In Thursday’s (6/27) Huffington Post, League of American Orchestras President and CEO Jesse Rosen writes, “Two striking visions of the future came my way last week. First was a presentation by Elizabeth Merritt,” founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums and keynote speaker at the League’s National Conference in Saint Louis this month. “The second came from Claire Chase in the form of her commencement address to students at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music…. Elizabeth points to the new ways people are engaging with culture, e.g. shareable, social, participatory, mobile, distributed, multi-sensory, fragmented, and with mass personalization.… Claire Chase is the MacArthur Award-winning flutist and founder of ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble. … Are ICE and the dozens of other exciting artist-led groups filling a space orchestras are unwilling or unable to enter? Claire tells the young NU grads: ‘The calling of our generation is not to occupy positions created for us.… Our calling is to be entrepreneurs. Classical music isn’t dying—it’s just now being born.’ … Ultimately Elizabeth and Claire both challenge us to be very clear about what really matters, stick to it and let the other stuff fall away. For Elizabeth, the audience, current and future, holds the center. For Claire, it is creativity itself. These two pillars are tough to argue with.”
Posted June 28, 2013