Make an Introduction

When I was a child my parents made sure that I was exposed to the arts.  Each summer we would pile into the car for the 2.5 hour drive to Stratford, CT for the Shakespeare Festival; in the winter we would pile into the car for the 2.5 hour drive to New York for the Nutcracker or the Messiah.  In between times there were the occasional performers who would come to our part of upstate New York (courtesy of the local arts council) and we’d go to the High School gymnasium or auditorium to see symphonies, theater, and even the occasional “modern” dance company.

The entire time this was going on, I would think to myself—just once, I wish they’d take me to see the Beatles or Led Zeppelin in concert.  In my frame of reference the release of “Rubber Soul” meant far more than attending yet another weird (!) dance program by some group called Ailey or Bejart.

It wasn’t all bad…

I did get to meet Judith Jamison once.  I was about eight, and I brought one of my pet gerbils with me to a post-performance reception, of which my mother was a host.  I allowed it to crawl up my arm while shaking hands with some of the dancers.  It magically appeared out from under my collar just as I got to Ms. Jamison.  Oh how I wish I could report out about the whooping and hollering that should have followed…

But, no, she calmly put her plate down on a side table, leaned in close to look at it, and said, “that is an adorable gerbil! May I pet it?”

I still recall her perfume.

Several years later, after moving to New York and attending Friday afternoon concerts at Alice Tully Hall thanks to my grandmother, I was shipped off to school.  With my growing collection of records by Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, and many others I was lucky enough to be assigned a roommate with a portable stereo.

In 11^th grade I finally “discovered” Beethoven, an event so profound I think I still haven’t quite recovered--and it’s been almost 40 years.  Just last weekend I found myself listening again to the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas several times in succession.  My kids thought I was taking a nap on the living room sofa. No…I was simply transfixed for the umpteenth time by the depth and passion of these great works, performed by Emil Gilels.

Ask yourself, as an intellectual exercise, what art will survive the test of time?  In 250 years, what will our descendants listen to on a Sunday afternoon?  Will it still be Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms? The truth is, it doesn’t really matter.

I believe that people come to the arts in their own way and in their own time.  Most kids take art and music in school (at least they are supposed to!), they attend local productions of theater and musicals, or chorus and band, sometimes for no other reason than to support their classmates.  A few get special recognition for a painting they have painted or a pot they have thrown.  But most only know the popular art forms and for them, that’s where we have to start.  I started with the Beatles and Led Zeppelin.  But my parents never gave up on me.

It begins with exposure, and for the lucky ones with talent, it can quickly become a creative passion if nurtured.  For most, exposure ultimately leads to appreciation and understanding.  People usually fear and mistrust things they don’t understand.  Some kids at first don’t trust art, music, dance, and theater.  But if they see their friends and peers engaged in them and enjoying themselves, then soon their attitude changes.  The arts always become less strange over time, and I’m never surprised when even the most cynical among us come to appreciate it and support it—even though it may still be, at some basic level, beyond their understanding.

The bottom line is that every one of us deserves an introduction to the arts.  For most, that introduction happens in elementary school and is reinforced every year in a sequential program of applied learning in the arts.  But now that introduction is at risk.  Our state education agency no longer has a curriculum specialists devoted to the arts.  Most schools have only “portions” of art and music teachers working with kids for less than an hour each week.

The Vermont Alliance of Arts Educators recently shut its doors for good—not out of want of trying, but out of lack of support for its mission.  In truth, looking at the current state of arts education in Vermont, we have reason to be concerned.

So what do we do?  To start with, we need to go back to basics.  We need to start in our own families, making sure that we parents introduce our kids to art and culture as often as we can. We need to support our schools' and communities' art programs, which often only mean just showing up.  We need to insist that our school budgets have sufficient resources for at least an art and a music teacher.  We need to insist that our children learn how to attend shows (both visual and performing) with respect and appreciation—even if, as they will surely tell you, they didn’t like the art itself. 

It starts at home.  It reignites in school.  And once a child has had his or her introduction—and really begun to understand that art is about something more profound than appealing to their immediate “popular” likes and dislikes—then we can let them go explore on their own.  Our job as a parent and teacher is done.

Who knows? Maybe in 250 years a work created by a kid I introduced to the arts as a child will be part of the standard repertoire. 

Right up there with Stairway to Heaven.

Using the Left Hand

It was said of Maestro Eugene Ormandy that his was the most expressive right hand in classical music.  As music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra he could pull more lush sound out of 110 players—particularly string players—with just his right hand than anyone else on the planet. 

