A balancing act

A recent orchestra-rehearsal made me realise (and especially when reflecting on it on my way home), how subjective personal perceptions disfigure musical performance. The maturity of one's skills and applying them accordingly - call it being professional - can correct your playing to its correct proportions.

Let me clarify this by a very simple example - if e.g. a violin player or a singer, has a lousy hearing, (s)he will play/sing out of tune (not referring to accidental wrong hits due to speed or incidental nervousness). Like a foreigner, learning English, will perhaps pronounce teh phrase "Where were you" as "Vur vur yoo" - not distinguishing a nuance of pronunciation of the words "where" and " were". You must tell him the difference. It's a process (s)he must learn master: maybe the ear is poorly trained and the player has no clue what (s)he is doing wrong. Equally bad, if the player is not interested at all to be bothered by adjusting the intonation. This is a mental state - and believe me, even among professionals I see it often enough. Yes, even musicians are human, and can have a tendency to laziness or sloppiness. The latter can be corrected, but the former is more problematic.

Now, our ears are not only trained to hear pitch, but a lot more as well. Besides having a good intonation, the ear is also trained to be used to style - your own playing style. Ever recorded your own voice, and played it afterwards? Usually, we tend to be shocked by the different sound of it, the different colour, the extent of nasality - while another person hears no difference at all. Our (hearing-)perception of one's own sound (re)production is therefore extremely confusing ourselves. My struggle often is, that musicians often have a wrong perception of style (the earlier mentioned overly use of vibrato), have a different tempo - even if I beat clearly a bit faster or slower, they keep on going in their own tempo (preference); specific rhythmic patterns notoriously 'force' musicians to start speeding - something which they would notice when only listening; when playing, they're sometimes not aware of their sudden tempo switches. Even if I request them to alter this or that, they continue in their previous way (habit). And perhaps, they're convinced their own performance is flawless, because thinking it is according to what their professor told them to do (pride).

Here again, we come to the discussion, why we allow people to use wrong style: the often heard excuse is "oh let them do this their way, they're already used to it" while, fortunately, intonation is OK to work on? Consequently, if never criticising musicians on their playing, they will become "professionally autistic", not being able any more to maintain a (self)critical hearing, to be more open and appreciative of other ideas, not questioning their own output. To put it differently; we are expected to be critical only to one single aspect, but for the rest we should readily let them err?

Unfortunately, I do see a lot of passivity and this disinterest as if a chronic "professional autism" reigns. 40 Years of communist rule here have left a sad mark, in a field, which one would expect to be detached from politics. Nevertheless it has created a mentality issue. The old school doesn't produce good methods to keep musicians self-critical and to develop an attitude to constantly improve oneself. The good thing is, that there are still some outstanding musicians, with good ideas and open mind - sadly enough they are only an exception. But together we have a task to move forward into the right direction. In time, the rest will gradually have to follow suit or else leave the stage. It is all a balancing act, but balancing which is needed - not because to please your music colleagues, but to make us survive.

MS

Adapting music education

In one of my previous articles on marketing music, I have already addressed the need of music education to change their programming. Since our modern society has a different pace and methods of exchanging information than 20 years ago, musicians (and especially those, who are to become musicians in the near future) should be made aware of this. PR, branding and entrepreneurship are not terms that exclusively belong to big commercial companies whether in the hi-tech software-, fashion- or oil business. Equally, musicians and the cultural institutions require such strategies in order to function in our world. Keeping a distance, because entrepreneurship simply is alien to them, will in the end result in a slow and a grinding halt.

The American double bass player and blogger Jason Heath beautifully lists and describes in his blog realistic scenarios which take currently place in music schools. What a music student expects, what is (thought) necessary to learn, and how it ends. Despite that there are certain regional specifics due to their setting in the USA, generally these scenarios are, in my view, also valid for most European students and professionals. The bottom-line of his article can be summarised in his passage:

In order to succeed in the contemporary musical landscape, classical music performers need to become businessmen as much as performers, promoters as much as practicers, and innovators as much as reproducers.

