BARD DAY

posted by James Reel

Barack Obama presented his legal birth certificate for all to see three years ago. William Shakespeare would not be able to do the same. There's no record of his birth, although there is a baptismal record, dated April 26, 1654. It was customary to baptize a child three days after birth, so we can guess at his birth date, but all we have for sure is his baptismal date, and that's why we're devoting April 26 entirely to music inspired by Shakespeare.

We have at least two days' worth of Shakespeare music in the KUAT-FM library, so I arbitrarily decided to feature all the music we have associated with select plays (and a few sonnets), and save the other plays for another year. We'll begin at 6 a.m. with that lighthearted trifle Macbeth as treated musically by Verdi, Sullivan (of Gilbert-and fame) and others. After the 7:01 news we'll check in briefly with The Taming of the Shrew before moving smartly along to As You Like It (scores by Walton and others). After the 8:01 news it's a Coriolanus overture--Castelnuovo-Tedesco's, not Beethoven's, which is not related to the Shakespeare play. And then, it's hour after hour of Romeo and Juliet, including Prokofiev's complete ballet score on that subject, the Berlioz "dramatic symphony" inspired by the play, a certain Tchaikovsky concert overture, the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein's West Side Story (the R&J story moved to 1950s New York City), and stray pieces by the likes of Svendsen, Bellini, Diamond, Delius, Lyatoshinsky, Kabalevsky, Gounod and even Liszt. That segment will stretch all the way to 4 p.m. After that, it's a close encounter with Sir John Falstaff, dalliance with a few other works, and finally a look at A Midsummer Night's Dream courtesy of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Satie, Purcell and, of course, Mendelssohn.

DODGED THE BULLET

posted by James Reel

The Washington Post reports that, as the saner among us anticipated based on similar outbreaks of insanity in the past, public broadcasting has survived the threat to slash or eliminate its budget. So now we can relax ... for a while.

NPR REPORTERS STRIKE BACK ...

posted by James Reel

... but their bosses won't. That's the gist of complaints being reported in Newsweek and elsewhere. As I pointed out last week, what's crippling NPR is its craven management, and even NPR air personalities are going on record with similar complaints:

The journalists feel tarnished—and know who to blame. “Our problems don’t have much to do with what we do, but with the people who manage what we do,” says Robert Siegel, co-host of All Things Considered. “I don’t think we’re antagonists to Fox the way MSNBC is. We certainly seem to disappoint a lot of doctrinaire liberals who expect different programming from us.”

Go read the rest of the story. And while you're there, be sure to read all the way to the end, because there's a tidbit that puts the lie to the claim that NPR is a liberal bastion designed to turn the American public leftist: "In an NPR survey last year, 37 percent of listeners described themselves as liberal or very liberal, 25 percent as middle of the road, and 28 percent as conservative or very conservative." I don't know where the missing 10 percent may stand, but otherwise it sounds like a pretty fair spread.

PRAIRIE HOME GIGANTE

posted by James Reel

As you’ve probably heard, Garrison Keillor has announced his imminent retirement (spring, 2013) from A Prairie Home Companion. All he has to do is anoint a successor host, preferably one who sounds less narcoleptic. I nominate Don Francisco. Wouldn’t Prairie Home Companion be more interesting if it could develop the energy of Sábado Gigante?

ART, TRASH AND THE OMNIVORE

posted by James Reel

That NEA study regarding the decline of cultural omnivores I mentioned in my previous post has spurred some interesting thoughts from NPR pop culture blogger Linda Holmes. Primarily, she's taking to task not only those--like the provocative blogger A.C. Douglas, although she doesn't mention him--who insist on the supremacy of high art over pop trash, but also those--like Greg Sandow, although she doesn't name him, either--whose central thesis is that classical music culture has to become more like pop culture if it's going to survive. Wisely, Holmes recognizes useful distinctions between the two areas, without believing they are mutually exclusive pursuits. If you're short of time, I'll repeat her conclusion:

Omnivores thrive in an environment in which, if you are defined by your cultural interests, you at least don't have to be defined by any one cultural interest. Tolerating the ideas that classical music can be viscerally stirring and that Survivor can be sociologically interesting allows much better balance — which benefits everyone — than an escalating and unnatural war between fun and art. Fun and art are natural allies (despite often appearing separately), and forcing them to do battle just divides us into tinier and tinier camps, where we can only talk to people who like precisely the same kinds of culture that we do. That benefits absolutely nobody — not artists, not audiences, and not the quality of discourse.

That's the short version, but do take the time to read the full post.

THE OMNIVORES: DILEMMA

posted by James Reel

What's killing attendance at cultural events? The latest theory: The decline of cultural omnivores. This article reports on a new NEA study that suggests that the population of omnivores--people who regularly participate in a broad range of cultural activities--is shrinking and becoming less active. That's bad news because omnivores seem to be the core of the cultural audience; the only greater predictor of cultural participation seems to be education level.

My personal experience--and I realize that personal experience is always a poor way to judge things beyond one's own experience--calls some of this into question. Twenty years ago, I was struck by how musically omnivorous people in their 20s were; they'd give just about anything a try, from Tuvan throat singers through grunge rock to classical. They didn't necessarily have a deep knowledge of any particular style, but they had a broad tolerance and curiosity. I have no reason to believe that these people, or the succeeding generation, have constricted their tastes since then.

So what's the real problem? I think the key word is "participation." Obviously, fewer people are going out to concerts and plays and exhibitions. But participation is not the same as consumption. Think about those millions of music downloads, the popularity of YouTube and Hulu, the success of Netflix and our own Casa Video, the ability to look at all sorts of images (and not just pornography) on the Internet. Surely, cultural consumption is steady if not increasing if we take into account all those people just sitting at home rather than going out and buying a ticket. This is not a new idea, but cultural institutions will be able to thrive if they figure out how to reach people in their natural habitat, and how to find the money that allows them to deliver culture using evolving technology. The omnivores are out there; we just have to take culture to them, rather than wring our hands when they fail to come to us.