DEATH BY TOILET SEAT

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

    I’ve got two theater stories in the current Tucson Weekly, and the editorial staff manged to put the word “edgy” into both subheds.
    First, an approving review of the latest at Live Theatre Workshop:

    OK, so you sit down at Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz knowing only that it's a play about a brother and sister rampaging through Europe while one of them dies from a mysterious disease.
    In the second scene, you find out that the brother is gay (he's a San Francisco children's librarian just given the pink slip, so he's maliciously having his little innocents cut out and wear pink triangles, just like he does). "Oh, no," you think, "not another AIDS play." But then it turns out that it's his straight sister who's been diagnosed with the disease. "Thank god," you think, "not another AIDS play." And then you find out that she's succumbing to Acquired Toilet Disease, which afflicts a very small segment of the population—unmarried elementary-school teachers—and is transmitted via toilet seats. "All right," you think, "at least it's not another damned earnest AIDS play."

    Ken Tesoriere calls his theater company Coyote Ramblers, which makes perfect sense. Tesoriere has been a rambler all his life—a teenage racecar driver, a freelance journalist roaming the United States and Europe, a painter, a novelist, a playwright and director. The Manhattan native launched Coyote Ramblers in Tucson in 1993, ran it for three years, got fed up with the local scene, moved his operation to Los Angeles, won some nominations and awards, got fed up with the L.A. scene and came back to Tucson last year.
    "For good," he says. And maybe that's true.
    But reviving Coyote Ramblers in Tucson hasn't been easy. Health trouble slowed Tesoriere down, but more critical was his difficulty finding a space where he could operate Coyote Ramblers as a part of Lyric Arts, an organization that at full force will present visual art as well as theater, offer acting and art classes, and put on staged productions and readings.
    The company's first staged offerings in Tucson in nearly a decade are coming up Nov. 3-19 in a cozy space at ArtFare. Tesoriere is presenting three short works of his own under the group title American Album, Volume One (Women on the Verge).

THE CELLO TYPE

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

    Oboeinsight points the way to a blog I’ve managed to overlook: Daily Observations, the musings of Charles Noble, the Oregon Symphony’s assistant principal violist. According to his profile, “Charles enjoys cooking, hiking, cycling, reading, and blogging.” Sounds like my kind of guy, except for his adherence to the serial comma. (I’m AP; he’s apparently Chicago 15.) I’m adding his site to my blogroll today.
    Anyway, what caught my eye, thanks to Patty, were a couple of tongue-in-cheek posts describing the characters of various types of instumentalists. First, Charles repeated someone else’s description of the various sections of the orchestra. Here’s the bit about cellists:

People who play the cello are simply not good looking. They have generally chosen their instrument because, while in use, the cello hides 80% of its player's considerable bulk. Most cellists are in analysis which won't end until they can play a scale in tune or, in other words, never. Cellists wear sensible shoes and always bring their own lunch.

The cellos are an almost schizophrenic bunch. Since they have a comparable body of solo literature to the violin, they have a soloistic impulse almost from the get go. There can often be the element of the mysogenistic cello jock amongst the males, the inverse of which is almost unheard of in the females. On the other hand, they have a great love for the symphonic repertoire and are often very much into the historically informed peformance practice movement. They always seem to make each other birthday cakes, too. They have severe (and sometimes even legitimate) concerns about personal space for themselves and their instruments, which are often met with knowing looks and winks and smiles by the other string players, who wish that they could also just set their instruments on the floor rather than hold them up for several hours at a time.

INVISIBLE CULTURE

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

    Veteran San Francisco music critic Robert P. Commanday offers a pointed criticism of the state of classical music coverage in American newspapers:

    Pick any city, look at its newspaper, and you'll find attention to classical music diminished to the basic minimum. It will focus on the "big ticket" events — which, in the Bay Area, means the San Francisco Symphony, Opera, and Ballet, plus the most celebrated visiting artists. As is well-known to any person interested in classical music, such coverage just skims the surface.
    Who's responsible? Newspaper publishers and their editors who have a hand in setting policy and then executing it. ….
    [The] "think piece" has taken the biggest hit. You likely will look in vain for a music essay in the weekend paper. If a Sunday music article is to be found, it will be an exception and probably an advance or "puff piece," meaning a celebrity interview or, at best, a column of CD reviews. The think piece, in contrast, can be on any musical subject—a significant composition, composer, or performing group; an issue or controversy; an unusual or provocative upcoming event or a notable musician involved in it—so long as it is a thoughtful discussion involving interpretation, history, or analysis. It is not an article that is essentially a recycling of publicity material.
    Then there's the decline of investigative music journalism, the hard news that music critics should be responsible for. It was the first to go, and it has all but disappeared. When you read the obituary of a symphony and learn about its bankruptcy, that is usually when you first discover that the orchestra had been in trouble for a long time. The reporting on those facts should have occurred long before, but in fact the coverage of the ineptness of the manager and the incompetence and inattention of the board never appeared.