A short man, accustomed to getting his way, he spoke softly, wielded a small stick and demanded perfection from every musician that worked under his direction.  His left hand, for the most part, hung by his side and only rarely made a small gesture to players to indicate their cue.  These, however, were nearly always invisible to the audience.

Only once, in four summers of singing with the Saratoga-Potsdam Chorus under his direction, did I see Maestro Ormandy use his left hand to dramatic effect.

We had rehearsed Verdi’s Requiem for weeks and there was a particular choral entrance he wanted emphasized.

“I’m going to wind up and give you the biggest cue you will ever see, and I don’t want just the basses to enter.  I want the tenors and altos to also come in on that note.  I want the audience to be knocked flat by this entrance.  So watch for it.  Don’t be late…”  So there we were, rehearsing again and again that five-second moment that would make or break the performance.

The night of the performance, Saratoga Performing Arts Center was sold out.  7500 in the shed and another 2500 on the lawn; a beautiful evening; the soloists sounded amazing.  Our big moment arrived and we geared up for the entrance.

A couple of measures before we were to sing, we all realized something was not quite right.  Having been drilled by our chorus preparer, the late great Brock McElheron, we kept the mantra “hearts on fire, brains on ice” close to our thoughts.  Sure enough, it happened.  Maestro Ormandy, with a look of intense concentration on his face, took a short step back and fired off perhaps the biggest cue he had ever given to the largest chorus he had ever worked with…

…a full measure early.

Not a single person came in.  Ormandy, leaning forward to brace himself against the expected wall of sound, almost fell into the second violins.  Then, with his cue fresh in our minds, all 300 of us, with the full brass, wind and percussion sections of the mighty Philadelphia Orchestra, entered in full voice. Maestro Ormandy, in the process of recovering from his near fall forwards, was now knocked backwards—nearly into the front row of the audience.  What saved him was the railing that stage management had thoughtfully built into the podium.

Reeling, Ormandy recovered his footing and, by now panicked, wildly looked around trying to fix what surely had been one of the greatest missed entrances of his career.  But as a few more seconds passed and those incredibly fine-tuned ears of his reasserted themselves, he realized that we had come in exactly on time, in exactly the manner he wanted us to, and that the only thing wrong was that he had given us our cue a measure early.  All was, astonishingly, well.

A few more bars passed, the chorus continued through the “Salva me…” section of the Requiem, and then it happened.

Up came the left hand.

In full view of the audience, and in the slowest and grandest of all gestures, Maestro Ormandy pointed his left index finger at his left temple, his thumb “cocked,” and pulled the trigger—all with the most beatific smile on his face. 

His full and very public acknowledgment of his mistake, while the orchestra was still playing and we were all singing, was one of the greatest moments of my life.  It left me reassured that any of us, no matter our aspirations, can find ourselves having to confront failure.  The lesson was not in avoiding the failure but in moving past it with grace, dignity, and greater wisdom.  In that sublime moment, Ormandy demonstrated his humanity and his greatness.

I wish all politicians, all public servants, could have lived through this experience and seen for themselves how Maestro Ormandy handled himself.

The quality of our political discourse, including the debates we are seeing from our Presidential candidates, is disheartening.  Even worse is the quality of discourse on the internet by people on all sides of the aisle who parse every action, every statement, and every fashion choice, and lob the most withering, incendiary comments that demean and denounce the candidates from the safety and privacy of their living rooms.

The chief executive of any enterprise, whether it is a small business, a symphony orchestra, or the President of the United States should be judged not just by what he (or she) knows or by his past actions, but by the qualities and capabilities of those with whom he surrounds himself, and the degree to which he is comfortable in taking responsibility for their actions.

I no longer believe we elect a President.  I believe we elect a Presidency.  We elect a point of view; a set of values; a change of scenery.  The President, while aspiring to be as communicative, as expressive, and as clear as possible with the right hand, must also know when to use the left hand.  And so, for the record, should all of us.

A President or CEO that has not learned yet the importance of his/her left hand is lacking some critical skills…

…and probably should attend the symphony more often.

Vermont: The State of the Arts, 2012

[This post first appeared in the Burlington (VT) Free Press, January 1, 2012]

 I am frequently asked, what is the current state of the arts?  My response? 

Vermont.

Vermont is the State of the Arts.

2010 Census figures are not available, but based on 2000 data, Vermont is first in writers, seventh in visual artists, and fifth overall in the per-capita ratio of artists-to-citizens out of all 50 states.  I believe, however, that visual artists are extremely under-reported in Vermont, and that once the 2010 data is out we will find ourselves ranked first overall. 

