Skip to main content

Blue Jeans Concert

Tonight’s concert, with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, is a Blue Jeans Concert.  It’s added into the normal work week, in the space a dress rehearsal might otherwise have occupied, and it’s a shorter, more casual, less pricy version of the performance we’re giving twice this weekend.

Tomorrow and Sunday we are doing a Haydn symphony (the fabulous number 90!) and Carmina Burana, in normal tuxes and dressy black clothes, but tonight we play only Carmina, and we dress down, and the conductor will speak to the audience from the stage.  The tickets are less expensive, and the marketing is younger, edgier, etc.  This concert is clearly designed to attract a new generation of symphony-goers, not to convert existing subscribers to a dress-down model.  I can’t wait to feel it out.

In South Bend our Performance Opportunities Committee proposed a similar concept to management last year.  The ideas were batted around for a while in the meeting, and to me they made a lot of sense - an additional Friday concert, AKA revenue-producing-activity, with no additional rehearsals, marketed separately to bring in a different audience.  The plan didn’t seem to gain traction for us, but I’m looking forward to reporting back on this event.

Most people agree that traditional symphony orchestras are struggling in this era of recession and video-on-demand and lazy consumers and greedy unions and incompetent management and all of the other simple factors being blamed for a complex problem.  I’m happy to be working this week, and happy to observe the solutions that the Wichita Symphony is trying. 

Free tonight?  In Kansas?  Come hear the thrilling Carmina Burana at 8!  Details HERE.
Labels:

Comments

  1. dimkordNovember 16, 2012 at 11:52 PM

    “Fortune plango vulnera”…. I wish I were there to hear it again! I am sure it was received with enthusiasm in Wichita ,with a younger crowd.
    Years ago the Lyric Opera of Chicago instituted the tradition of opening dress rehearsals, at first to people associated with the organization and then to the public at discounted prices.(Since almost all rehearsals were in the afternoon).
    I am sure you’ll pass all useful information to the SBSO.(Along with the suggestion that they open, at least some rehearsals, to the public.
    Dimitri

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Blog has MOVED

 Have you been waiting ... and waiting ... and WAITING for a new Prone Oboe post?  Don't wait here anymore!  The blog has moved to https://jennetingle.com/prone-oboe/  and will not be updated here on Blogger anymore.  Please come and check me out there!  I love you all - stay safe out there!  Jennet
Post a Comment
Read more

How Do You WISH You Could Describe Your Reeds?

In Reed Club last Monday, we took a moment before we started scraping to set some intentions.  We each said one word - an adjective to describe what we WANTED our reeds to be.  An aspirational adjective. Efficient was a word that came up, and Consistent . Dark and Mysterious . Mellow . Predictable .  Trustworthy .  Honest .  BIGGER . Reed affirmations actually felt helpful - both in the moment and in the results we found as we worked.  I don't know why that surprises me - I set intentions at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of a run, in the morning before I work.  I love a good affirmation.  I love WORDS.  But I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of applying one to the mundane work of reed-making.   You don't have to know exactly how to GET to that result.  But having clarity in your mind about what that result is?  Helps you to stop going down unhelpful rabbit holes...
2 comments
Read more

Micro Rests

 For oboists, endurance is a huge problem.  We can play an endlessly long phrase, because of the way the instrument is constructed, but we can really only do that a few times in a row before our embouchure starts to get fatigued.  We develop a buildup of air that feels exhausting to hold onto, and the thought of sustaining that kind of energy over  an entire page of music, much less a 45 minute recital program, is intimidating.    There's almost always a lesson, a week or two before a jury or a recital, where my student comes in and says, "I just can't DO this! I can play every detail in my music, but I can't put the whole thing together!  My mouth comes right off the oboe when I try - I'm going to fall apart in front of the audience, and it's going to be terrible!"  Look, I'm putting this on my students now - but there's a moment a week or so before MY performances that feels exactly the same! I have not outgrown this moment of panic. And at that...
Post a Comment
Read more