COPLLAPSING TOWER

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

    The bankruptcy of Tower Records will have absolutely no impact in Tucson, aside from those few people who order from it online (and they can easily switch to a variety of other music sellers). Tower never established a store here, despite rumors of imminent arrival that had local shop owners (remember them) worried in the 1980s and ’90s. I’m not sure what all the fuss is about; the last time I was in New York, I killed some time by browsing in the classical department at Tower, and didn’t find a single thing I wanted to buy. (I did, however, later emerge from the Metropolitan Opera giftshop with a plump bag of recorded goodies, and I’m not even an opera maniac.)
    Still, the debacle is interesting as a symbol of the collapse of the old order. David Hurwitz has penned a typically cranky editorial on the subject:

The final, ignominious demise of Tower Records, auctioned off in bankruptcy to a liquidator for about $146 million, couldn’t have come quickly enough. For years this dinosaur has acted as a break on the necessary restructuring of the retail sector, the musical equivalent of an acute intestinal blockage. The end was predictable, indeed expected for a decade or more, and the only thing keeping the ship afloat was the support of major labels desperate to justify their expensive and proprietary nationwide distribution networks (for popular music, primarily). No one, not Tower, not the labels, was making money; indeed, between Tower paying its bills in returned product, and labels routinely agreeing to payment terms that amounted basically to a barter or consignment arrangement, the only outfit profiting over the past several years has been UPS and other package delivery services.

REVIEW: TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/GEORGE HANSON

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

    Over the weekend, I learned that two married friends of mine, people who don’t often go to classical concerts, had attended the Tucson Symphony’s program on Friday night, the same night I went. “We looked at each other,” said the husband, “and said, ‘When did Tucson get such a good orchestra?’”
    Indeed, the TSO’s performance of Beethoven and Mahler under conductor George Hanson was quite strong and in many ways even impressive, although that would not surprise anybody who attends concerts more regularly. So many things about the performance were so right that I feel a little ungrateful wishing there’d been an additional dimension to the concert: a more surprising, more personal view of the music.
    Don’t get me wrong; there wasn’t anything dull or routine about the playing. In Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, phrasing was nicely pointed, tempos seemed just, and the woodwinds had good presence, easily holding their own against the reduced string ensemble (8-8-6-4-2, which would be almost doubled for the Mahler to come). The drawback to using a modest, Beethoven-sized complement in the 2,200-seat TCC Music Hall is that the string sound becomes a bit diffused, as it did Friday.
    Furthermore, Hanson had significantly rearranged the orchestra, dividing the violins left and right, spreading the basses across the back just in front of the percussion on the top level of what look like new risers, and pulling everything to the lip of the stage. Moving the orchestra forward would help the TSO generate a hall-filling roar during the Mahler with improved clarity, and dividing the violins is almost always a good idea in anything. But there’s a problem specific to the TCC Music Hall: Anything downstage, stage left, must struggle to be heard. Usually it’s the cellos that saw away to little audible effect, but now it’s the second violins that suffer. Friday night they sounded fine when playing on their own, as at the beginning of the second movement in the Beethoven, but they completely disappeared into tutti passages. There’s not much Hanson and his players can do about this, short of hiring a wrecking ball, tearing down the hall and starting over.
    That balance issue aside, the performance was secure and efficient, but it didn’t display much character beyond what naturally springs from the page. That’s a good start, not to be discounted—too many dull or inattentive performers seem to do their best to stifle Beethoven’s natural character—but with Beethoven performances as plentiful as they are, it would be nice for Hanson to set his interpretation apart somehow.
    The Beethoven symphony was offered as a classical balance to Mahler’s hyper-romantic Symphony No. 5, but it was a missed programming opportunity. Mahler was a noted conductor as well as a composer, and he took it upon himself to “retouch” many scores by his forebears to make them more effective for his contemporary orchestra. I don’t think he messed with Beethoven’s First, but he did expand Beethoven’s Op. 95 string quartet and all of Schumann’s symphonies, the first or fourth of which would have fit comfortably onto this program in place of the Beethoven First. This would have given us a broader picture of Mahler’s artistry, while still providing the necessary stylistic contrast.
    The bulk of the concert shifted to the second part, devoted to Mahler’s Symphony No. 5; it’s almost three times as long as the Beethoven, though hardly a note is superfluous. Hanson is a very effective Mahler conductor, and this performance of the Fifth brought clarity to the music’s structure without downplaying its sonic and emotional effects. The first movement is very nearly a trumpet concerto, the solos played superbly by Ed Reid. Hanson and the orchestra brought a confident, almost imperceptible swagger to the funeral-march theme, and later played the famous Adagietto at a gently flowing tempo, not lugubriously as used to be common. In this movement Hanson made good use of modest rubato, usually drawing out ascending figures for extra expression.
    The entire performance was well balanced, from the loudest to the softest extremes, and took Mahler’s emotional outpourings seriously. Still, I kept wishing for just a little bit more—more indulgent portamento from the strings, a heightened sense of angst and neurosis. But there are more good ways than one to play Mahler, and it isn’t entirely fair of me to fault Hanson for not doing it my way when he and the orchestra put across his own slightly more reserved interpretation so effectively.