From communities as diverse as Brattleboro, White River Junction, Island Pond, Rutland, Bennington, and the greater Burlington area, Vermont’s artists leave an indelible impression on citizens and visitors alike.  We are a creative state whose character is hewn as much from the keyboard and the brush as it is from the soil and the forest.  For most Vermont artists, the natural landscape informs their creative core (corps?).  For others, Vermont’s independent streak inspires provocation and even outrage, as certainly art should from time to time. The critical note, here, is that of all states I have heard about, Vermont artists describe themselves exactly this way:  “I’m a Vermont artist”—using Vermont as an adjective to encompass the depth and variety that very name conjures in the imagination. No other artist from any other state does this, to my knowledge…at least not with the same degree of commitment.

Arts institutions in Vermont—the “healthy” ones—are nimble, have strong community support, and make the most of digital media and social networking tools to reach out well beyond our border.  Virtually all who regularly apply to the Council for funding fulfill the “artistic excellence” requirement with ease. Grants, therefore, tend to be awarded based organizational capacity and the value and impact that their activities have in/on their communities, not on the past record of accomplishment; a subtle but important difference.  If nothing else, it indicates a sector that is fully mature, with very high standards, and aware of its important role in bringing quality programs and services to the public.

From the consumer’s perspective, therefore, the arts in Vermont are thriving.  There are many arts events to choose from, not just on the weekends, but on any day of the week.  And with very few exceptions, they are all of really high caliber. A glance through any community newspaper will prove the point.

The view is very different, however, from the creative/producing end.

Whether the root cause is the economy, donor fatigue from massive weather cataclysms, or the increasingly vocal, but very ill-informed, national movement to remove all so-called “nonessential government services,” the issue for all is survival.  The Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser believes that the key to survival lies in the diversity and excellence of programming coupled with an ever-expanding commitment to marketing and promotion.

Therein lies the rub. Arts organizations are mission driven.  If there is an extra dollar left over at the end of the year, the mission mandates that it be spent on programming.  The result is that Kaiser’s advice to focus on diverse, excellent, new programming with an emphasis on marketing is difficult to sell to trustees and audiences.

What the sector really needs are tools for analyzing the impacts of artistic activity on education, community economic development, and social services.  With the Pew Trust’s Cultural Data Project just getting started here in Vermont, and the new fields of “Social Impact Analysis” and “Brain-based Learning” coming into their own, we will soon provide policy analysts and state/local officials with much better information about why they should be advocating for significantly more resources to be spent on supporting and promoting the sector. 

Artists and arts organizations are generally pretty capable at corralling what they need to put on a show.  What they are less good at is reaching audiences in Boston, New York, Montreal, Albany, and the Berkshires (!) to let them know what is available less than a half-day’s drive away.  This is where the state’s interests and the arts sector’s interests are currently most in alignment and where immediate returns are already beginning to be found. (There are many others, but this is the lowest of the “low-hanging fruits.”)

Vermont’s arts sector is, from an economic policy perspective, one of its last great un(der)-tapped resources.  With the right kind of collaborative, strategic and socially-integrated investment, the arts sector could easily thrive and become integral to Vermont’s economic vitality, not just a pleasant, icing-on-the-cake afterthought.

Coming off a long hiatus...

Starting again in January I will be posting more regularly to this blog.  I haven't written much since last June, and I think I have spent long enough recharging my batteries.  Immediately after it is published in the Burlington (VT) Free Press, I will post my first blog of 2012 in this space.  Thereafter, I hope to push out a new post every couple of weeks.

The Vermont Arts Council, in the meantime, has been posting some really wonderful pieces by Council staff in Artmail.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Post-Irene Clean-up

It had been my intention to conclude my eight-week hiatus from blogging by crafting an essay that would respond to all the national issues that have been pressing upon the arts all summer long.  From macro issues, like Climate Change and the assault on public arts financing in places like Kansas, to micro issues, like how kids are engaging in creativity through their smart phones, it has been a summer of significant, blog-worthy events.

Hurricane Irene, in less than 24 hours, has changed everything.

First, my heart goes out to communities like Brattleboro, Rutland, Wilmington, Grafton, Bennington, Brandon, Waterbury, Woodstock, Quechee, and Richmond.  From large towns to tiny hamlets, from major arteries, like Rtes 4, 7, and 9 to small nameless dirt roads in more than half of its counties, Vermont is reeling from the effects of Irene’s rain.

Certainly, one of the hardest hit towns is Brattleboro.  The photos alone are enough to make one cry.

