The classical music business is experiencing a kind of market correction, as groups reduce the number of formal concerts they produce and provide, instead, more intimate and convenient performances within their communities. Perhaps classical music could learn from the diamond companies, which have transformed a relatively common mineral into something precious by limiting its abundance in the marketplace.
Good music, accessibly presented, is not a hard sell. On a morning television show in early 2004,1 saw the beautiful soprano Renee Fleming performing on the air with her pianist, dressed in a simple pants outfit with a casual, contemporary hairstyle and little jewelry. She looked nothing like the stereotypical opera diva. The camera angle showed pedestrians in the background, gathering on the sidewalk outside the broadcast studio’s windows as Fleming began singing her aria. Almost immediately, the listeners’ faces softened. The crowd grew larger and everyone watched her intently, as if the world around them had disappeared. I imagine most of these people thought they didn’t like classical music, yet they were mesmerized by Fleming’s simple performance.
The same listeners might not have enjoyed a typical concert setting so much, forced to sit for two hours or more and absorb sounds that tell no story. For that matter, I have always disliked attending concerts my-self. I recently went to a New Jersey Symphony concert in order to hear a friend play a concerto with the group. Even in the wealthy New York area community of Bergen County, the audience was sparse, and almost everyone was over fifty. I watched sour-faced musicians drift onstage, some of them in wrinkled outfits. In between pieces, stagehands took forever to reset the stage, yet the auditorium lights were left dark so that we could not even read our programs in the interim. I left at intermission, wondering why the people around me had paid to attend such a boring event.
As I worked on this book, I played shows at night and wrote during the day in my new condo perched atop the New Jersey Palisades. From its windows, Manhattan looks like a surreal film backdrop rather than the inescapable prison I had considered the city to be only five years before. Across the Hudson River I can just glimpse the tip of the Allendale’s water tower, although it is hard to spot among grander rooftops, which in turn are dwarfed by the city’s shiny new skyscrapers.
I am forty-four now. My life has paralleled America’s so-called culture boom, an unprecedented era of interest in and support for culture that began in the sixties. The boom went bust in many ways as the arts community developed in a vacuum over four decades. Outdated rhetoric charging that the arts are a “necessity” sounds hollow at a time when so many Americans are hungry, homeless, unemployed, and without decent health care. Ironically, some of them are performers and artists. Culture can improve the spirit in many ways, but only for those who can afford the time and money to attend performances or become involved in making art themselves.
Classical music has built a fortress that alienates audiences and has priced itself out of reach of the casual listener. Many of its performers are miserable, as revealed by mediocre performances that further repel the ticket-buying public. No one has ended up a winner, except for a handful of multimillionaire musical superstars and six-figure arts administrators, many of whom are unqualified to earn nearly this salary in any other business. In music, however, there are few gatekeepers.
Why are so many young people still planning to become professional classical musicians? Why is musicianship regarded so highly that young people are encouraged to train exclusively for a career in an industry that is clearly failing? A little girl wearing pink hair bows and playing a quarter-size violin is adorable. A sixty-year-old fiddler who can’t afford health insurance, has no retirement account or savings, and is virtually unemployable is not. Music schools, teachers, parents, and students need to ask themselves hard questions about the true value of their craft and how it might best serve their interests, the future of its students, and the community around them.
A young person who dreamily “wants to go to Juilliard” or “be a concert pianist” should research the reality of these statements. Seek out a variety of professional musicians: soloists, teachers, and orchestral, theatrical, and freelance musicians. Tag along for an afternoon or evening. See where they live. Ask what their days are really like and how they pay their living expenses. Ask if they like what they do and why. Most important, ask yourself if you are willing to sacrifice hours to tedious practice and nights, weekends, and holidays to playing concerts at times friends and relatives are socializing and relaxing with one another. How do you feel about long periods of substandard pay, lack of health insurance, and possible unemployment? Do you love music, or are you just hooked by the attention your performances bring? Somebody else is paying the bills now, but that won’t always be the case. If you truly have a passion for classical music, by all means pursue your dreams. You are one of the lucky ones.
Parents of talented children should ask plenty of questions. Is your child receiving a scholarship to music school because he or she is a budding Heifetz or because the school is desperate to recruit new students to fill its empty classrooms? Perhaps the music student could gain a more valuable education by applying to a liberal arts college that needs musicians to fill its orchestra. Is your child receiving an adequate general education? Is he or she genuinely enjoying the music? It is possible to receive both quality music training and a well-rounded academic education by enrolling at a conservatory that is part of a larger university, like those at Indiana University and Oberlin College.
It is essential to learn what really goes on during the child’s private lessons, which take place one-on-one behind closed doors. When else have you handed your child over to a stranger, unsupervised? Many of my friends have been confronted with sexual misconduct, sometimes extreme, in this private setting with a primary teacher who can exercise enormous influence in their lives. The music business is largely populated by generous and ethical teachers. Unfortunately, like any other field it also shelters sexual predators of varying degrees who abuse their positions of power. I was surprised when not one of my Stanford professors would allow a closed door during private conferences with me. Music schools should be no different, perhaps requiring that a window remain uncovered in the door of every teaching studio.