I deal a lot with music students and academy professors and performing artists, and see indeed an alarming widening gap growing, where music education is not in line with music life in modern society. Naturally, if focussed on performance (reproducing) only - which has been a given ever since musicians began playing - there is a risk of keeping prejudices towards the 'other realm': "we are just artists, they are businesspeople, technicians, lawyers, workers, etc. ... " This passivity and timorousness will definitively work against themselves. Oddly enough, although young students despite playing a fiddle or piano, know very well how to find mp3 files or free music scores (so, it is not a matter of being IT-illiterate), yet seeing the internet as a tool to research on business approaches or to propagate themselves is exceptional. That's somewhat a connection which seems not to be very obvious.

What is quite mystifying: although for a few years, courses are being offered already here in Slovakia (especially at the Comenius University of Bratislava), yet I haven't noticed any visible outcome. It is not so much about a musician - or art managers - to become money-hungry bookkeepers. Just to become more agile and responding to the market, using the right tools.

People are usually to a certain degree conservative by nature, fearing perhaps new and sudden changes, especially if it involves new technologies and techniques, but let's have culture slip into becoming a dormant dinosaur. It requires an open mind and willingness to admit that new approaches are useful and, in fact, an imperative. For the sake of their own survival. Currently, my art-management "colleagues" Christian Henner-Fehr and David Röthler are investigating workable possibilities and functionality of Web 2.0, whilst I am trying to support our culture-users in Slovakia to start using these tools... It requires an open mind and willingness to admit that new approaches are useful and, in fact, an imperative. For the sake of their own survival.
(to be continued)

MS

Culture: Static or dynamic?

In life, most things do change over time. Thanks to our modern technologies, we can e.g. compare how our language was spoken 50, 30 and 15 years ago, and can directly compare its evolutionary change over the years. One of the reasons is that humans have the habit of being a bit sloppy and that the human memory is heavily influenced by external factors. Up to the point, of discolouring a memory because of a constant re-thinking.

What happens often in music, is that one often is confronted with interpretation-differences. Most of the composers we perform today, are unfortunately no longer among us, in order to verify our view with them. Doing some research, can to a certain degree give further insight in the circumstances in which a composition was created, or - maybe through diaries or correspondence, how a certain passage should be viewed, nevertheless it leaves a considerable grey area.

For several decades, there is a growing trend of moving away from an overly romantic practice of the Post-War period of music performance, where we have re-shaped almost (even disfigured) music. A few individual musicians, started in the 1950s and early 1960s to re-think about how Baroque music (most probably) should sound like - nowadays a commonly accepted discipline in the prominent music education and on stage as well. After the baroque period, also classicism and romantic period were put under the magnifying glass. Often I am drawn into discussions of what is valid about it. Being quite convinced about the need to repair the damage done in the last 100 years to the baroque and classicist composers, I often think of the once rebellious standing of Frans Brüggen where - he somewhere in the 1960s - exclaimed "every note of Mozart played so far is a lie!"

Although, there are a few aspects of playing that cannot be reproduced in written music-materials. Even some literature (say, a treatise by Geminiani or Leopold Mozart's Violin School) are not 100% conclusive to everything. However, by making use of the proper hardware (instruments - original or replica - using materials with the same technical parameters/limitations) we can experience for 95% the most likely probability of the historic sound, even the (im)probability of certain tempi. Last week, whilst travelling with a colleague-friend, we discussed the same subject on Roger Norringtons recordings (which I have heard, but unfortunately not all of them). Especially the Brahms' German requiem and even Mahler's symphonies are something which keep my mind busy. A vibrato-less Mahler?

I totally agree that the practice until the 1970-1980 (and even followed today) has grown completely out of hand. Admittedly, at first as a young student, I was adamant too, but now, when I see/hear recorded of 1980 Händel concerts with clarinets(!!!) and vibratos so huge, that your LCD-TV screen fall off the wall, not to speak of Bach's St. Matthew Passion conducted by the famous Mengelberg in 1939.

