Symphonies & Scorpions: In-Communicado
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April 18: In Communicado
We’ve received a notice from management encouraging all the musicians to join an app called WhatsApp in order to facilitate free and easy text communications about changes in schedule, programs, etc. while we’re overseas. I’ve never heard of WhatsApp—don’t forget, this is 2014—but it seems like a reasonable idea.
In the old days (i.e. before 1990 and the Internet and cellphones), transmitting messages on international tours sometimes presented a challenge. Once when we were in Japan and had an afternoon rehearsal, one of our percussionists, Frank Epstein, was nowhere to be found. So Bill Moyer, the personnel manager at the time, called our hotel and dictated the following message to the front desk to be delivered to Frank in writing, keeping it simple so there could be no mistake: “You have a rehearsal.”
Frank never did show up. When he arrived at the hall for the performance, Bill, a stickler for protocol, demanded an explanation. Unexcused absences were frowned upon and could potentially be cause for discipline. Hadn’t Frank received his message? Yes, Frank said, who until confronted by Bill had been unaware he had missed the rehearsal. But he didn’t know what the hell the message meant. Why not? Bill asked. It was only four words. Frank showed Bill the message he was given: “You able hustle,” and he hadn’t the foggiest idea what to make of it.
[image error]One of the BSO’s Stone Age wardrobe trunks, RIP
Today’s other announcement is from John Demick, the stage manager, who impresses upon us that whatever we pack in our wardrobe and instrument trunks on the way out of Dodge has to be exactly the same on the way back, or else the friendly folks at Customs might hold up the entire cargo.
I sympathize with John. On tour, he and his crew have to get to every concert hall hours in advance of every rehearsal and concert to set up a hundred chairs, stands, and percussion instruments onstage; and wardrobe, instrument, and library trunks backstage. Then he and his crew remain afterwards to do everything in reverse and load it all for shipping to the next venue. After concerts the crew catches overnight flights while the musicians are eating dinner or sleeping or partying, just to get everything set. No wonder he hadn’t been too upset that the tour might have been cancelled.
Good Form(at), at Home and Abroad
It’s easy to forget that this will be the first overseas tour for the newest BSO members. The orchestra used to travel internationally almost every year or so, and probably became a bit jaded. But with the increasing cost of travel compounded with the belt-tightening many orchestras had to undertake during the Great Recession, those days of annual tours were put on hold, at least temporarily. The BSO cancelled a proposed 2010 mid-European tour because of the economic woes starting in ‘08 and the uncertain outlook for the future. BSO had to reduce staff. Sponsors were not secured. As it turned out, Maestro Levine’s health was correspondingly precarious, so it was a double whammy. Then followed the search for a new music director, with the result that there had been no major international tour since 2007.
By 2011, things had begun to swing back to something resembling equilibrium. Thus, the timing was right when concert agent Jasper Parrot, who had represented Lorin Maazel on various projects (but was not his full-time manager), came to the BSO with a proposal to go to Asia.
Besides repertoire and other artistic concerns, financial considerations need to be carefully hashed out. Some cities of lesser size that are not cultural capitals, in central Germany for example, offer substantial fees to attract major orchestras to enhance the city’s cultural profile and to provide its citizens with something of greater quality than that which may be available locally. It is a badge of community honor even though their return on the Euro might not be immediately evident on the bottom line. The opposite can be true, too. A famous cultural center may be able to attract a great orchestra at a reduced fee because the visiting orchestra considers the prestige to be of greater value; a possible example, the BSO’s Symphony Hall celebrity series, which presents foreign orchestras “on the way” to New York and Carnegie. Another example is the Utah Symphony, which has an explicit commitment with the State of Utah to perform in every county over a given number of years. Some of the smaller communities don’t have the means to pay the hefty fee of a professional orchestra—and sometimes don’t even have a stage to fit all the musicians—so the Symphony tries to make accommodations by piggybacking the less affluent towns with those that have the means. Likewise, when the BSO puts together its own touring schedule it has to balance hard financial calculations with less quantifiable considerations like artistry and prestige.
