The Unstuffy Symphony

One of the stuffiest aspects of going to the symphony is the costume worn by the musicians. Big city orchestras have all the male players in the classic "monkey suit" tails and white tie. Cartoons make fun of this outfit whenever snobby and stuffy insults are needed. Volunteer Community Orchestras almost always ask players to dress in a basic tuxedo for men and a black dress for women. You know the basic tux - black pants with the satin stripe down the side, white shirt usually with pleats, black bow tie, and a black jacket with satin accents. And usually there's a cummerbund wadded up around where the belt would go if tuxes had belts. This outfit is timeless, and says either prom (where the tuxes are every color except black) or nice restaurant where the waiters and sometimes even the bussers are wearing a tux. When I go to one of those places, I always notice the waiters have a better tux than I do. So what should I wear? The conductor that was relieved

Unsplash.com: Jason Rosewell It seems extremely "proper" for the conductor to lead the orchestra and ignore the audience. He (still almost always a he, unfortunately) literally turns his back to the crowd and focuses on the players.           But when I hear the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Phil on my local NPR station, their conductors talk to the audience. It seems friendlier and "less stuffy" to me.           In the VCO (Volunteer Community Orchestra) I've played in the last several years, the conductor talked to the audience. Apparently, before I joined, he talked quite a bit, to the point the Board told him to cut it out. Yes, the conductor was honestly a bit weird and conversation with him could be "interesting" as his lack of awareness sometimes led to off-putting comments.           But Jason Heath, in his Double Bass Blog , tells the story of "The Babbling Conductor." Ouch. Things were so bad, when a microph

Photo courtesy: Unsplash.com After much consideration, and conversations with people interested in helping me present the best concert possible, I have come to the conclusion I can't finish my concert with the Unfinished Symphony. The concern? If we play it beautifully, the soft ending relaxes people too much for them to get excited about the wonderful concert. We don’t want to hear the last chord float through the hall and the listeners all sigh contentedly. We want them to scream with excitement.           The concert is labeled," Classic with a Twist." Perhaps the twist is we play the symphony in the first half, and the Handel Water Music as the closer. Lots of brass in the Hornpipe that finishes the Hamilton Hardy arrangement of the Water Music, and that should help pull people up out of their seats and get them cheering at the end.           Beautiful endings CAN pull people out of their seats cheering, but too often the opposite happens. I've seen t

For a VCO (Volunteer Community Orchestra), is it better to choose music that is challenging or that your musicians can play competently?           If you look at the programs from American professional orchestras in the major cities (the ones with NFL teams), you see the glory years of symphonic composition covered quite well. Hit the high points – Germany and surrounding areas gave us Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms, and many more. Russia throws in Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, and the rest of that gang, France washes us in color from Debussy and Ravel, other countries pitch in with Sibelius, Elgar, Copland, etc.           FYI – in the 2016-2016 concert season, more American orchestras performed the Beethoven No. 3, Eroica, than any other symphony (thanks, BaltimoreSymphony Orchestra ).           Should the suburban VCO play the same music as the local professional orchestra staffed by full-time paid musicians? Whether or not they should, they do,

For the final audition in our selection process, each of the three conductors gets to rehearse and perform one concert. Each finalist chooses his (no hers involved, unfortunately) own program, based on a theme. Mine is “Classical with a Twist.” Not sure what that means.           The interim conductor, who unfortunately has the inside track on the final job here as in all other interim situations, will do the Christmas concert. This is another big advantage for the candidate let’s call T. We do two performances of the Christmas concert to accommodate all the attendees, since our hall is rather small. Good, but small. The other finalist, let’s call him M, will do the November concert.           I get the September concert, the first of the year. Good in that I can make the first impression and set the bar for the others, and bad in that ramping up is a slow process that makes for some sparse rehearsals. Many players don’t play in other groups, so they will be out of practice and sh

OK, here's the deal: I want to make my volunteer community orchestra as “unstuffy” as possible. Technically, the orchestra is not mine, at least not yet. I am one of three finalists to become conductor of a community orchestra in a suburb of one of the three major cities in Texas. But those details are for later.    I can tell you the truth because I'm hiding behind a layer of anonymity. After the audition process, if I get the honor of being appointed the new conductor, I will put my name on this and continue. If not, I may scuttle it but will more likely keep it anonymous as I try to make changes after somehow getting on the Board of Directors and start pushing for change from the inside.     What do I mean by an "unstuffy" symphony orchestra? Classical music of all kinds gets accused of being stuffy, pretentious, and elitist. Often those criticisms are warranted, at least about practitioners if not the music itself. At the community level, the 1,400 to 1,700 l