Here we arrive at the cross-road of the discussion: Norrington's approach is that even up to Mahler, the orchestra sound was less coloured by use of constant vibrato, while the Amsterdam Concertgebouw's maestro Willem Mengelberg, who was a personal friend of Gustav Mahler, inviting him to his house, intensively working (together) on his music, writing letters, has made recordings of the Concertgebouw Orchestra with a heavy vibratos - albeit that the recordings are made long after Mahler's death. Would Mengelberg transform the orchestra sound so heavily ever since? It is possible - keeping in mind, that I myself do realise my own change of preformance preferences as I grew older (and hopefully wiser). Nevertheless, I am convinced that even in the baroque period the use of vibrato was common - be it far less than today's trend - and so was surely the the trend in Mahler's time. The scores itself show signs that when composers write e.g. molto espressivo or non vibrato it meant to stress in order to highlight it from the usual playing style within the piece. What is really meant is perhaps a long debate, but it indicates that vibrato was indeed common (again, to a lesser extent than today).

It disturbs me too, to see young players - but not only the young ones - already before putting down their bow on their strings, to heavily vibrate their hands. Their playing looks like 10 spoons of sugar in a cup of coffee, completely losing the flavour of coffee due to the excessive sugar input. It is a bad trend. In addition, people/musicians believing only perform acrobatics to show off their skills, losing more and more the feel for musicality (musicality has nothing to do with high speed and high notes). I call it Oistrakhisms, where people turn Vivaldi concertos into a Paganini-caprices, Bach as if a Wagnerian ouverture into obscenity. It's simply rude towards the composition.

Now you would perhaps say; but culture is dynamic and changes over time - meant is actually just public taste. Yes indeed. Fully agree! But what exactly is being static and what dynamic? It is a (professional) musician's responsibility to know the difference between taste and style . Taste should not be overruling style. That's what we did wrong in the past. Wouldn't that exactly be being static, to blindly follow one (limited) sample, and dynamic if you take time to reflect whether what you play is indeed right (critically compare) and move yourself to a higher level? We have a society, which is far more literate and well informed, than say 100 years ago. It can handle well-thought approaches and concepts. Exactly the opposite, would disqualify a musician from his professionality, making him almost perhaps a kind of populist charlatan. The audience deserves value. And style deserves respect to remain as intact as possible. Besides, ever wondered, why a is called a conservatoire?

MS

Breaking the deafening silence

Moving around predominantly in a - relatively - small circle in Slovakia, nevertheless, one has an easy bird's-eye view over almost the whole music scene. The latest news spreads very quickly as well. In other words; quite a comfortable position, you would say, but sometimes you would wish a bit more variety. The struggle of making culture move forward.

What suddenly caught my attention last week, was an interview of the Slovak Philharmonic's present chief conductor Peter Feranec (starting his post this 2007/2008 concert season) in the Slovak magazine hudobny život ('music life'), which after a tremendous delay, finally issued its first issue this year. Next to the usually biographical part of the interview, it was especially maestro Feranec' open criticism on Slovakia's music life: Against the established managements of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, the State Opera, politicians and society in general, on how they (mal)treat the orchestras, that was a pleasant surprise to read. Not the critisism itself, but especially his analysis, the overall ramifications and the alternatives he discussed, showed him to be a capable and balanced visionary orchestra leader.

Like a skilled acupuncturist, he (literally) pinpoints exactly the weak spots, which cause tremendous stagnation, and - here I must fully agree with Peter Feranec - even to liquidation processes (deliberate or not) as a result of some managers' decision-making. The sick patient, however, is not lying before him to be cured, so the healing effect of this possible treatment somehow will not be to his help. I expect even - knowing how it goes sometimes here - that some people perhaps will not regard him any longer as their friend.

Due to time-constraints, I will not delve on individual passages here right now (they would sound like clones of my earlier analysis; furthermore I am not a pro bono translator for this magazine). So if a prominent and experienced (internationally active) conductor airs the same constructive criticism, you would ask, why then is there so little response? But the main thing is, that finally here is a strong voice, which is publicly breaking a deafening silence, that was for such a long time so disturbing in this discussion. Spring has come. Time to awake from hibernation! Will keep you posted. (to be continued...)

