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www.stephenpbrown.com

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There is no shortage of media coverage and industry melee regarding the US orchestral world's
current spiral into oblivion. Plentiful and sometimes massive conversations have been taking place
over the past couple of years regarding what to do about it. Stretched statistics have been
manipulated and cajoled into suggesting reasons why the orchestra world is crumbling, but in all
honesty, most punters don't believe most of it. What I offer below is not a gripe, it is factual
observation. I'll try not to dress it too much but be assured that my deep concerns about the
orchestra world (particularly in the USA) have been developing since my college days some twenty-
cough-cough years ago.

Example #1:
Manufactured expectations. No-one quite knows actually how some leaders achieved their positions
in today's orchestra world, nor how (or why) they managed to secure several separate leadership
positions at the same time - particularly in my field, conducting. This is an awful self-indulgence and
perhaps my second reason for beginning to warm to Sir Simon Rattle - I believe (could be wrong)
he's only ever held one leadership position at a time. Someone much younger, more flamboyant, and
less gifted than he, has three. However, in my mind, today sealed the nail in the coffin for the self-
perpetuated elitism that has caused classical music to need discussions around its 'relevancy' (see the
eloquent Stephen Fry's latest sensible contribution):

Back in December I invited 2 of the world's most prominent conductors to answer up to three
questions about conducting (taken from a pool of almost a thousand) that the general public asked
me last summer. I received one contribution - a disappointing 2% response rate but not unexpected.
So I followed up and in February I asked 1 of those conductors what advice they might have for a
first-time orchestra concert attendee - I am very grateful for the four replies. Today a fifth response
came from a very well-known, well-recorded, 'older generation' international star, one of whose
leadership responsibilities is in Russia. He took three months to consider and hand-write this
advice/ answer that accompanied a signed photograph of himself (at least he responded, I guess):

"Can't think of anything at the moment. Sorry."

And that, my dear interested and concerned readers, succinctly and accurately summarizes one of
the main yet hitherto unspoken problems of the orchestral music industry as it operates today -
despite the hype and lofty pretense, its primary leaders who are hand-held by the dominant system
of agents, managers and institutions, don't care.

There are exceptions. Consider Robert Spano of the Atlanta Symphony, and Nicholas Collon who
helped begin the forward-thinking Aurora Orchestra. But who's heard of either of conductor,
outside the industry and their towns? They are not products of the media-genic marketed jet-
setting idols of 'the establishment'. Another example of institutional forward-thinkers are the
governors (many of whom happen to be the members of) the brilliant London Symphony
Orchestra.

Example #2:
Pigeon holes: I can't stand them. Non-transferrable skills: they don't exist. In just about every
industry in the USA, we love to place everything in a small... no, tiny box without a removable lid.
My dad experienced this narrow-mindedness in the 0s when he worked in engineering and could
not believe how each and every employee was chained to their specific job. People's job
descriptions, resumes and educational histories read almost identical and no-one with any experience
outside that specific role or task to be performed was considered suitable or acceptable for
inclusion/ promotion/ presentation/ responsibility. ARGH!

Tom Peters (see #20 on page of this pdf) has been fighting this for years yet in the orchestra
world, and in most of Corporate America today, this approach is rife. People are not considered
people with experience and value - they are robots that are there to fulfill a task that's needed to be
accomplished. So sad. In the music world, someone who ventures outside the relevant box is no
longer considered suitable for that box and are all but written off. I'm deliberately being vague as
this is very close to home for both me and a poor, poor talented friend who's being shown the
razor-sharp edge of the establishment's floss right now.

Cross-genre artists are nothing new. Wynton Marsalis did it. Evelyn Glennie did it. And Nigel
Kennedy got so fed up with the establishment that he did it too and still enjoys the occasional
classical gig... at his own choosing, not his manager's. Until the day that American decision-makers
no longer confuse transferrable skills, cross-pollination, and variety with 'inexperience' and
'inappropriate', people who are talented and gutsy enough to experience things outside the tight-rope
realm of a single career are doomed. Unfortunately for the decision-makers, that very approach is
taking them down the road of extinction. But of course, they are too busy, too blind, too self-
righteous, too politically-astute for anyone to confront them, or for them to fail. Did the dodos see
their own demise coming? I think not. Instead, they just wondered why predators kept taking away
their friends and probably gobbled a lot regarding what to do about it. How does this apply to the
orchestra world?

Managements, agents and unions in the US all have super nova size opinions about how things
should be done, but those perspectives are so 20th century it is truly scary. And it's getting worse:
how many conductors have you come across that are labeled as and seem to do nothing but 'pops'
concerts, or 'childrens' concerts, or is a 'youth orchestra' conductor, and so forth. Once in a box...
Of course, no missive is complete without something to replace what it challenges, so what do I
have to offer? Well, I've come across few experienced people (many already listed above) who have
some very good ideas and a platform from which to action them. But as they challenge the familiar,
it-worked-in-the-past, limited-risk established expectations, these folk are often left out in the rain to
plant their own crops amongst the rocks. A handful seem to be harvesting: check out Jeffrey
Kahane, and John Axelrod, and Ben Zander and Toronto Symphony Orchestra for starters, as well
as the cross-genre folk above and Sting and Bjork, too.

Yes, there is a lot to be done but changing what we're doing won't cut it - we must bring a
completely fresh perspective to the entire classical-music-sharing process - and that includes the
CEO to the stage sweeper to the teacher to the media to the musicians themselves. No, it is not
good enough to bypass an entire thinking generation and replace the old infirm conductors with
young inexperienced yesmen. No, it is not enough to consider how to replace lost funding. No, it is
not good enough to treat music (creativity) as a luxury that can be swept out of young peoples' lives.
It is IMPERATIVE, dammit, to bring common sense to a society much too over-regulated and
weed out the wishy-washy talkers still thinking it's OK to change/ alter/ refocus/ redfine and not
care what the payers experience as long as they keep paying. Guess what - fewer are paying, and
rightly so.

I've been told I'm too brash for comfort, promotion and leadership. Those decision-makers should
read the almost-out-of-date book Reimagine! coz they'll soon realize just how far out of touch they
are. It's shakers that are needed, not followers. Mind you, they probably ô
 realize it: to
paraphrase Dr. David A. Dunning: "The incompetent don't know they are incompetent, yet are
supremely more confident than those who are fully competent."