Usually, tour planning takes years, and is an ongoing process in which music director, sponsors, presenters, and tour managers get their collective noggins together. Even before the 2014 Asia tour, the BSO began planning a Europe Festival tour in August 2015 conducted by its dynamic new, “Have Baton, Will Travel” music director, Andris Nelsons, and Fogg was already working on subsequent tours for 2016 and 2017. A tireless development staff works nonstop to nurture relationships with potential tour sponsors, without whose largesse the projects would not be possible. To sweeten the pot, sometimes they make multi-year deals, including overlapping sponsorship of local Boston and tour concerts.
It takes a helluva lot of work just to break even. Why bother? I wonder out loud. Tony Fogg rattles off the three biggest reasons. Clearly, it’s not the first time he’s been asked this question.
“First there’s the competitive edge. It’s important we maintain the brand in the local and world marketplace. Then there’s pride, not only of what we do as an orchestra, but of representing Boston. And third, artistically, tours are when the orchestra really rises to the occasion, so it keeps us playing our best throughout the season.”
As a corporate entity, what about the money aspect? I ask.
Fogg doesn’t bat an eyelash.
“As a nonprofit, the BSO’s goals are mission-based, not financial, so the intangibles take on much greater significance.”
The intangibles take on much greater significance! In this day and age when so many misdirected orchestra boards are trying to impose a corporate business model upon orchestras and end up dismantling them as a result, this was as uplifting a response as I could imagine. Bravo.
In the absence of touring, the question arises how to employ the musicians for a whole season and not over-saturate the local market. Many major orchestras that don’t have substantial summer seasons need touring to fill out what otherwise would be a gap in the schedule. Hence there are some tours that have nothing to commend them other than to keep the musicians working.
According to Fogg, the BSO has the opposite problem: trying to find the time to tour by rearranging an already densely packed schedule: thirty-one or thirty-two weeks of subscription concerts (the “serious” stuff), summer at Tanglewood, a Pops season in the spring, and Christmas Pops concerts are all givens. The BSO’s challenge is deciding what can be chiseled out of the calendar without raising the ire the local audiences. Patriots of New England have been known to make their voices heard when they don’t feel adequately represented.
As a less expensive alternative to touring, some orchestras seeking to fill out their calendars are coming up with novel concert formats in their communities other than the standard classical and pops series. Never an easy task. I’m glad I’m not an artistic administrator.
In an effort to attract a younger and more casual crowd, for example, the BSO has developed a series of concerts that are abbreviated and less formal. Today we’re performing “only” the Mahler Fifth, omitting the Mozart Prague Symphony from the program. The men wear suits (blue for me, black for everyone else) instead of tails, which I gather is supposed to show ‘em what average Joes we are; and one of the BSO musicians is selected to enlighten the audience with down-to-earth introductory remarks, on this occasion by our personable assistant principal violist, Cathy Basrak. Cathy is also a long-distance runner and, on the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, she recounts her experience in the context of how that tragedy brought us together, just as music brings us together.
Considering that attending a symphony concert is a novel experience for many in the audience today, it’s no surprise that concert decorum is a bit unorthodox. There are graphic reports among the musicians of couples making out in the balcony, and a guy in the second row seemingly hit the bottle shortly after breakfast because as we play he conducts the Mahler with even more gusto than Dutoit. I suggest to Caroline that if Dutoit unexpectedly becomes incapacitated as Maazel had, the BSO should have this guy waiting in the wings.
The wild response to the Mahler is, as usual, as over the top as the music. Dutoit, who forgot to give principal trumpet Tom Rolfs the first solo bow at the performance last night, clearly wants to makes amends and escorts Tom to the front of the stage from his trumpet position. That gesture provokes so much enthusiastic applause that Dutoit does the same with principle horn, Jamie Somerville. A love fest ensues, with Dutoit hugging anyone within reach. I wonder how things will be four weeks hence.
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NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.