MS

A matter of how to look at things

As a musician, I hear colleagues often - if not constantly - lament how difficult it is these days to survive. As a consultant, when dealing with clients, it is my job to assist organisations with the hurdles they are facing. In all, there is hardly a difference between the 2 spheres, except that in the former case people treat me as their fellow brother-in-arms (thus being their equal), in the latter case, I am considered as a kind of an outsider, who has hardly any ties to them, which sometimes is a bit of a barrier (regarded as not being their equal) in our communication. As a colleague they are extremely frank and open, as a professional consultant there is apparently a professional distance.

Nevertheless, as I can draw a much wider picture of the things people tell me, it is hardly a problem, to grasp my clients' needs, as well as (and very important indeed) the way they feel and think. Understanding the psychology which goes along with their need for change, in other words "looking beyond the statistical data, graphs, economic forecasts" is a very essential aspect, that you have to keep in mind, and is instrumental for the solution searching and strategic planning. Equally, a much quicker confidence is created between yourself and the customer. To be open about their concerns or fears and making them comfortable in discussing this is a must in this business.

Even though, to the readers of my blog (hopefully most, if not all of them) this given is probably taken for granted, but I am amazed, to witness a trend - either within my group of colleagues, or with my clients - that people tend to focus so much on what they cannot or may not do, instead of investing more energy and creativity of what is feasible. On numerous accounts, suggested innovations are immediately opposed by responses like "that's difficult to do", "no money", "there's this bureaucracy", "we already tried five years ago". If I start calculating, how much time it takes to find a solution compared to how much time I need in order to convince the client to accept the fact in the first place that change is necessary for his survival (as the present situation is causing him problems anyway)... I alway tend to say: "If you don't shoot, you always miss the target".

Culture is experiencing a bumpy ride (and in fact... has almost always been in that situation) but if you see all the innovative technologies around - faster communications, better quality technologies, skilled people, why not positively make use of this all instead of constantly sticking our heads in the sand? - besides, we hardly have enough sand-pits for that anyway.

MS

Economy and Arts: Enemies or Allies?

As this subject is a daily reality for me, publications on this subject have somehow summited for the last few months (or is it the same effect, when you buy a bordeau-red car, that suddenly you notice that more people started buying a bordeau-red cars as well?). For a long time, I am actively dealing with matters whether orchestras are (still) viable. Alarming news on dismantling orchestras, reducing its size, and last but not least, the publication of the Flanagan Report of the Mellon Foundation, which apparently seems to conclude that orchestras are facing an imminent death. Prof. Robert J. Flanagan of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, as an experienced authority in the field of economics, analyses the state of American orchestras (would this automatically mean, that it is equally applicable to European bodies, or a band in Seoul or Melbourne.

The study itself might be valuable as an analysis over the period, which it covered (i.e. from 1987-2003) – it could indeed serve as a guideline, or as a possible variant. Yet orchestras – as well as other art organisations and non-profit sector actors – are not only lead by economic drivers.

Economic statistical indicators are only a partial snapshot of a situation, which do not reflect the overall picture: Equally, if you would visit your doctor tomorrow, he will take your temperature and asses it is 36,9 degrees centigrade (which is in medical terms perfectly all right) it will not prove, whether you are currently feeling happy at all. Not mentioning that your bed was a bit hard and you have a backache, or that you simply have a bad day, the fact regarding your body temperature is not conclusive.

The bottom line of the said report states that orchestras are a deep pit where money disappears – in other words: structural deficits. Economists or CEOs of huge companies would immediately draw the ‘obvious’ conclusion to pull the plug, before more loss will show in the records. Or, at best, a complete make-over of marketing, provided profitable turnover is feasible in the near-future (preferably within a time-span of 5 years maximum!). Anything in the red is not worth dealing with.

Perhaps we are hardly aware any longer, that in our modern societies, we have nevertheless services, which we as individual citizens have delegated to the community (municipal authority, government), and for which we pay, by means of taxes or through insurances. Both financed from our wallet. Is your local fire-department profitable? If not, would you abolish it? How about the school attended by your children? Or the ambulance service? And yet, correctly, societies still consider these items as essential – even though running them is a costly matter. Although we start realising, fortunately enough, that good education is essential for the long-term economic benefits, art is somehow a suppositious child… or rather an orphan. Community services even charity seem OK, but art is 'too elitist'?

