Chicago Chamber Musicians
Submitted by Amy Iwano on Fri, 01/18/2008 - 5:42pm.
At the recent annual Chamber Music America conference, where musicians, composers, managers, presenters and others involved in the field gather each year, I had the opportunity to hear Oliver Sacks (author of, among other works, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) talk about his most recent book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.
He told stories of patients he’s treated – people with Parkinson’s disease who respond to rhythmic music (but not to Wagner's!) and a patient with Alzheimer’s who couldn’t remember things like what he had for breakfast but did remember every baritone line he’d ever sung and still participated in an a cappella singing group. He talked about amusia – the “inability to recognize musical tones” – can you imagine?! One of his patients with amusia told him that, to her, music sounds like pots and pans being thrown against a wall.
Other amazing and interesting items were that one in two congenitally blind people have perfect pitch (a high percentage of piano tuners are blind) and that musicians’ brains, when scanned, look visibly different. An interesting book to curl up with during these cold months…
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Thu, 08/02/2007 - 10:37pm.
I recently attended the American Symphony Orchestra League conference in “Music City,” Nashville, Tennessee (where the League announced its new name: the League of American Orchestras). As with these conferences, a couple of performances were scheduled (we were all gathered together in the name of music, after all!), and I attended a wonderfully adventurous and invigorating concert given by the Nashville Chamber Orchestra in the 9-month-old Schermerhorn Symphony Center, home of the Nashville Symphony.
It’s a beautiful hall, modeled after the “shoebox” design of the Musikverein in Vienna. What’s special about it are the plentiful natural light illuminating the wood interior and the technology that provides flexibility to accommodate various types of events, including main floor seats on motorized platforms that allow them to be quickly stored away, converting the venue from a concert hall into a ballroom. The acoustics, also boosted by technological advances, are very fine.
A further distinctive feature is the seating. The only fixed seats are those at the rear of the hall, opposite the stage. The second and third level seats are comfortable, upholstered armchairs that can be moved around, and these chairs also have small side tables that can hold a drink or program book.
For the Nashville Chamber Orchestra concert I heard, the main floor was not set with concert-style seats, but rather filled with cocktail tables and chairs, and waiters served beverages up to the time of the start of the performance, right in front of the stage! How nice would it be to sip a glass of wine while listening to a live performance of Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen?
From this informal set-up to the interesting programming to the obvious commitment of the musicians, it was a very friendly and engaging experience. Bravo to all who had a hand in thinking about how to make a beautiful, user- and music-friendly hall and to the NCO for creating an energetic and welcoming concert event.
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Fri, 12/08/2006 - 2:10pm.
The Chicago Chamber Musicians received an unexpected gift yesterday afternoon, when we learned that our recently-released Mozart recording (on the Summit Records label) has been nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Chamber Music Performance! While we’re pulling for the win, we are thrilled to be one of just five finalists in the category – and honored to be the only classical artist from Chicago to be nominated this year.
One of our organization’s strategies for building CCM’s renown and sharing the joy of our music with others has been to invest in making recordings. As CCM subscription audiences know, the CCM ensemble artists deliver performances that thrill and delight, stir and amaze the listener. CCM will always offer live performances, but it’s wonderful to have recordings as a way to share our music with a broader public.
CCM’s other recently-released recording of works by John Harbison on the Naxos label includes a collaboration with the late, radiant mezzo, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, singing North and South: Six Poems of Elizabeth Bishop, reviewed last week by John von Rhein.
Either recording would be a spectacular choice for the music lovers on your holiday gift list this month. And tune in to cheer on our Chicago artists during the GRAMMY ceremonies on February 11!
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Thu, 10/26/2006 - 6:07pm.
Last Sunday you probably couldn’t help but notice the 40,000 runners who took to Chicago's streets for the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon – and included among that number were The Chicago Chamber Musicians’ own Joseph Genualdi, violin, and Gail Williams, horn, as well as Gail’s daughter, Liz.
All three finished, and Gail and Liz raised more than $1,000 for the American Cancer Society. According to all three, it was a fun, safe run, albeit a bit damp.
A regular runner, Gail has run the marathon several times. She was profiled in Runner's World a few years ago, where she stated that the endurance she derives from running makes her a better horn player.
