"The Orchestra" Needs a Steve Jobs

Do we know what is desirable?

Announcing the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, Steve Jobs said, “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. … One is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate it’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.”

This is an unmitigated understatement if there ever was one.  Say what you will about Mr. Jobs and his business practices (of course people seem to enjoy finding a "dark side" to success), he has introduced technological advances that we did not realize were possible, but now don't know what we would do without:  this being written from my four-year-old MacBook, a computer of which I have been eternally happy (unless my Firefox chooses to crash).

What has this to do with "The Orchestra?"  Well......?

For some reason I've found myself on the mailing list of one of our regional symphonies.  Actually I still get mailings from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, where I've attended one concert, and that more than ten years ago.  The season brochure for this ensemble (entitled "The Music Speaks") includes of course a message from the Music Director, who shall remain anonymous.  Maestro X writes, "Symphony audiences in _____ know what they like....They like music that speaks to them....People go to concerts to hear music, familiar or not, which moves them."  Whether intentional or not, the MD has chosen to take the (SURPRISE!) familiar road.

The orchestra's programing for the 2012-2013 "classical" season consists of seven sets of concerts, containing 22 works.  Mozart and Beethoven are each represented twice.  The remainder of the composers are dead European males, save Jennifer Higdon; the orchestra is playing Blue Cathedral, probably her most famous work.  The most contemporary of the rest?  Well, there is Bartok and Shostakovich....

This is an orchestra in a highly culturally-educated community.  It seems to me a sad commentary that the band can't play a premiere, especially in a town boasting a large university (upon which the orchestra relies for many of its musicians.

"The Orchestra" (as a whole) needs a Steve Jobs, an innovative individual to lead us to the possibilities that exist for the contemporary ensemble.  The death knells for classical music continue to resound as we very simply are not replacing our aging audience with a younger one.  MTT has done the job for a long time, but that's only in San Francisco...we need an MTT in the Heartland and beyond. 

 “We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.  When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” ~ Steve Jobs