Vermont, however, is resilient.  By noon today, the New England Youth Theater posted, “We're very optimistic! We will put a flood info page on the website as soon as we can, and we'll keep you updated on how you can help! Classes will still go 9/12!”

This from an organization that, less than 24 hours ago, had several feet of water in its lobby…

So all we can do is do all we can.  To start with, we need to inventory as much of our cultural infrastructure to determine how bad things are so we can start prioritizing our response.  If you are associated with any cultural facility that was affected by Irene, please let us know what its/your status is by clicking here.  Please include a couple of pictures as well.

During the next few weeks, Council staff and trustees will be touring the state.  We’re going to try to get to as many locations as we can and make sure that any state response that includes FEMA, DOT, or other appropriate federal and state agencies, includes our arts and cultural businesses as well.  By the way, this inventory should also include galleries, artist studios (especially where the studio has a commercial presence in a town), and non-traditional venues like farmers markets.

Finally, here are a couple of resources (CERF+ and American Institute for Conservation) for those of you with immediate needs.

Good luck, and please remember to reach out to your neighbors.  It’s what brings out the best in us all.

A Few New Positions

A few days before Father’s Day I received a package from my father.  It was a book titled “Dancing with the Queen, Marching with King”—his memoir of a life spent in public service.  The title is a reference to his two most memorable life experiences: his participation in Martin Luther King’s famous march from Selma to Montgomery in March of 1965 as one of the two official NY delegates (and one of only 13 white people to go the whole distance); and his foxtrot with the 26-year-old Queen Elizabeth at the opening of the new American embassy in London in 1953.

Normally I’m not a big fan of memoirs, but for the past few days I have been simply unable to put this one down. I have always loved and admired my father, but until this past week, I have never had a clue as to what he did during the day when he left our house at 7:30 in the morning.  I knew what his job titles were, but I never knew of his role in quelling the Rochester (NY) riots in the 1950s; of his opening up the Erie Canal to recreation; or compelling Cardinal Spellman of New York to include Black marching bands in the St. Patrick’s Day parade for the first time. For all its flaws (some technical and a few narrative), this book has given me not just a glimpse, but a real hard stare into my father’s career, a career of which he is justifiably proud.

It has made me think of the kinds of questions my own children will be asked by their children about their grandfather (me).  What did he do Dad?  Why did he choose to be an arts administrator? How did he end up with that as a career?

Normally when I’m asked these questions by people networking for a new job or interested in a career change, I demur.  But my father’s memoir has given me reason to be a bit more forthcoming because as I age, I remember details less and less.  I need to put some of this stuff on paper before it disappears completely.  I’ve thought of a title for my memoir, though.  It’s called “A Few New Positions.”

I can only bring up brief episodes as being formative: such as the time my mother signed me up for an art class when I was in 8^th grade that turned out to be a life-modeling class, complete with fully nude models (my friends were so-o-o-o jealous!); and another time when a bunch of us were recruited to be extras in a film being shot at the Brooklyn waterfront.  When the film was released two years later, I went to it at the CineLido East on 59^th Street with my mother, both of us brimming with anticipation.  It turned out to be a soft-core porno flick and we sat in mortified silence through the entire thing.  Neither of us spoke when it ended.  We couldn’t even look at each other.  About halfway home, at 2^nd Avenue and 60^th Street, my mother finally cleared her throat and said, “Well, Alexander, I guess you learned a few new positions, eh…?” 

The far more important (though possibly less interesting) episodes that shaped my career in the arts involve a host of players, some world-renowned, some complete unknowns.  There are many stories, some involving priceless punch-lines, others involving staggering examples of bravery or stupidity.  Of the latter, the one that comes to mind first and foremost involves a former boss.

I was hired on a two year contract and at my first formal review I was told by him:  You work well with the staff that reports to you, you get along well with your peers in other departments.  But you have one major problem.  Shortly after you started work here, you got married and then six months later bought a house.  People look at that and say, ‘there is someone who is too ambitious.’  People don’t like people who are ambitious.  It makes them nervous.

By the time my contract wasn’t renewed 18 months later I had amassed an entire notebook of notes with back-up tapes of similar conversations, and my boss’s boss, grateful to avoid a lawsuit, allowed me to remain on staff until I found another position.

I share this story because throughout my career in the arts, there have been many times when I have, to quote my mother, “learned a few new positions” quite suddenly.  All have been a bit scary (no one likes being “between opportunities”), but I can assure you none has been as painfully unpleasant as sitting through that film with Mom at 13 years old.  If I could survive that, I could survive anything…

Creative Economy: 13 Years of Avoiding Whiney Things

A couple of weeks ago, before all the brouhaha hit the Kansas Arts Commission, I attended the Creative Communities Exchange at MassMOCA in North Adams, MA. What a difference a 13 years makes!  Hosted by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) and Berkshire Creative, it was a two-day celebration of New England’s creative economy in a location that has become synonymous with the term.

