orchestra21

Programming is one of the most intensive and essential elements of my work as a conductor and artistic director, and my approach to it is guided by the conviction that orchestras can only thrive if their offerings consistently present both performers and audiences with opportunities for challenge and discovery. [See my previous post, or anything related to my work with the WCFSO.] That point of view is not always embraced in my field, so it’s gratifying to see pioneers in other realms building huge success on it:

It’s very important to understand the boundaries of our audience’s taste, and then to present them with stuff that’s just beyond them on a regular basis. If everyone loves everything that we’re releasing all the time, we are failing.

I couldn’t have said it better than Jen Bekman, founder of one of my favorite art websites, 20x200.com, and an individual with a gift for adventurous programming and [perhaps just as essentially] its broad dissemination through a unique synergy of analogue and digital. Bekman’s comments come from a piece naming her one of the most influential women in technology, but her enterprising and democratizing approach has had to win acceptance among her peers:

I was on the phone with a dealer who’d reached out to me about some kind of business proposal. At the end of the conversation I thanked him and said that it was a nice change of pace to have someone reach out to me, because most dealers haven’t exactly been receptive to what we’re doing. And he said, ‘Are you kidding? I fucking hated what you were doing when I first heard about it. I thought it was horrible and bad for the art world. But the more I looked at what you were doing and how, I realized that it’s the future of the business.’

I only wish that more artists and administrators in my field would come around to this dealer’s realization about the importance of making interesting, challenging art more widely accessible to audiences both within and beyond the traditional performance space. For orchestras the lessons learned from Bekman may be among the only ways we can guarantee a future for our business.

[via Bobulate]