In my view, the main problem is our own parochialism: We have started to learn to divide people and their disciplines into little niches. What I often sense, is the lack of being able to look a bit over the fence into other disciplines, to have a kind of cross-over in solution-seeking: A typical scenario: An orchestra is in dire financial need, a local manager - who happened to be successful in running a hardware store – is called to deliver the band from bankruptcy…and after a certain time fails. Why? Because the involved parties do not communicate on the same wave-length. The economist is academically looking at statistics and figures, while the artists are hardly interested in being bothered with management issues. Instead being deft in tackling the dynamics of the world around (a lot of creativity is required for that) it is unfortunately either this or the other opposite.

Therefore, I myself do resent the usual attitude of public taking such reports and sometimes come up with conclusions, which even my 5 year old son would be able to think of. Maybe a bit off-track, but do we realise, how much time, energy and resources such a report has cost society? We know very well, that throughout the years, many economic systems have been introduced, sometimes idolised, finding many years later out that they were not the right stuff… An example would be Keynesian economics and later Friedman and Hayek’s criticism. Therefore, economics is not dogmatic, its values never timeless. The so called economic demands are (and therefore the economic value) of a product – in our case the price society/audience would be willing to pay for concerts – is a very relative and a flexible given.

Since our modern society, with almost borderless access to any corner of the world (be it by means of modern transportation on via the electronic highway) is no longer limited to its village or town like it was in the 19^th century. Technology and communication is more dynamic than was 30 years ago. This is a fact, which all of us face, and this must be the starting-point from where we should develop our strategies.

Economics is only our thermometer telling us if physically we are OK (and still, it is only one indicator; is not giving any indication of our blood-pressure). If we feel fit, happy or if we want to be successful, more is needed. What the Flanagan Report shows me, is that orchestras have little learned how to deal with governance issues, whether management was art-oriented or economy-oriented. Economics seems as if it is behaving like an enemy towards arts, but only if perceived through this narrow-minded angle. It is necessary to be aware of this, and not to be afraid of the other discipline and start learning to jointly reach for a solution. It is this creativity to develop efficient marketing, PR, branding (yes also for musicians), and networking. Not only do we have to educate our orchestras to get out of their IT-illiteracy and start using more modern ways to surface, but also our audience (society) needs to be educated, to stop thinking of only short-term profit and loss – that other intangible values are sometimes even priceless. Realising that economy is also largely driven by psychology - if not primarily.

I would like to quote a blog-commenter, whose name I do not know unfortunately (calling himself only “unkultur”); he stated that culture is as brittle as nature: for a long time, people were not interested in nature preservation, no realising what a multi fold price they have to cough up to deal with our polluted environment. Only now, we realised, that we cannot live without this nature (or that the ramifications of our long lack of interest are dramatic). In my personal conviction, we cannot live withour culture either. How long will it take, before we realise this? Hopefully, in time before it is too late.

MS

Business-like arts a failure

I must admit, that my today's title is not very original, in fact it's the title of an article, which caught my attention thanks to the Das Kulturmanagement Blog (available only in German). But the article is coming at a moment, as I witness the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovak Radio being in big trouble, where CBC is dismantling its orchestra, and more: I simply couldn't resist any longer and had to post a blog-article myself as well. Surely, Christian will forgive me for that.

According to the original article in the Australian Sydney Morning Herald Justin Macdonnell, after having spent many years in the US as an artistic director, he comes to the conclusion that "throughout the English-speaking world, the board system of governance in the non-profit sector has been a miserable failure". His observation was - in short - that board members were slowly becoming business people [only], being focussed in the only thing they were good at: business, ... simply put: profit-oriented. Having read another episode of the earlier mentioned Columbus Symphony Orchestra struggling, is nicely illustrating an exception, and how the involved parties view eachother's role in it.