Bravo to all those who undertook the discipline of training for the marathon and braved the crowds and the elements of the day!
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Thu, 08/17/2006 - 12:00pm.
As the summer winds down and Labor Day quickly approaches, we start to look forward anxiously to our first concerts of the new season. We hope for full concert halls and inevitably find ourselves counting the number of anticipated people for the performances by tracking sales of subscriptions and single tickets. Do you tend to be a subscriber or a single ticket buyer?
As an article in this week’s issue of Crain’s Chicago Business points out, subscribers are the life blood of performing arts organizations. The piece explains why it’s difficult for most of us to think about giving up our focus on securing as many subscriptions as possible. At the same time, we do recognize that times have changed, and with them, audiences’ arts consumption habits have changed as well.
People’s hectic schedules and less-predictable lifestyles seem to support the growing single ticket trend. However, subscribing may be an antidote to the busy-ness of our lives: think of a subscription as a scheduled dose of pleasure for yourself, and take advantage of engaging as a subscriber with your chosen organization in the ways the Crain’s article describes.
Which works better for you – the flexibility and choice of single ticket purchasing or the certainly of having dates on your calendar and special treatment that come from subscribing? Whatever your preference, we are always interested in how we can better facilitate patrons' experience, so please be generous with your suggestions.
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Mon, 07/31/2006 - 7:42pm.
You may have heard WFMT’s broadcasts last week of The Chicago Chamber Musicians’ newest recording, Chamber Music for Winds and Strings by Mozart on the Summit Records label. WFMT has been airing the music in advance of the recording’s official release on August 8.
The disc contains exquisite versions of Mozart’s Horn Quintet, Oboe Quartet and Clarinet Quintet. As one person remarked to me, the performances display beautiful interplay in a true chamber music nature of the music, rather than simply featuring a wind instrument with strings in the background.
Believe it or not, the disc has been in the works for several years. What’s involved? After the artists come up with a concept, the program for the disc needs to be shopped around to different labels before settling on one. We work back and forth with the label to develop a timetable and budget, then we go about raising funds to cover the studio and equipment usage, the engineer, tonmeister, producer, artist and production fees.
The CCM artists are dedicated to putting their best work on a recording, and it’s their strong preference to record after having a live performance experience, during which they learn about the sections of the music that need more attention before going into the recording studio. So first the work must be scheduled into a performance, then, optimally, the artists go into the recording session the next day (after more rehearsal), sometimes for an entire day, sometimes longer. One of our challenges is finding times to accommodate our very busy artists, the engineer and the studio availability, all adjacent to the performance date.
After that comes the post-production reviewing and editing between the artists and the engineer. In the case of this Mozart CD, multiple all of this times three pieces! Then the cover and booklet need to be designed and approved, and the label must fit the disc in with their entire schedule of releases. The simplest part is the actual pressing of the CDs!
In this case, the end product is certainly worth the work and the wait.
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It's been an interesting week and I thought I'd use this diary posting to catch up on a little bit of what's been going on.
PLEDGE
WFMT's pledge drive ended on June 21st with wonderful results. We raised $401,000 from 2800 callers and this set a record for an eight-day drive in June. We couldn't be more pleased. I said several times on-air that "we just got a call from Bill Gates offering to pledge $200 million with the proviso that we don't do any more pledge drives, and I turned him down because we enjoy doing them too much to give them up." Hahaha. Actually, we do enjoy doing them because it's a great opportunity to speak to our listeners and hear what they have to say about the station. This type of interaction is unique to a listener-supported station and is very important to us. Another point all of us make on-the-air is that a pledge to WFMT is really a way of supporting virtually every classical music ensemble in town because WFMT is devoted to so many organizations. The list is very long but just a few of the groups we work with include the Lyric Opera, Music in the Loft, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Elgin Symphony, University of Chicago, City of Chicago, Music Institute of Chicago, Chicago Sinfonietta, Harris Theater, Merit School of Music, Ars Viva, Ravinia and too many more to list here. So to have such a record-breaking June drive makes everyone at WFMT feel terrific. If you pledged, thanks very much!