In the summer of 1998 at Tanglewood, then-Boston Pops Music Director John Williams gave a talk to about 70 arts and business leaders from around New England.  The arts community had been through a major national crisis a few years earlier, the result of the Sen. Helms-inspired, Speaker Newt Gingrich-led Congressional effort to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts.   John Williams presented a concept that had for a few years been gaining traction in Europe.  There was a new force at work in our communities,  one that most people were familiar with, but that was difficult to define and measure by most economic theorists and policy analysts.

Williams called it the “Creative Economy.”  To paraphrase his words, he said, the Creative Economy was what happens to a place when the arts are encouraged to thrive.  Not only is there an immediate and measurable economic benefit when public dollars are invested in the arts, but there is a far more lasting, though less easy to measure, improvement in the quality of life in a place.  People living in a creative community tend to care more about the aesthetics of their built spaces.  They care more about the quality of their schools.  They care more about the degree to which school-children are engaged in school and civic life.  They tend to trust the social contract that is implicit in the relationship between taxation and social services.  They tend to shop locally and support their own community’s efforts at revitalization.

At the time, the Berkshires had ridden out the economic downturns of the mid-1980s and early 1990s fairly well and, with the notable exception of Pittsfield (the county seat), had little difficulty with its recovery.  Why?  Because the significant presence of the arts throughout the length and breadth of the county was attracting visitors, wealthy second home-owners, and—most tellingly—entrepreneurs who, with a modem and a keyboard, could build their start-up from anywhere in the country so why NOT start up in the Berkshires?  From Great Barrington to Williamstown, from West Stockbridge to Otis, Berkshire County boasted nearly the same number of arts organizations in all of Vermont, and some of them were among the most prestigious organizations of their kind in the world. Collectively, they were an economic developer’s dream.

Today, 13 years later, even Pittsfield has joined its sister communities in Berkshire County and is, as a result of its mayor's eight-year commitment to investing in the arts, well on the road to recovery.

It was necessary, Maestro Williams concluded, for business and industry in New England, to understand the relationships that exist between and among all the sectors (public, private, and nonprofit) to support the Creative Economy as it grows and develops throughout the region.   Over the years different states, and even different regions within states, developed their own particular “brand” of Creative Economy. 

In Vermont, for example, most people think of the Creative Economy in terms of value-added agricultural food-products that are intimately connected to Vermont’s identity as a rural, slow-foods-oriented area.  In Boston and Providence, the Creative Economy is more closely identified with the technology industries—particularly in the areas of medical and entertainment services. 

Higher education was increasingly recognized for its role in shaping the 21^st century workforce, and it, in turn, began to sound the alarm to policy-makers about the our K-12 school system and its inability to prepare our children for those demands.

In all, a lot of great work has occurred in the 13 years since the term took root in New England’s fertile soil.  Two are worth mentioning.

First is MassMOCA itself.  We visited the newly-reopened converted mill in North Adams 13 years ago and while the museum was magnificent, the town of North Adams itself hadn’t quite caught up to the changes that were happening.  Now, it is safe to say, North Adams has made serious headway.  There were at least four restaurants between the Holiday Inn and the museum itself about 2 blocks away, and numerous galleries, studios, and small businesses dotting the downtown as well as a new (or apparently revitalized) Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.  The art at Mass MOCA was amazing (as usual) but it was no more amazing, from my perspective, than the town itself.

The second was the award given to Vermont’s own Robert McBride and RAMP (Rockingham Art and Museum Project) during the gathering.  With the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chair Rocco Landesman in attendance, and in front of more than 250 professionals from all over New England, Robert received the first “Creative Economy Award” presented by the NEFA.  Robert has been laboring for nearly 20 years in Bellows Falls, Vermont, to restore the center of Bellows Falls using the arts as a catalyst for business development and community revitalization.  That he was recognized in this setting, by a group of 250 of his closest professional colleagues was an honor of great significance for him and for Vermont.  Congratulations (again!) to Robert and his partners in the town of Rockingham and the Village of Bellows Falls. It is a well-deserved honor.

Best of all was what Robert said as he accepted the award.

“If you have creative people around the table with you, you’ll do creative things.  If you have whiney people around the table, you’ll do whiney things.  Ask yourself, what kind of table would you like to be at?”

Well put, Robert….