Audiences need to ask their local symphony, during the next “emergency” fund drive, how much the executives, conductors, and soloists are making. Look up the 990 forms yourself at www.guidestar.org. You will find the salaries on page four, page seven, or in the list of directors at the end of the document. How much is the group spending on fund-raising and marketing? What is the orchestra doing to cut costs? How large is the staff and how many weeks does each employee work? If the concerts are not selling out, why aren’t they producing fewer performances of higher quality instead? Go to a concert even if you don’t “know” music and then speak your mind. It’s your money. It’s your symphony.
The local orchestra is a community resource, subsidized by taxpayers. Symphonies are classified as public charities, just like food banks, public hospitals, libraries, and museums. They do not pay taxes. They are funded by a system of incentives that give donors tax breaks on their contributions. By the nature of this IRS-granted status, orchestras are expected to provide a public service, and taxpayers have every right to question their expenditures, even if they don’t know Mozart from Moby.
Arguments over a perceived decline in interest of classical music have become too noisy to let the beauty of a fine performance speak for itself. Music is a language anyone in the world can understand, even without a background in the arts. What’s more, classical music isn’t on the decline; audiences have actually increased slightly over the last twenty years. It’s just that they’re bombarded with an absurdly large increase in the number of performances that enable the glut of full-time musicians, arts administrators, and consultants who resulted from the culture boom’s now-stalled momentum to make a living.
The role of classical music in American societ
y has changed since 1960. In the thirties, forties, and fifties, music had been a part of everyday life for Americans, many of whom played instruments or sang together as amateurs. Today, classical music has become peripheral and irrelevant to mainstream life. It is regarded as an incomprehensible art that must be performed perfectly or not at all. Even in recent years, the number of American instrumentalists has dropped markedly. In 1992, some 7.8 million Americans played instruments, but that number shrank to 3.7 million—less than half—by 2002, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.
Today, amateur musicians are conservatory-trained professionals who cannot find work. Typically, their lives are the reverse of those of the 1950s amateurs—highly trained in their hobby but uneducated in what-ever becomes their money-making career. Instead of earning a college degree in a field that will support them adequately and playing music in their spare time, they have spent their college years refining the musical talent that will become only a pastime. They are unprepared for professions or day jobs to support them financially and may flounder through life doing nonmusical work that does not use the high levels of ambition and intelligence many gifted musicians possess. True amateur musicians lose out as well, reporting that they have a hard time finding playing opportunities, now that community orchestras and chamber music groups are filled with conservatory graduates.
I’m one of those part-time musicians now. When I do play music, it a joy. The reality of performing full-time wasn’t the fantasy I’d imagined as a little girl. What offers me a meaningful life today are the infinite possibilities in our modern world, of which music is only one. Thousands of people have been influenced by the Sierra magazine articles I’ve written about environmental conservation. Many more are reading my New York Times stories about classical music, which I hope will open a window to new listeners.
Sitting in my condo this clear night in November, Manhattan looks more beautiful than ever. The Empire State Building is lit up in autumn colors of orange and burgundy. I had always loved fall because of its promise of new beginnings, until every autumn became hopeless and repetitive. This year, though, I am renewed and confident. Now I have the knowledge and the voice to make every autumn new and better. In the end, I didn’t need a magic dress at all.
Acknowledgments
I AM GRATEFUL to the many people who shared their memories, expertise, and support to this story. Lisa Monheit’s copyediting and reading were indispensable. Other friends include Robert White, Robert Sylvester, Margo Garrett, Kathy Canfield, Christopher Soderlund, Noelle Tretick Gosling, Kristin Quigley-Brye, William J. Baumol, Margaret Steele, Clifford Tretick, Geoffrey Wall, David Sherman, Patty Drury, Elisabeth Gilaspy, Kevin Beavers, Lisa Carey, Ellen Slezak, Erin Flanagan, Jerry Pasewicz, Michael Avedon, and Joan Petrokofsky. Many thanks also to Kathryn Shattuck, Jorge Perez, Barry Lopez, and Paddy Woodworth for reading my manuscript or proposal.
A special thanks goes to Martin Sanders, who took the time to share memories of his beloved brother, Samuel.
Research was aided by John Shepard of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Patrice Slattery of the North Carolina School of the Arts, Jane Gottlieb and Jeni Dahmus of the Juilliard School archives, and the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. From the American Federation of Musicians, Bill Dennison, William Moriarity, Florence Nelson, and Eric Beers provided unique information and documents. Others lending essential perspective include Joseph Polisi, Nick Webster, and Henry Fogel. Conversations with authors Norman Lebrecht and Alice Goldfarb Marquis, and composer and journalist Greg Sandow provided valuable context.
This book would never have been possible without the superior journalism training I received through a full fellowship at Stanford University. I thank professors William Woo, James Risser, Larry Bensky, and Ted Glasser, as well as my former San Francisco Examiner editor Steven Zuckerman and Sierra magazine editor Paul Rauber, for their literary guidance.