I would tend to agree both with Justin Macdonnell and Christian's analysis, that indeed art is not a 'business-business'. Although art is a strange and a slippery area as far as business is concerned: Millions have willingly been paid for Karajan's recordings, while now even better maestros (musically speaking) walk around our planet, who miss their chances because the orchestra is simply having a "budget-issue" - even though their yearly wage would be even far less than what Karajan would demand for a single recording. Let me describe a fictive situation: Like a Renoir; a piece of cloth with blurry coloured oil-based additions on its surface, turning it out to to the eye of the beholder to be a beautiful garden scene, where you can even smell the fragrant summer flowers in the garden. Howmuch is it worth? If a rich Japanese collector pays $1.7 million for it, it is considered to be the market price, and unfortunately our modest wallets' content would not suffice to buy it. But if our Japanese friend will suddenly have some bad luck, and his company go bancrupt, losing his fortune, he can always sell his painting.... that is; in the worst case, if nobody would be in need or want for it (not very likely though in the case of a Renoir, but purely for the sake of argument), then it suddenly became indeed a useless piece of cloth and he won' t be able to sell it at all.

Here's the point; we should indeed run our orchestras in such a way that every penny we spend can be justified. Have a good and a sound marketing strategy, yet realising, that orchestras are no oil-companies, that can easily increase the price of the tickets when winter comes, or another armed conflict in the Middle East would be pending. Therefore the marketing must be in balance with its artistic content - being based on purely a profit-and-loss analysis. Good quality art - performing art that is - has obviously its value. It only depends, howmuch you are willing to pay for it. That's a matter of educating your audience as well. If people never experienced an evening out to the concerts, it will unlikely be attracted to put down perhaps even $10. In the event, they were regular concert-goers, appreciating the whole atmosphere and entourage, then $50 would not be an issue. Orchestra governance is therefore more than sitting in a luxurious office, calculating this month's wages for the musicians (one of the biggest expenditures), making phone-calls to find a replacement (another few bucks over the counter), and distributing posters (printing costs!) for the upcoming concert. It is a serious matter, where the basic plus and minus do matter of course. But economy is not only calculating, it's also a great deal of psychology; a wrong signal can make the stock exchange crash within hours. The task is, to keep your audience's attention and interest. Here, being creative rather than only a book-keeper is essential. That's what some of the boards clearly missed. Unfortunately, people plan things solutions mostly as an "either - or" option, instead of an "as well - as". I would like to refer also to this ArtsJournal weblog written by Andrew Taylor on this matter.

Allow me to conclude with a quote by Albert Einstein, surely a man, which is viewed by most of us as being rational and a scientist pur sang, who said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge". And relatively speaking, this could apply to any given situation.

MS

Dismantling orchestras

To my great astonishment, last week I have read the news that Canada's CBC Radio Orchestra is to be dismantled by November. Not reduced, no; definitively abolished. After worldwide featuring the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Ohio, USA), which has already raised much international eyebrow frowning, this news however, especially from Canada took me indeed by surprise.

I came across an article by Christopher Butterfield in the Times Colonist, from which I would like to quote two - in my view - very appropriate statements. Giving a brief analysis for the situation, he argues that the trend of cutting or dismantling orchestras is based on misleading grownds. His usual message to students is - and I quote - that they (we all) "live in a society that does not require art to have commercial value in order to be of value". Furthermore, he prophetically warns that the long-term damage will have (perhaps even irreversible) impact on local culture itself, referring to the song: "You don't miss your water 'til your well runs dry". That is, of course, if it is really your intention to stop drinking water, then go ahead.

Talking about commercial value, though (or considering something having a commercial value): Why is it, that most countries have locally perhaps only one classical radio channel, but a dozens of very similar commercial stations - broadcasting the similar songs? Seems that it's commercially more interesting to produce another radio-clone... Just to think about.

MS

Conductors' market: Inflation and beating time.

Conductors are usually mystique and impressive - in front of a grand orchestra, they emulate inspiration such that the musicians reproduce the composer's oeuvre to its utmost intented perfection. At least, that would be the ideal case. What does a conductor need, besides a 10 dollar glassfibre baton and white-tie gala outfit? A lot of baggage. Foremost, intellectual baggage and a strong personality.

