Orchestra when it was in Florence. ASFA's 'mother mafia' speculated about how we could draw someone like that to Birmingham.

The second time was with Benjamin Zander and the National Festival Orchestra in New York City. I suspected that the National Festival Orchestra was going to be a vanity ensemble--and it partially was. But there were some very talented kids (Sarah Chang's brother, for one) and Mr. Zander called in students from all over New England to fill in the weak areas. Watching these strangers rehearse in cramped quarters, that magic thread was almost physically visible as Mr. Zander danced among the stands and knit the disparate strands into a coherent fabric.

Since they were playing Shostakovitch's 5th, Mid-America Productions packed Carnegie Hall with Russian immigrants recruited from Manhattan's senior centers. Before the applause had died on the Shostakovitch, many of these ringers got up to leave. Mr. Zander commented, "Isn't amazing that these young people played together for the first time 3 days ago?" I saw the stunned look on the faces of those departing around me. They all sat back down for the rest of the concert.

In Nick Lacanski's case, I picked up a hint of that connection at the November 2006 AYS concert. But I didn't see any of January's concert and I'd never seen AYS rehearse with Nick. When I watched AYS rehearse with the Showcase soloists at Boutwell, I was blown away. Nick was communicating with everyone on stage at almost a psychic level and it was exciting to watch. I couldn't believe I didn't know about this guy before. And I was sad that Molly hadn't gotten to play with him.

Every child in the world deserves to play music with someone who can give them that kind of experience. For those that are exposed to it, it undoubtedly changes the way they feel about music, classical music in particular, and that can only be a good thing.

MYO and CYO would not be imaginable without Nick. Our organization, Birmingham, and Alabama need to find more like him.

Digital Fugue

The Julliard School has put its manuscript collection online. Via Alex Ross.

Rigor mortis

I've been thinking about Latin. When I was in high school, Latin had just ceased being a necessity for the college-bound. The Latin fan base moaned and argued and fought this decline in prominence. Didn't stop Latin from becoming an obscure elective for 99% of college students.

Perhaps classical music is headed the same way. Good, bad--doesn't matter. The best arguments from the most knowledgeable experts aren't putting young people in the concert hall seats. Doesn't mean I don't think that MYO should play classical music. (I am a fan.) It just means we need to seriously consider where we need to go with the orchestras over time. Is the purpose of a youth orchestra just to teach the classical repertoire? What do the students really need to get from youth orchestra?

What's to be done about classical music? Well, the influence of Latin on our language is acknowledged in the dictionary and by English teachers in passing. Is that what's to become of this music? A chapter in a book? Time will tell. But I cannot think of any art form that has persisted just because it should. If it does not speak to the human heart at the moment, it's history.

The only good thing about that is that whatever art form you currently passionately abhor will inevitably suffer the same fate.

Yo, Ho, Ho, Hamilton!

Hamilton Cleverdon, a recently graduated ASFA music major, has composed music for an Italian play about pirates.

Global Warming or Just a Hot Day?

The way youth orchestra is done has to change. It may be charming to see young people in tuxes and gowns perform Beethoven, but it's getting increasingly difficult to talk them into doing it. And if nobody's listening--especially their peers, what's the point? Despite its history, beauty and educational value, schools don't teach cursive anymore because no one uses it. We need to find out if classical music should be any different.

I can't see how anyone paying attention wouldn't agree with Greg Sandow at ArtsJournal:

"Of course, maybe I'm just too extreme. Maybe I'm out beyond left field, raving about global warming, when all we're seeing is a hot day. Or maybe, on the other hand, the field is too conservative. Take your pick. But I'd offer the following as one perspective that ought to be more than a provocation:

1, The arts are in crisis. There's not enough audience, not enough support. Why else are we having all these debates?

2. From outside the arts, the world looks very different from how it looks inside the arts. And, above all, the arts look very different.

3. There's even a literature partly about the arts, written by people in the outside world, including such widely read items as the Richard Florida book I mentioned above, and John Seabrook's Nobrow. People in the arts don't seem to know these books. Certainly they're not cited very often, even in the middle of debates where what they say is directly to the point.

4. People in the arts don't pay enough attention to what people outside the arts think.

5. People in the arts need to pay close attention to what people outside the arts think. Because if you don't have enough audience, or enough funding, or enough advocacy...well, we can all connect the dots ourselves.

But people in the arts are, in my experience, far too focused on inside-the-arts thinking. They (including me) talk, talk, talk about how to engage a new audience, without spending enough time considering what that new audience is really like."

Where do we sign up?

From WCAX News:

Burlington, Vermont - June 25, 2007

The Vermont Youth Orchestra's tour of China is in full swing, and the young musicians' fans back home can keep up-to-date with their travels.

The VYO has a blog on its web site. Twenty-five kids are keeping online diaries, and taking still photos, video, and sound recordings. The China Project is a program created by the non-profit Young Writers Project.

VYO tour manager Art DeQuasie explains, "We have kids who are just going to record ambient sounds of each place we go to, record several minutes of what's going on in each place, and do interviews. So there will be a whole audio segment to it, which will be great."

When they get back, the Vermont Youth Orchestra plans to produce a DVD using the materials the kids are collecting. Radio and public television documentaries are also possible. You will find a link to the musicians' blog at the top of this article. They plan to update it more frequently as their two-week tour continues.

Jack Thurston - WCAX News

Good Vibrations!

Judging from the mad pace of posting on the Internet, maneuvering behind the scenes, and vibrating on the grapevine, Nick and I have accomplished one of our primary goals. FINALLY, no matter which orchestra students choose, their experience is going to be better than it has been for some time.

That is a very good thing.

Tidbits

The Oklahoma Youth Orchestra is participating in a salute to Kodaly at the Budapest summer music festival. --Budapest Times

"Chamber music is dead. Long live chamber music." --NYT

"A recent Northwestern University study found that almost all incoming freshman music majors already have a playing-related physical ailment, Dr. Chesky says." --Dallas News

Cheap tickets to great events? "Goldstar Events, a California-based online company that sells half-price tickets to live performances in Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, is successfully reaching young audiences with personalized Web-based marketing techniques that match buyers with events."
--WSJ