The woodwind section in the 2002 Broadway production of Man of La Mancha —flutist Kathleen Nester, clarinetist Lino Gomez, and bassoonist Braden Toan—encouraged me as I edited in the Al Hirschfeld Theater’s orchestra pit. A residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peter-borough, New Hampshire, and another at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska, gave me the time and space to write. Thanks also to Kathy Puzey, Julie Blake Fisher, and the Book Clinic of Nebraska City.
My agent, James Fitzgerald, promoted me like a rock ’n’ roll star, while Grove/Atlantic president Morgan Entrekin saw high opera in my backstage tale. Brando Skyhorse was the most thoughtful editor imaginable, transforming not only this manuscript but my ideas and writing as well. Thanks also to Kevin Goering of Coudert Brothers, who provided legal counsel.
I found courage to enter my “jungle” through the support of Dale Maharidge, from the book’s inception in his Stanford magazine writing class to its delivery four years later. I also thank my brother, Bruce McGarrity Tindall, and most of all my parents, George and Blossom Tindall, for their constant love and confidence in me. I offer this book as a gift on their fifty-ninth wedding anniversary, with the promise of a bright future chapter that they have made possible.
Notes
Chapter Two
1. Alice Goldfarb Marquis, Art Lessons: Learning from the Rise and Fall of Public Arts Funding. New York: Basic Books, 1995: 26.
Chapter Four
1. Alvin Toffler, The Culture Consumers: Art and Affluence in America. Baltimore: Penguin, 1965: 21-22.
2. Joseph Wesley Zeigler, Arts in Crisis: The National Endowment for the Arts Versus America. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1994: 2.
3. John Kreidler, “Leverage Lost: The Non-Profit Arts in the Post-Ford Era.” In Motion, February 16, 1996.
4. Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 26-28.
5. Ibid: 90-97.
6. Paul DiMaggio, Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts. New York: Oxford University Press: 46.
7. Marquis: 2.
8. Lawrence Levine: 128-29.
9. DiMaggio: 115.
10. Marquis: 6.
11. Marquis: 25.
12. Toffler: 38.
13. Marquis: 25.
14. Marquis: 28.
15. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects: The Rockefeller Panel Report on the Future of Theatre, Dance, and Music in America: 11-12.
16. Paul Goldberger, “West Side Fixer-Upper.” The New Yorker, July 7, 2003.
17. Edgar B. Young, “Lincoln Center Aids Ancient Spa: Purchasing Travertine from Quarries Outside Rome.” New York Times, August 27, 1963: 33.
18. Marquis: 41-48.
19. Harold Taubman, “Lincoln Center Reorganizing in Crisis.” New York Times, January 14, 1969: 34.
20. Harold Taubman, Lincoln Center Ends Its Capital Fund Drive.” New York Times, July 2, 1969:34.
21. Harold Taubman, “Lincoln Center Reorganizing in Crisis.” New York Times, January 14, 1969: 34.
22. Zeigler: 6.
23. “WPA Music and Theatre Projects in Danger.” Allegro, May 1938: 6.
24. Marquis: 101-102.
25. W. McNeil Lowry, editor. The Arts & Public Policy in the United States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984: 52-53.
26. Marquis: 61.
27. Marquis: 92-93.
28. Marquis: 92-94.
29. Marquis: 66-68.
Chapter Five
1. James Bovard, “Suburban Guerrilla.” The American Spectator, September 1994.
2. Alice Goldfarb Marquis, Art Lessons: Learning from the Rise and Fall of Public Arts Funding. New York: Basic Books, 1995: 15.
3. Judith Kogan, Nothing but the Best. New York: Random House: 223.
Chapter Seven
1. Donal Henahan, “Women Are Breaking the Symphonic Barriers.” New York Times, January 23, 1983.
2. Ibid.
Chap
ter Eight
1. Will Crutchfield, “Why Today’s Orchestras Are Adrift.” New York Times, December 22, 1985: Sec. 2 p. 1.
Chapter Nine
1. “Violinist Arrested on Drug Charges.” New York Times, April 6, 1983.
2. “Cleveland Opera Performer Found Dead.” Associated Press, December 1, 1998.
3. Walter Price, “The Rehabilitation of Eugene Fodor.” New York Times, December 31, 1989.
4. Michael McLeod, “Juilliard Graduate, Master Cellist, Crack Addict, Prostitute.” Sun-Sentinel, August 15, 1993.
Chapter Eleven
1. Judith Miller, “As Patrons Age, Future of Arts Is Uncertain.” New York Times, February 12, 1996.
2. Thor Eckert, Jr., “Supporting the Arts Helps Shine Up the Corporate Image.” Christian Science Monitor, November 6, 1984.
Chapter Twelve
1. John Kreidler, “Leverage Lost: The Non-Profit Arts in the Post-Ford Era.” In Motion, February 16, 1996.
2. Howard Taubman, “The Philharmonic—What’s Wrong With It and Why.” New York Times, April 29, 1956: 139.
3. Alice Goldfarb Marquis, Art Lessons: Learning from the Rise and Fall of Public Arts Funding. New York: Basic Books 1995: 144.
4. Joseph Wesley Zeigler, Arts in Crisis: The National Endowment for the Arts Versus America. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1994: 58.
Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music Page 34