A few weeks ago, I met a young student conductor still in his twenties, who was proudly telling me that he became a permanent conductor of the National Opera. Unfortunately, we were looking at eachother, so I had to control myself not to burst out in laughter. It was obvious, that he obtained this post due to his contacts, as my judgement of his conducting skills are not very favourable. How on earth, can such a inexperienced no-body get such a prominent post? The answer is very simple; besides of his autocratic patron, he is servile, and - of course - CHEAP!

If you have, as a bookkeeper, a choice in between price-tag A for 5,000 or price-tag B for 50,000 which would you choose? Thought so. Now imagine you have a precious car, which you fill only with cheap very poor quality gasoline, no maintenance... what do you think, will the long term consequence be? A young inexperienced (not even graduated) maestro is no asset to any orchestra. How can a 20-and-something year old kid, have the intellectual baggage to lead an orchestra? He knows only how to beat time - at best. In the worst case, he simply immitates (without understanding the ramifications) his master or other conductor. In such a case, I could even device a software program, which compiles all the known recordings, and from that sublimate the optimally required tempo and dynamic, and project it virtually in front of the orchestra. Just a simple and effective time-beater! Hiring conductors is becoming a joke. And a bad one indeed.

Now this trend is not exclusively Slovak; it seems to be a fad, that young conductors attract the attention of the public. A few days ago, young Gustavo Dudamel (also 27) conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Although, I consider Dudamel far more skilled than the aforementioned conductor-student. Nevertheless, my reservation against such trends proved true, as I read a review where indeed my biggest adamancy is being exactly voiced: as a lack of weight (intellectually) conducting by young conductors, including the so (too) much hailed Dudamel, is merely a matter of tremendously showing off - conducting for the public; not for the music. As if you see a clone of Claudio Abbado (the very same gestures being immitated! - for what???). His initiative for young Venezuelan musicians is - I must admit - quite admirable. But when having seen an interview on BBC television, I nearly fell of my sofa. Still needs to ripen.

To all orchestra managers and culture ministers; stop this cheap conductor shopping, and finally realise, that in order to make your orchestras really presentable, make them work with real maestros, instead of cheap child-labour. Yes, of course, it will cost you a bit more, but what would you expect? In the end, it's quality that matters. About time to send the kids home to learn - for another decade or so - what music is really about. Your orchestras need to improve in quality and maintaining it, not becoming merely baby-sitters.

MS

Art Management: what and how

When I read the blog, where my prolific colleague Christian Henner-Fehr mentioned last week three very interesting issues - namely the definition of Art Manager, and the value of our services (or: howmuch should we charge) and Art Management as a discussion platform, it caused me to make some analysis and reflect, as these three articles are closely intertwined. Let me just shortly illustrate my experiences, and air some thoughts:

Being an Art Management consultant, predominantly in Slovakia as well as in the Czech Republic, I am spending a lot of time explaining my music colleagues, what I do - or could do. Christian Henner-Fehr correctly points out in his articles, how grey(ish) this field indeed is. Even so, that despite several decades of adding this subject to their curriculum, none of the educational institutes match the definition of what this subject should contain. While some would primarily offer his/her services to assist cultural groups obtaining funding or sponsorship others - like myself - see it also as a kind of awareness raising task, to make these institutions improve their effectivity, viability and visibility. (And no, I am not an artist manager, who organises concerts, an impression which mostly encounter.) While it is indeed an obvious fact, that finance is the greatest barrier, and submitting subsidy/sponsorship applications is for most of them priority number one, I would always stress to my clients, that it takes more than obtaining a financial injection, since after this project there's still another horizon to come. Sooner or later they must become independent enough (else I would become some sort of bureaucratic subsidy-administrative assistant for the ensembles). Therefore the greyishness of Art Management is somehow a benefit to us, where we can creatively co-operate with our clients to reach our joint objectives - thus not being limited to one chore.

In my view, it is in this very niche, where I have to play a significant role as a consultant, to show them the way ahead. To be aware, that what they offer has a value, which they should adequately bring to the market. And there comes the other issue: what should we charge?