TRIP TO ISRAEL
The WFMT Radio Network has been talking with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) for over two years about producing a 13-part series of broadcast concerts. Happily, a few weeks ago, the IPO called to say they were able to raise the funds necessary to pull it off and they would like the series to begin in October. Itzhak Perlman will host the series... October 2006! Yikes. This means moving into high gear as fast as possible, and we've done just that. WFMT's Jan Weller is going to produce and he'll join me in Tel Aviv next week to conduct a few dozen interviews with musicians in the orchestra, orchestra management, patrons, critics, historians, Zubin Mehta, and others we encounter during the week that we'll be there. It's going to be a whirlwind trip. I'll still be there when my next blog posting is due, so I'll write from Tel Aviv next week.
THE SILK ROAD to HIGHLAND PARK
On Monday, June 26th, WFMT broadcast Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble concert live from the Pritzker Pavilion. It was a spectacular event. Yo-Yo and his ensemble offered a marvelous evening of music notable for its richness and variety. Yo-Yo was the perfect MC for the concert. Every seat at the Pritzker was filled and the lawn was jammed. I was told something like 25,000 people heard the concert. Thousands more heard it on WFMT and on the WFMT Radio Network, where it was broadcast live. The host was WFMT's Lisa Flynn with engineering by the amazing Eric Arunas, who offered listeners a sound mix that left nothing out and was superbly balanced and focused throughout. The broadcast was underwritten by Sony Classical and I was delighted that Michelle Errante, my contact at Sony, came in from New York for the event.
From there I zipped up to Ravinia to catch the end of Jonathan Biss' recital at the Martin, where I met with Suzanne Ponsot from the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Suzanne and I met earlier in the day with the major donor to the IPO broadcast. After Jonathan's recital, we repaired to a nearby restaurant to meet and discuss the impending series. A few minutes into our discussion, in-walked pianist Jeffrey Siegel, just in from a performance at the Music Institute of Chicago. It turns out that Jeffrey and Suzanne are old friends, so the evening ended on a most convivial note.
Back to the Silk Road for a minute: last year, WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network produced a live broadcast of Yo-Yo's Orchestra Hall Silk Road performance. I was poking around his site the other day (www.yo-yoma.com) and discovered that the entire broadcast, hosted by Jan Weller and engineered by Eric, is available on-demand on the site! The fidelity is amazing and shows, among other things, how far audio has progressed on the Web. Does anyone remember realaudio 1.0? It sounded like short wave radio! (To find the broadcast, scroll all the way down the home page and you'll find it near the bottom.)
JEFFREY SIEGEL
On Wednesday, Jeffrey gave one of his patented Keyboard Conversation concerts at the Martin Theater. Jeffrey has been touring his “Keyboard Conversations” to over a dozen cities in the U.S. for over 25 years, including a series at Northwestern—this was his first “Keyboard Conversation” at Ravinia. His subject was the music of Robert Schumann and he gave his usual insightful lecture/performance, focusing mainly in Schumann's earlier works for the keyboard. Jeffrey is a fine pianist but I thought he outdid himself last Wednesday with a truly stellar performance.
CENTER ON HALSTED
Over the past few years, it's been my pleasure to host one-hour programs on behalf of Chicago area organizations that are engaged in capital campaigns. I've done them with the Music Institute of Chicago, Harris Theater and Merit School of Music. Several months ago I was introduced to people involved with a capital campaign for the Center on Halsted.
To quote from the Center's website (www.centeronhalsted.org): "To achieve this vision and create a place where people can come together to play, learn, and talk to one another, the Center’s mission is as follows:
In a safe and nurturing environment, the Center on Halsted serves as a catalyst for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) community that links and provides community resources, and enriches life experiences."
Three aspects of the Center's campaign intrigued me. First, the new building they are constructing on Halsted is extraordinary for its openness, creative use of space and architectural beauty. Second, the building will contain a theater that the Center intends on utilizing for music and other performances on a constant basis. In fact, they've already formed a strong link with the Chicago Chamber Musicians. Third, unlike the three capital campaigns mentioned above, the Center was at the end of their campaign and was entering what they call their "public phase." I therefore thought it was a great opportunity for a radio program.