TSO WEB SITE, CONTINUED

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

    Last time, you may recall, former Tucson Symphony employee Jan Crews criticized Drew McManus' low ranking of the TSO's cyberspace presence in his annual survey of orchestras' Web sites. You might want to go here to review Jan's comments, with links to the original material, because now Drew has sent me this response:

    Although I’m always disappointed to see orchestra administrators become upset with their rating in the annual website review, I’m happy to say that I can count the number of organizations that expressed a level of displeasure similar to that which Jan expressed on one hand. In fact, many organizations that received lower scores in previous years have successfully used the review as tangible evidence in convincing their executives that the organization needs to direct increased resources to this important point of contact with their patrons. And among a number of groups, the results have been fantastic.
     Orchestra staffers and middle managers are underpaid and overworked, but we all decide to do the work we do for the reasons we feel justify the experience. At the same time, I can understand why these pressures can make those responsible for their organization’s website upset with a low score; however, I think it would be useful to point out a few things based on Jan’s comments.
     First, the review is designed to allow smaller budget ensembles to perform on an even playing field compared to their large budget peers. In fact, there were several organizations with budgets that are comparable or even much less than Tucson’s which scored much higher and there were larger budget originations which scored lower.
     For example, the Milwaukee Symphony, an organization with a budget more than three times the size of Tucson, finished one place lower than Tucson. However, the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic both have budgets that are half that of Tucson but they scored much higher.
     It’s worth noting that both the organizations in Las Vegas and Colorado Springs scored lower than Tucson in the 2005 review but managed to improve their sites enough to score higher in the 2006 review, all while continuing to have an annual budget that is half that of the TSO.
     Next, I wanted to point that that the TSO was notified about the review. All communication was sent to sdebenedette@tucsonsymphony.org, who received a copy of the same messages that were sent to every orchestra in the review. Those included email notices about the review survey, the reminder as the survey deadline approached, the review launch, and a notice about the special recognition awards article. I’m sorry Jan felt slighted that I didn’t contact her directly but it is standard policy to contact the official press representative for an ensemble when delivering announcements or requesting information.
     Finally, I would challenge Jan’s notion that improving their website would not lead to improved revenue. In fact, the experiences from peer ensembles demonstrate otherwise. A number of ensembles reported increased ticket sales and donations as a result of improvements they made to their websites following previous reviews. You can find that information in the material the respective organizations provided via their website review survey.
     I hope this helps Jan and the rest of the TSO staff see how they can take advantage of what the review offers. And in response to Jan’s criticisms, the reviews are not designed to be heavy handed, rather, they are honest evaluations conducted across an even playing field. Everyone that views the results will notice that big budget organizations such as the L.A. Philharmonic received low scores right along with the TSO. Furthermore, I do offer a great deal of pro bono advice and assistance every year to ensembles on a variety of issues, including that of website development. One example of this was following the 2006 review, I was happy to assist the LA. Chamber Orchestra with issues related to improving their online security.
     When we reached a point where I couldn’t spend any more time with the organization in good faith without being compensated for my services, I directed them to contact some other orchestras that I was aware of which had gone through similar issues they were experiencing. I also indicated that they may want to investigate technology grants that would allow them to direct increased resources into developing their website. This way, if they decided to employ my services as a consultant they could but at the same time, they had options available to them which would cost nothing and hopefully provide them with the information they needed to adequately complete their task.
     Another aspect of the reviews is the fact that they are published free of charge and without registration. Furthermore, they are available to anyone with access to the internet. Neither I nor any of the other bloggers at Arts Journal are compensated for the time and effort we put into our respective columns so there is no monetary gain on my end for the enormous amount of time involved with producing the reviews. The reviews exist as a service to the entire field that allows ensembles to see how they compare to their peers and to help identify components of their website which are strong and those which could use improvement. To this date, there is no other resources, free or pay, that offers this much assistance.
     Additionally, each organization will determine the value they place on their website and how it functions as a point of contact with their audience. My experience dictates that it is an extraordinarily valuable resource and will continue to grow in value as more and more potential patrons become accustomed to gathering their information from online sources.
     In the end, the internet is a much less expensive option for reaching out to an audience and staying connected with them as opposed to traditional marketing methods. All of the orchestras that score high in the review are proof to that as they continue to use their website to help lower per-ticket marketing costs and increase annual fund donations. As such, the amount of resources an organization directs toward their website is a choice, not a constraint.