WHAT is the best way to programme new music? How do you reach out to audiences when presenting unfamiliar works? And has anyone found the secret of success?
Introducing the seminar, Eve O’Kelly suggested that concert programmes should be prepared with the same care that a chef will give to planning the menu in a restaurant. There is an art to putting a successful programme together, particularly when the pieces are unfamiliar. Presentation is another important and often overlooked aspect. Even if unconsciously, the demeanour and dress of performers, the layout and lighting on stage, and the general surroundings of the hall will influence the experience that the audience will have.
Three presentations followed, as case studies of the presentation of new music in different scales and contexts in Ireland at the moment.
Judith Woodworth
The National Concert Hall (NCH) has from the 1980s onwards attempted to promote Irish composers and performers, with the 20th century music festivals, and more recently with the RTÉ Living Music Festival and Horizons series.
In the Composer's Choice series, the NCH:
- Enables Irish composers to schedule their own works, and put them in context by programming them with the music that influenced them;
- Works with Irish performers who are specifically involved in contemporary music;
- Provides opportunities to visiting musicians to perform Irish works.
In addition to this, it:
- Provides commission opportunities for less established composers;
- In 2006 is co-commissioning a new orchestral work with the National Symphony Orchestra to mark the 25th anniversary of the Hall.
- Cooperates with festivals (e.g. the 2006 Beckett Festival) to programme new music;
- Organises pre-concert talks to facilitate interaction between composers/performers and the audience;
- Runs an education and outreach programme, in which composers and performers visit schools throughout the country;
- Provides access for the audience to the compositional process through composer talks and on-stage introductions by the composers.
Issues for the NCH
- A need for awareness of blurring of musical genres;
- Small audience for contemporary music -- need to consider how to develop a larger one;
- Has to work with musicians who are really committed to the performance of new music, e.g. the Crash Ensemble, Concorde, Vox 21;
- Commissions from performers are very important;
- New music needs to be recorded and broadcast.
Aims for the future
Audience development:
- Marketing new music at the same level as other types of music
- Composers, performers and students need to support concerts when new music is scheduled;
- More risk-taking and parallel programming would be possible if there were separate halls. John Field Room not an adequate venue and cannot be used in parallel with main hall.
The planned extension of the National Concert Hall will hopefully mean cutting-edge music technology facilities and the possibility of parallel programming. The NCH also wants to work more closely with the Dept of Education in giving access to music to primary and secondary school students and their teachers.
Francis Humphrys
Spoke about the challenges of programming chamber music, which in itself is a minority interest, for the West Cork Chamber Music Festival which takes place in a rural area. The local audience is very conservative, but with careful programming new music can be included.
West Cork Music has had some financial support from RTÉ, and RTÉ lyric fm has recorded and broadcast many of the performances. The festival has included at least one premiere every year.
Issues
- How to get people to travel to Bantry for the festival?
- How to attract performers that haven't yet been to Ireland?
- Nearly seventy musicians are in residence during the festival who can be drawn upon for chamber music;
- Avoid repeating programming over the years.
Budget constraints
- Festival needs to get at least 80% full houses, but still wants to programme new music -- this necessitates inventive programming;
- Co-commissions with other festivals;
- Their shared commission scheme, tried on an experimental basis, has been suspended due to lack of support (patrons were invited to purchase shares in commissions in return for tickets to the concert, a meeting with composer and performers, and acknowledgment in the programme).
- Huge commitment is needed from both organisers and performers for successful performances.
Venues
- The stage in Bantry House (main festival venue) can hold an octet (max.)
- The church in Bantry can accommodate a small chamber band;
- Most of the programming therefore tends to be for string quartet or similar forces.
Solutions
- Long-term investment in music education would build more open-minded concert-goers;
- With this in mind, West Cork Music runs school workshops in the Cork area but the problem is a larger and more intractable one relating to our whole music education system in Ireland.
Niall Doyle
RTÉ Music promotes new music in a number of ways annually:
Key factors in promoting new music
- What kind of music to promote?
- Contexts
- Frame new music with mainstream music;
- Concert of different types of new music;
- Festival concentrating on one aspect of contemporary music;
- Contemporary music events within a more general festival.
- Performers
- Venues
- How, where, and at whom to market the event?
- What audience?
- Those who come
- Those who don't come -- why?
The entertainment industry is event-driven, with consumers going to the most appealing of different genres instead of following a particular stream.
Barriers to programming new music
- Audiences
- Classical music audience, interested in historical repertoire. This is the audience that is generally targeted for contemporary art music;
- "Other musics" audience: jazz, trad, rock, and world. An audience that is interested in new music, but not targeted enough;
- The audience for new arts generally, in visual arts, theatre, dance and so on. They could be drawn into the new music scene as well;
- The loyal NSO audiences want exactly what those who don't come want changed!