The program was produced by WFMT's program director, Peter Whorf, and aired on Saturday morning. My guests were Robbin Burr, executive director, and Robert Kohl, chair of the board. The program discussed the new building, the capital campaign and the cultural activities planned for the theater. Shortly after the program ended, I received two voicemails from listeners. Here are word for word transcripts:
"I've been going to the Center on Halsted since January and I must admit I'm a whole better, nicer, more wonderful person since I've been going there and I'm really pleased and surprised they are getting some mentions so thank you for taking the time. Even though I miss the music, I do think it's very, very important for the gay, lesbian, transgender community to get this kind of information out. So thank you very much for your time and consideration and your help...Lord knows we do need it."
Second call.
"I am a Fine Arts Circle member and I'm absolutely discouraged and disappointed at this program about the gay and lesbian center. We do not want to have our money on the Fine Arts membership funding this type of thing. You are offensive and disgraceful. You ought to stop this type of thing or we're going to withdraw financial support in a large way if you don't stop. That is an offensive program."
And so it goes...
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Fri, 06/30/2006 - 11:03am.
There are plenty of things for both residents and tourists to enjoy in any given Chicago summer, but what do musicians do? For the Chicago Chamber Musicians ensemble artists who perform and teach regularly throughout the season, summer is a time for more music-making, but also, importantly, relaxation and artistic renewal.
Summer festivals abound throughout the country, providing artists with a time to reconnect in performance with old friends and colleagues. At the Marlboro Music Festival, where many of the CCM artists have spent time, senior and mid-career artists also play side-by-side with the most talented young professionals, where all benefit from the resulting learning and exchange of musical ideas.
Several CCM ensemble artists perform in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s concerts at Ravinia, but also find a way to take time off to participate in summer endeavors such as the Music Academy of the West and the Grand Teton Music Festival. Other CCM artists have shared their talents in the Chautauqua Institution, Olympic Music Festival, Taos Chamber Music Program and Festival, and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine, among many others. Such beautiful settings around the county serve to feed and inspire the artistic spirit as the musicians revisit beloved, familiar repertoire, are challenged to learn new pieces, and share their musical wisdom with younger generations of artists.
Of course, musicians are people with everyday lives, too, and besides such professional enrichment, they also take summers to spend time with their families, travel, and pursue other interests such as mountain climbing, traveling and dancing.
So wherever you spend your summers, keep an eye out for the CCM artists – on a mountaintop or at Chicago SummerDance – and don’t hesitate to say hello!
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Thu, 06/08/2006 - 10:15am.
During the week of June 18, Chicago will be host to the mega and multi-talented Paquito D'Rivera. Through performances with The Chicago Chamber Musicians, Grant Park Orchestra and Millennium Park's Made in Chicago jazz series, we will experience this multi-Grammy Award winning artist as composer, classical clarinetist and jazz band leader.
After having worked with him in 2004, The Chicago Chamber Musicians asked Paquito to write a piece, and the work will be premiered on Sunday, June 18 in a free concert in the Harris Theater. I asked Paquito for some words about this music, and they follow:
Three Poems from the New World
For many years now, my relationship with musicians from the Chicago area has been like a long love story: from Howard Levy, Elbio Barilari and Fareed Haque to Dave Samuels, Larry Combs and Mark Walker, my extraordinary drummer for almost two decades. So, when I received the good news of this commission to write a piece especially for The Chicago Chamber Musicians, I was as happy as a kid with a new toy. “Mainly because I need the money,” Stravinsky would say. But in my case, working with these wonderful players it’s worth it for me even to pay them for doing it. (What a pity I can’t afford to do that!)
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Submitted by Amy Iwano on Thu, 06/01/2006 - 11:38am.
As I mentioned last week, I've invited my colleague in chamber music, Marna Seltzer, Director of The University of Chicago Presents, to be a guest in my place this week.
Marna and I have served together on the board of Chamber Music America, our field's national service organization, and also shared thoughts and challenges about presenting chamber music in Chicago over the years. Our organizations are different in approach, as The Chicago Chamber Musicians fosters a resident ensemble of artists, while The University of Chicago Presents brings in artists and ensembles from elsewhere. Marna is concluding her tenure as a chamber music presenter in Chicago, and I wanted her to have a chance to share her perspectives in this space.