Being a consultant, people mostly associate with exuberant fees, a slick office, at least 200 world-wide branches, and you name it. However, we move around in a field, which has in some exceptional spots on the globe maybe offering six digits (e.g. Berlin, Vienna, New York, Tokyo) but for the rest, the majority is moving on a more humble elevation. We are facing sometimes a cruel dilemma, of offering a valuable lasting solution (the famous example of giving a fishing rod to the hungry and teach them how to fish, rather than just a fish), and a certain degree of idealism to support financially poor cultural groups, hardly able to keep their head above the surface. The price for our (professional) services should not be underrated, neither overrated. Especially, when we teach our client his worth as well. But when you client is open to changes, and provided your input is taken seriously, it is an investment which pays off well. For both parties involved, that is.

MS

Teaching needs investing

As I do deal a lot with musicians on a daily basis (not just as a 'passive concert-goer') a certain observation of the Slovak and Czech music world around me haunts my mind. And the key word is, as awful as it might sound: STAGNATION. Oddly enough, there's an old proverb - and I must admit, maybe quite presumptuous, but for the sake of argument it is a nice starting point - "every Czech a musician". Proverbs sometimes do contain a slight historical truth, so let's ponder on this given. Just to make clear, since our long coexistence, I consider Slovakia still a bit similar to the Czech case in that aspect, as Slovak was labelled in the 18th century as Czech. But let's not delve too much on ethnographics and history right now.

If I remember Gustav Mahler's fan and acquaintance, whom I mentioned earlier in one of my previous articles, Ján Cádra, where he mentions a significant difference between a German orchestra and an orchestra from Prague, while Mahler rehearsed his symphonies with them, he did stress, that the Czech musicians seemed to understand the music better than the players in Munich - even though as far as the orchestra discipline is concerned, Munich seemed to have his favour. So perhaps. something in the Bohemian (Czech) culture was indeed notably music oriented. Not to forget the list of Bohemian composers, who even moved around all of Europe and beyond - Benda, Stamic, Rosetti (originally Růžička), and of course Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček, Martinů and more. In such a landscape it must be inherent that passing on this cultural inheritance to the next generations would be the most natural thing. Well, ... not quite, as it appears. And in all honesty, I see hardly any big Slovak or Czech name, which in my eyes can truly compete with his colleagues from abroad.

I feel sometimes a bit depressed, when seeing how students struggle in schools, which offer hollow programmes - just the conventional dexterity excercises, teachers - who are not merely badly motivated because of the low wages, even sometimes have no fundamental pedagogical skills whatsoever - furthermore there is a chronic tunnel view (exceptions aside - but exceptions are exceptions; not the rule). Music education resembles an old outdated factory, where production is inefficient, producing low quality commodities which nobody seems wanting to buy. That's a bit of an alarming statement, but this persistently lingers in my mind, everytime I deal with cultural institutes in general.

Interestingly enough, when meeting musicians in a pub, after concerts or rehearsals, you hear suddenly very different and strong opinions. Not to downgrade pub talks - as these did indeed pinpoint exactly what is wrong. Obviously there's definitively a awareness around - maybe a bit limited to a certain group of musicians; those who have the talent, to look beyond their horizons. Fortunately! Naturally, the question follows, why, then, is stagnation so rampant? Is there such a schism between a quasi 'ruling class' and the others, where "the twain shall never meet"?

I see therefore one of the major weaknesses in education. An area, which needs a different attitude; the humble subservant teacher should be aware of his important role in shaping his pupil's skills and most of all - his character. I see a lot of scrap going on; people who should not be allowed to teach at all, as they devastate a potential talent causing perhaps lasting damage, rather than making him/her ready to be inquisitive, eager to learn new things, to look beyond, and be confident; confident to stand up, to start making a difference.

There is obviously a gap; what is diagnosed, does not get to the top, or the top doesn't want to change the diagnosed issue. Like a serious disease; you can perhaps try to ignore it for a while - pretending it's not there, but sooner or later, you will pass a point, where it becomes irreversibly incurable with fatal results. It is in the interest of all involved - and society - to jointly address this stagnation and get it moving again, to preserve a unique heritage while you still can. A matter of lacking money? But even with limited funds, the change can come even from within. The sad truth is, that there is enough money around; it's just a embarrassing lack of interest!

MS