Go Big or Go Home?

Michael Kaiser has yet another great blog from his “Arts in Crisis” tour.  Two of Kaiser’s basic premises are to be creative in programming in ways that directly connect to the community and to plan far into the future.  They are both things that I philosophically agree with, but often for small organizations, they’re so busy trying to make sure that the current projects are fully funded and all the fires are put out that getting ahead of the game becomes tough.

He often talks about making sure that the programming is marketed well, but one of the things that Kaiser has not addressed is how you go about figuring out the right programming for your city.  It’s in some ways easy to say that an arts organization should be unique and creative for the city.  (Something I think that Kaiser is 100% correct on).  You cannot program in New York for the New York Philharmonic and be unique for that organization in the same way you program for the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and be unique for that organization.  I truly believe that you can program a lot of the same repertoire for each, but you handle them and build to them in different ways because the communities are different.

This is one reason the Artistic Director must get to know the community and must figure out how they are going to be unique and interesting in ways that appeal to the community.  The easy sell is to simply do more pops concerts and turn into an easy listening organization, but I cannot truly believe that this meets the mission of most arts organizations.  We can’t turn this into a race to the bottom.  If we do, we lose the social good we bring to our cities.  Now before people start bashing me for being ant-pops and anti-fun, I have to say I LOVE pops concerts.  I like a variety of music.  I just think that we can’t lose sight of the “art music” we do simply to make ends meet through doing more easy listening stuff.

Again, this puts a lot of the burden on the Artistic Director/Artistic Planner for the organization, which I think as an artistic director/conductor-type is a good thing.  The farther ahead of the game you can program, the easier it is to build the infrastructure necessary for a big project.  For Opera Vista, we are finally at the point of being able to do a big project.  (Mark October 15, 2010 in your calendars – seriously, we have a live elephant).

It’s taken four years of building infrastructure in the organization for us to be able to take this huge artistic (and financial – as my board is wont to remind me) risk.  We’ve reached the point as an organization that it’s almost necessary for us to shed the cocoon and fly.  Because of next season’s out of the box programming, we’ve won the trust of a wonderful PR company that is helping us with our branding.  Luckily by programming an opera that is so unique and exciting (did I mention the elephant and the Bollywood-esque dancers), we’ve picked up our first major corporate sponsor.  Stay tuned.  All this information will be on the website soon!  (And the website will be entirely new!)  So, Mr. Kaiser, you’re 100% right – it’s not just for the large organizations!

The Beautiful Game!

As most of you know, I’m a pretty die-hard college basketball fan.  (Another shout out to my 2010 National Champion Duke University Blue Devils!)  But, I’m pretty stoked about the World Cup starting tomorrow.  (A spoiler alert – I will most likely not talk much about music in this post).

I was listening to BBC’s World Have Your Say yesterday afternoon on KUHF’s HD channel 3, and they had an interesting discussion involving artists, poets and business folk.  The question was whether soccer is an art form.  (They also discussed whether soccer was one of man’s greatest inventions, but I’m going to skip that portion of the discussion).  What I found interesting were the number of artists who took offense (or since it was on the BBC offence) at the question having even been posed.  As a musician, many of the offended struck me as simply being jealous – of course in our culture, sports figures make more money, get more publicity, and are heralded more than artists.  I count myself as one who thinks that’s a bit of a shame, but as a sports’ fan myself, I’m not sure I’m in the position to argue much.

I do have to say, though, that I truly think there are some athletes who transcend the game and truly become artists.  (I also think there are some artists who transcend the mundane and truly become artists).  Michael Jordan is the first who comes to mind.  (The dark blue side of me cringes).  What he was able to do with the basketball was truly artistic.  My favorite Jordan moment was when he went up to dunk the ball, saw Sam Perkins coming over, switches hands and lays the ball in – all in midair.  Larry Bird was another one!  What passing ability!

But, the focus should be on the World Cup.  It starts tomorrow.  Pele is still the gold standard artist of the game, but in my memory, it has to be Zidane.  His ability to control the ball and rule the midfield was artistic.  Check out this video.  If a ballet dancer is considered an artist, why can’t great football players also be in the running?  (That can include Barry Sanders, Peyton Manning, or any number of American football greats.)

The level of mastery some of these players show is akin to a great musician, dancer, painter, or sculptor.  I was amazed that many of the arguments from the “sportsmen can’t be considered as artists” camp came because of the lack of intellectualism.  That argument is so elitist.  The training athletes go through to understand tactics, their teammates’ movements, what to do with the ball, etc. are pretty intellectually demanding.  Is it similar to understanding Camus?  No, but I can tell you there are some pretty “unintellectual” musicians who are brilliant artists.

In the end, art endeavors to create beauty and order.  Watching some of these players make such beautiful moves with the ball – hanging in midair, switching hands while a defender comes over to block you? – and these teams play with such order (Germany?) – how can we NOT see the art in it.

Enjoy a month of the beautiful game.  I know I will.  Allez les bleus!  (Please don’t let Domenech screw up a great team!)  Go USA!

Next week, I’ll tell you about the cool Opera Vista developments!

The Offseason (Part 2)

I’m often asked what it is that we in the arts do during the off-season.  (Usually it’s phrased more in the form of – “it must be great to have so much time off.”)  I WISH!  One of the nice things about the summer is that there are no pressing engagements.  In other words, we aren’t constantly looking to the next show and having to deal with keeping a production together.

Right now, our big focus is on the entirety of next season.  In Opera Vista’s case, this is a huge prospect because as you will see very soon, OV’s 2010-11 season is going to be off the hook.  In a lot of ways, Opera Vista has done the impossible for the past 3 years.  We’ve managed to put some pretty amazing productions and create an internationally known opera competition together on very little cash.  (Think toothpicks and duct tape.)  What this has allowed us to do is truly build a production infrastructure that is extremely efficient.  The biggest drawback (aside from the toll it took on me and Joe Carl White and our respective families) is that we have relied on the kindness of our singers and instrumentalists to help us out in relation to their fees.

Opera Vista’s board recently decided that it was time to take the next step and build OV to the next level.  The OV Board of Directors is an interesting (and motley) group.  I think the average age of the board is around 30 years old, so we’re dealing with a young but passionate group of people.  They should get awards for being young professionals who truly believe in the mission of new opera!

It’s a huge testament to the board to watch them come together and learn what it means to be on a board.  They have really taken it on themselves to look at what we’ve accomplished and decide that with more support, Opera Vista could truly begin to build world class productions of truly important works by living composers.

Given this decision to push OV to the next level, it’s proving to be a busy summer.  You’re going to see a completely new-look OV in the fall (new logo, new website, everything).  We’ve had some great supporters jump on board and decide to invest in our little company, so we’re going to be able to better accomplish our mission in bringing great new opera to the Houston community.  I am truly excited about the season we’re soon to announce.

The past few seasons have been truly constrained by finances.  It often felt like the productions that OV truly believed in were tabled for future seasons because we simply could not afford to do a credible job with them – the production values demanded more money than we could spend.

What you’ll see in the 2010-11 season is what we’ve been dreaming to do with OV for the past four years (think elephants).  It’s going to be a sensational season, and I couldn’t be more excited.