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I Just Want My 3%
by Marna Seltzer
First, I want to thank Amy for inviting me to be a guest on her blog. The blog is a great idea and I congratulate everyone who has been a part of getting it started. I hope it is the start of something big.
This guest appearance gives me a nice forum to say goodbye and to thank everyone who has been so supportive of my work. After seven wonderful years, I will be leaving the University of Chicago at the end of the summer. My husband Zachary, our new daughter Penelope (who has her own blog!) and I are moving to New Haven, Connecticut, where Zach will be attending the Yale School of Architecture in the fall. Programming and running The University of Chicago Presents has been one of the true privileges of my life and I will miss it tremendously.
When I first moved to Chicago, I remember being very impressed by the strong sense of community here. Over the last several years, I have really come to appreciate how much our community supports the Arts. I moved to Chicago from New York City where I was working at Lincoln Center. I can tell you that the sense of community in New York is not anywhere nearly as strong as it is in Chicago. The praise on this site for Wynne Delacoma (richly deserved) is just one example of the support that flows between arts professionals in Chicago. There is no doubt that there is a core of concertgoers in Chicago who are loyal, energetic and enthusiastic, and for that we should be very grateful.
It is the potential audience outside of our core community that we need to be concerned with. Reading through some of the other posts on this site, it is no surprise that everyone is thinking about audience development. As I look back on my last 7 years as an arts presenter, I am not necessarily less optimistic than I was when I first started, but I do have firmer ideas of what we should be doing to engage audience. For what it’s worth, here are a few of my thoughts:
I tend to liken an organization’s relationship with its audience to any other human relationship that, in order to succeed and be healthy, must include certain key elements:
- Know yourself before you get to know others: Organizational identity is essential. The more we can do to understand our own missions, the stronger we will be. The more we can do to make our organizations unique from each other, the more vibrant our community will be. But, most importantly, once we know who we are, we need to put a lot of effort into communicating that message. And, we need to make sure that anyone, even the musical novice, can understand it.
It may sound silly, but here I like to think about Department Stores. In my mind, Macys, Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus are all basically the same. On the other hand, stores like Barneys, Nordstrom, and perhaps Marshall Fields (probably not for long) have a clearer profile and merchandise that is exclusive and particular to their store. Chicago would be more interesting if its arts organizations (big and little – not just department stores) were unique.
-Trust: We need to be completely trustworthy in every transaction we make with our audience. Every year, when we try to sell our events or ask people for money, we make a promise about what we are going to deliver. Simply put, if we keep that promise, and especially if we exceed the expectation that goes with that promise, we will have very happy audiences. And, they will come back. Even better, if they know they can trust us, they will tell their friends. I happen to believe that word of mouth is by far the most potent marketing tool that we’ve got.
-Quality: There is no reason to be anything else but excellent. All too often the temptation is to rely on gimmicks, or fads or marketing jargon. Great art speaks for itself, and all people — regardless of their experience and education — are capable of recognizing what is great. When we underestimate our audiences’ ability to recognize quality, we sell ourselves and them short.
-Growth & Risk: We all need to be open-minded. We need to grow and take risks constantly. We need to embrace change and we need to do whatever it takes to get outside ourselves. This does not fly in the face of having a strong, organizational identity. It simply recognizes that a good arts organization has a life of its own that must grow and evolve over time. If we do not take risks, we shortchange our audiences and we rob them of their own chance to grow. If an audience cannot grow by engaging with us, then we have failed and that failure will eventually limit the size and diversity of our audience.
Jim Hirsch wrote in a recent post that classical music, like so many other arts and cultural pursuits, is, and will continue to be, a good niche player. I agree with that. Someone once told me that in the whole of the music world (including rock/pop), the classical music market will always be just about 3% of the entire market for music. For some reason, I never forgot that and I remember thinking: that’s okay with me, I just want my whole 3%.
To all my friends and colleagues in the classical music world in Chicago – good luck and thank you. Our community of music lovers is unique, and I count myself lucky to have been a part of it.
Marna Seltzer
Director/The University of Chicago Presents (chicagopresents.uchicago.edu)
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