- Ourselves
- Most programmers are from a classical background;
- Need to learn how to attract those of a different background to new art music;
- Performance style
- Not enough interaction;
- Not interesting to look at;
- Performance rituals: alright for those who are used to it, but off-putting for others;
- Venues chosen
- Nice, well-maintained, good acoustic;
- Intimidating to those who don’t feel at home there (eg National Concert Hall)
Open Session: debate from the floor
David McCarthy (young composer)
Pointed out the different audience that was attracted to the RTE Living Music Festival this year which featured Steve Reich, very different to those you would see at classical events generally. Suggested that the reason new music is not popular is that a lot of it is substandard, that some sort of quality control is needed.
Michael McGlynn (composer; director of Anúna)
Asked who's to judge what is good? Irish composers shouldn't try to fit into the European framework; they should develop their own styles and build new audiences.
Conor Kostick (writer and journalist)
Gave an example of what was done in Birmingham. An imaginative millennium programme built up the audience for new music by showing music from the 1910s in 1991, the 1920s in 1992, and so on, so that by the millennium the music being performed was really cutting edge. They tied this in with the building of their new concert hall. Feels that the audience for new music is growing, so we are moving in the right direction. Possible barriers to programming: people now working too hard, so less likely to do "hard" things in their leisure time; new music is less likely to bring in money than the more historical music.
Willie White (director, Project Arts Centre)
The recent RTE Steve Reich event is atypical for new music, can't expect that audience to come back again. The main problems for programming new music are caused by the lack of funding. Composers need to learn to promote themselves more, and to help to build audiences. Project can rarely put on new music events due to lack of funding. They are primarily dependent on independent production companies.
Douglas Gunn (composer)
Sees one of the main difficulties as the definition of new music -- different people understand different things by it.
Siobhán Cleary (composer)
Pointed out the over-representation of 19th-century composers. More music is being performed than ever before, and a lot of it is really good. The likes of Ligeti and Xenakis should be mainstream by now.
Michael McGlynn
Björk's music is much more experimental than a lot of what the Crash Ensemble is doing -- the lines between different types of music are blurring very quickly.
Niall Doyle
We are prisoners of our upbringing as classical musicians. Contemporary music needs to find its way back into the mainstream -- the threat is in marginalisation. The Crash Ensemble has helped to bring the popular back into art music.
Willie White
Asked what composers do themselves to get their music performed?
Siobhán Cleary
Programme music of established composers, then bring in the newer music. The key factors are financial support, and having good music performed well.
Roger Doyle (composer)
The crossover between the different types of music has always been there. For a long time nobody seemed to be following his generation of composers, but now there's “a swarm of locusts'', demanding to be heard, and a lot of them are very good. There is an unprecedented amount of talent, and they bring their own audiences.
Eve O'Kelly
The number of composers, standard and range of composition, and the infrastructure, are all considerably better than ten years ago.
Seán McCrum (arts curator)
Has research been done on why the potential audiences don't come? Art music is perceived as exclusive, weird and dissonant, but it's not.
Toner Quinn (editor, Journal of Music in Ireland)
Ten years ago, the traditional music scene was ignited by new musicians, but there wasn't an adequate support structure in place. Now the energy has gone from that scene, but the same thing is happening now for contemporary music. The Reich festival attracted a whole new generation that hasn't been there before. The state-of-the-art NCH extension is coming at exactly the right time.
Willie White
Doesn't feel that the necessary infrastructure is there yet.
Belinda Quirk (director, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan)
Wants to develop a new music programme for Meath, but is facing the same issues as Francis Humphreys did in Cork. Liked that the Reich festival included works by other composers as well as those by Reich, showing the links to other types of music he was influenced by. The Reich audience are culture-lovers, not just music-lovers. They would also be interested in other types of music, and in collaborations with other art forms. Programmes need to look across the spectrum of music and the arts.
Fergus Sheil (music Advisor, The Arts Council)
New music doesn't infiltrate the general subscription series at the NCH as much as it could.
Judith Woodworth
There should be more programming of contemporary music, but there are financial constraints on that. The NCH itself doesn't programme the music -- why don't the ensembles performing there include more new music? Because they are responding to the needs to the promoters, most of whom aren't interested in new music.
Niall Doyle
The capitalist society, with dual funding of music, means that performers need to meet certain financial criteria. The regular customers of the NCH don't go for contemporary events. The National Symphony Orchestra has to strike a balance in its programming. The solution is not in the ageing classical audience, but in harnessing new audiences.
The Living Music Festival creates an environment in which the new audiences can develop. This one in particular used venues with different associations. It is better to put lots of resources into one big event instead of diluting the resources we have. Once an audience for new music has grown, we can bring it more into the general programming.
John Kelly (director, Irish Chamber Orchestra)
The new dedicated space in the NCH will certainly help. The Arts Council needs to make significant new funds available for commissions.
Report: Niamh Tumelty, Music Information Officer, Contemporary Music Centre
