Part II: Putting on a Show<\/h2>\n
\u201cAs you say, the series is just starting up; the first show is\u2026[laughs] \u2018show;\u2019 that\u2019s not what you call a classical music recital, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
This was Aaron Henkin, host of WYPR\u2019s The Signal<\/em><\/a> in Baltimore, sheepishly correcting himself on air during an interview we did a few weeks ago. Little did he know that he had stumbled upon something very much on my mind these days. If musicians aren\u2019t putting on a show, what exactly are we doing, and why would we expect anyone to attend?<\/p>\n I started thinking about this in earnest after attending a Peabody Percussion Group concert at the Peabody Institute<\/a> last spring. Both the performance and the space were divided into three segments, each associated with a different percussion setup and repertoire. In addition to conservatory students, the event also featured guest artists and alumni.<\/p>\n As the evening unfolded, it occurred to me that virtually no other department does anything like this. The student percussionists, mentored passionately by my colleague Bob Van Sice<\/a>, didn\u2019t merely offer an account (a \u201crecital\u201d) of music learned over the course of a semester. The repertoire was compelling, and the performances were impressive, but these were only two aspects of an event that was much more than the sum of its parts. This was a show: a spectacle, in the best sense of the word.<\/p>\n This idea of creating a multidimensional experience for the audience is increasingly what motivates me as a presenter (and as a composer, but perhaps this is a subject for another post). As the artistic director of the Evolution Contemporary Music Series<\/a>, I try to construct shows that offer an organic and uninterrupted flow, not unlike an album or playlist. I am partial to 75 to 90-minute programs, usually about an hour of music, ideally with no intermission and no need for changes in stage setup. I\u2019ve also experimented with spoken, instrumental and electronic interludes to facilitate personnel changes and transitions between pieces, as well as multimedia, lighting and staging elements.<\/p>\n A few examples of events that I\u2019ve organized on the Evolution Series and at Peabody:<\/p>\n All of this is nothing new, of course. Most of it is standard fare in a jazz or pop concert. In the contemporary-music world, theatrical sensibilities are championed by artists like eighth blackbird; their recent performance of Amy Beth Kirsten<\/a>\u2019s Colombine\u2019s Paradise Theater <\/em><\/a>comes to mind. Such ideas also have a vibrant life in alternative venues, as classical musicians have ventured out into bars, clubs, and beyond.<\/p>\n I think we benefit from bringing aspects of the alternative venue back into the concert hall. We don\u2019t need to discard all of the conventions of classical performance, but they should be questioned. It\u2019s important to ask ourselves why we expect people to come hear us make music, and what kind of vibe we\u2019re trying to create around it. Playing great music very well is rarely enough, and curating a concert should involve more than good programming.<\/p>\n Turning a performance into an inviting, communal experience goes beyond the concert itself. On the Evolution Series, every show opens with a pre-concert conversation, and is followed by a wine reception. For a slightly higher ticket price, we also offer an \u201cExtended Play\u201d event at a local coffee shop, an after party with food, drink, and a bonus track performed by the featured artists.<\/p>\n During a recent visit with composers and singers in a summer program offered by Rhymes with Opera<\/a> (an organization that excels at smart<\/a>, inventive<\/a> presentation<\/a>), I made an analogy between a concert and a party. In both cases, there is an art to planning the flow of an evening, greeting guests, and engaging them through conversation, music, and more. The endgame is the same: imagine the world you want to create, and be generous and entertaining with your audience. When live music is shared in this way, the experience can be transformative.<\/p>\n The music of composer Judah Adashi<\/strong> has been described as \u201cbeguiling\u201d (Alex Ross, New Yorker) and \u201celegant\u201d (Steve Smith, Boston Globe). Dr. Adashi has been honored with awards, grants and commissions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP and BMI Foundations, the American Composers Forum, New Music USA and the Aspen Music Festival, as well as residencies at Yaddo and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A committed musical organizer, advocate and educator, Dr. Adashi is the founder and artistic director of the Evolution Contemporary Music Series, noted for having \u201celevated and enriched Baltimore\u2019s new music scene enormously\u201d (Baltimore Sun). He is also on the composition and music theory faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Adashi holds master\u2019s and doctoral degrees from Peabody, and a bachelor\u2019s degree from Yale University.<\/em><\/p>\n The Evolution Contemporary Music Series<\/strong>, founded in 2005 and directed by composer and Peabody Institute faculty member Judah Adashi, is a Baltimore-based concert series dedicated to the music of living composers. Praised by Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun for having \u201celevated and enriched Baltimore\u2019s new music scene enormously,\u201d and by the Baltimore City Paper as \u201csuperb\u2026not the same-old, same-old,\u201d the Evolution Series has presented or premiered works by over 75 composers, performed by acclaimed musicians from Baltimore and beyond. Events regularly include pre-concert conversations with performers, composers, critics and scholars. Featured guests have included Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; composers Caroline Shaw and John Luther Adams; and music critics Tim Page (Washington Post) and Alex Ross (New Yorker). <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Judah Adashi,\u00a0Founder and Artistic Director of the Evolution Contemporary Music Series Dear Sybaritic faithful: my apologies for the delay in writing and sharing Part II of my guest post. In Part I: The M-Word, I addressed the challenges faced by artists who do their own fundraising. I\u2019m pleased to report that we have since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,138,1],"tags":[1127,1034,1128,1129,1126,1130,40,1131,750,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-4948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-discuss","7":"category-guest","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"tag-aaron-henkin","10":"tag-amy-beth-kirsten","11":"tag-bob-van-sice","12":"tag-caroline-shaw","13":"tag-evolution-contemporary-music-series","14":"tag-john-luther-adams","15":"tag-judah-adashi","16":"tag-lavena-johnson","17":"tag-peabody-institute","18":"tag-rhymes-with-opera","19":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sybaritic](\"https:\/\/sybariticsinger.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/10\/andiemusik_carolineshaw_092314-10-1.jpg?w=600\")
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