Last week some friends came to hear the North Carolina Symphony. It was a perfect fit – young, aware, artistically minded people who wouldn’t have otherwise come to hear the orchestra, and a great program of the Bach Orchestral Suite No.4, the Shostakovich Cello Concerto with Lynn Harrell, and Brahms 4. They really enjoyed themselves, as you would expect. End of story – I thought. Until I had dinner with them again last evening.
Numerous times they mentioned how much they loved the music, but then the questions started. ”Is that guy completely full of himself?” ”What the heck were the clarinet players doing with those cloths on a string?” ”There are some very beautiful women up there. – Do they have to dress like that?” These questions were honest and unsolicited.
It’s not that these questions need to be answered. The specific questions aren’t the point. The problem is that audiences need something to do in between pieces of music instead of assuming that the conductor is an ass, or watching clarinet players clean their horns. The damn truth is that the rules of how orchestra programs are presented are completely out of date. I used to think that this stuff didn’t matter. You know, the discussions about why orchestras wear tuxes, and why all the dead time between pieces, and why the conductor never addresses the audience. The standard argument is that the greatness of the music should be allowed to speak for itself. I used to agree with this idea. People are coming to hear an orchestra after all. The problem with this is that I know the rules. I not only know the rules – I just accept them. I often don’t even look at what is happening on stage. I’ve even started bringing a book to orchestra concerts in order to make use of all of that dead time between pieces.
By today’s standards, an orchestra concert in its most traditional format is just not entertaining enough. The music is why people come, but in the mean time audiences are expected to tolerate a bunch of other things that they would never tolerate. When people buy tickets, they expect not only to be entertained, but engaged. Hopefully by more important things than watching people move pianos. Managers need to consider producing and planning every minute of the concert as entertainment, not just programing pieces of music and expecting people to wait patiently in between.
And it’s not just the dead time. The tuxes have to go. Tuxedos were common fifty years ago. Big Bands wore tuxes, comedians wore tuxes. They don’t make sense now. Movie stars wear them once a year at the Academy Awards - that’s it. Should orchestras wear them every week? No – it’s out of touch.
It’s one thing to speculate about why young intelligent people don’t come to hear orchestra concerts, but when real people look you in the face and tell you, it’s a whole different experience.