It’s never happened before: each of the five keynote speakers at this year’s National Conference are musicians. They are Vijay Gupta, violin, Los Angeles Philharmonic; Jennifer Koh, violin; Demarre McGill, Principal Flute, Seattle Symphony; Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinet, New York Philharmonic; and Yo-Yo Ma, cello. We have had some pretty terrific speakers at our Conferences, but musicians have been the exception, and I wonder what that says about us. When our community gathers we seem to talk about just about everything but the music.
There are some who argue we have that figured out. After all, the quantity and quality of musical talent seem to continue on an endless upward trajectory. Orchestral playing is uniformly high across all sizes and shapes of orchestra. American orchestras remain in demand in world capitals. Excellence is the defining musical principle and orchestras seem to just get more and more excellent every day. The important work, so the argument goes, is to figure out how to pay for it, i.e., raise more money, sell more tickets.
Well, it’s hard to argue about the importance of raising money and selling tickets. It is the never-ending work of any enterprise to tend to its income streams. And that’s hard, because things change: competition arises and the very nature of demand changes, often getting in the way of income generation.
Successful adaptation usually involves not only changes in income-generating strategies but also changes in products. Keeping the product the same, or even investing in making the product more and more excellent, has rarely worked in a dynamic market. Orchestras are figuring this out. We have more “product” experiments and innovations going on than ever before. It’s refreshing. Alternate venues, multimedia, video, collaborations and partnerships, apps for real-time program notes, and on and on. There is simply more variety today in the orchestra experience.
I wonder, as orchestras go through this period of change, what are the principles that guide visions of the art form and artistry? Do our existing values, frameworks, practices, and organizational designs support the continuing growth of the orchestra experience?
My answer is no. For the most part, orchestras adhere to static notions of artistry and how to achieve it. For example, there was a time when what we asked of music directors was to lead great concerts, make coherent programs, and combine them in a season that had some discernible profile. And if they did that really well, all was fine. The board stayed out of the way (what could they possibly add to this highly specialized creative endeavor?) and the chief executive supported the music director vision by running the “business.”
As orchestras increasingly move from a transactional or even manufacturing model (producing concerts of essentially known repertoire and selling them to a known audience and donor base) toward a more relational and fluid model (evolving repertoire and concert experience and changing audience and donor preferences and priorities) the old and narrow definition of artistic leadership as embodied in the expectations of music directors, seems very limited. The changing demands of new audiences for both what they hear and how they experience it, the explosion of orchestral compositional styles and genres, and the increasing imperatives for the nonprofit performing arts to play a civic role all seem to point to a need for an expanded definition of artistic leadership.
Similarly, these changes are also prompting questions about the roles of musicians. Indeed, as orchestras work to create civic value, seize the amazing creative potential of contemporary composition, and respond to audience desires for intimate performance experiences, musicians have lots to offer. And yet our means of training musicians and auditioning them is still based on narrow definitions from the past of what constitutes competence: namely, mastery of audition repertoire and selection of those who execute excerpts at the highest level and are the best fit for the ensemble. Undeniably, some remarkable musician leaders have come through the current system, but imagine the potential if orchestra practice was intentional about recruiting for the wider skill sets that are called for today.
Orchestras are pushing hard against the old roles, definitions, and values. But the practices, the job descriptions, the skills, and the language are all lagging. The old definitions of excellence and artistic leadership and roles of music directors and musicians are an unnecessary constraint, a drag on what feels like enormous creative potential in our time. I don’t have an alternative to propose and don’t believe there is a single alternative, anyway. But I do think we are overdue in asking some key questions and having some big conversations about the artistic work of orchestras. For example:
- What are the artistic opportunities and challenges for orchestras today?
- How do we define artistic leadership, and who owns it?
- What skills are needed, among musicians, conductors, composers, staff, and boards to advance the artistry of orchestras in the 21st century?
- How would artists, repertoire, and programming change if principles of diversity were elevated to the highest priority?
- How could orchestras increase their capacity to become full-fledged citizens of their communities, deploying their music and musicians in service to civic agendas?
- How might orchestras nourish the musical potential of everyone associated with them?
Asking these questions and pursuing their answers is not an attack on excellence, or great concerts of great music performed at the highest level of orchestral execution. It simply an invitation to ask anew what any of these words mean in today’s context, and in service to whom? And to put all my cards on the table, I will admit that while I value excellence as much as anybody, I just don’t find it to be a sufficient ideal for optimizing the abundance of creative opportunity in our midst today.
I hope readers will either get to our National Conference or watch the subsequent videos of the keynotes on our website. The five artists we are hearing from this year are each pioneers, and in their own distinctive ways are finding answers to these big questions, advancing our art form, and redefining excellence and artistry. And note to self: keep the artists at the center. It’s their voices that lead.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of Symphony magazine.
