Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
I want to toss out a short academic exercise in the form of thinking about how the ubiquitous curtain speech will fit into post-COVID concerts. Even before the shutdowns, curtain speeches were pushing the envelope of ticket buyer patience and starting to have a negative impact on the overall concert experience. At the same time, we all know why they exist. Those reasons will only be exacerbated in the wake of …
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times, the ability to engage with readers on social media is a double-edged sword. Case in point, yesterday’s article about Jeremy Reynolds’ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on conductor body language produced a thought-provoking discussion thread yesterday…on my Facebook wall. That means even though the comment section at the blog post was digital crickets, things were hopping on my wall. Fortunately, I keep …
The 11/11/2019 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a terrific article by Jeremy Reynolds, who came up with the idea to have a body language expert examine orchestra conductors and provide feedback. It’s as interesting as you can imagine and a few steps short of what I would love to see next: observations of musicians and patrons during a live concert. While I get why something like this begins with music …
Since the concert experience has been the focus of several recent posts, it made sense to highlight some of the more popular articles on that topic over the years for today’s #TBT. But perhaps more importantly, I’m curious to know what topics you think should be at the top of the sacred cow barbeque discussion list. Credit for that idea goes out to composer and educator David MacDonald and a comment …
There’s a fascinating article by Mark Fisher in the 9/27/17 edition of The Guardian (H/T Ceci Dadisman’s ARTSMAIL newsletter) that examines the success of a Glasgow based theater series that encourages attendees to bring food and drink to the performance. When discussing The Guardian article with a colleague, she mentioned “What would the arts and culture landscape here in the US look like if theaters let you eat and drink while …
