Karl said:

>... Your thoughts, and questions are most welcome.

In our Series we generally choose programing with very strong input from,
and collaboration with, the ensembles that will be performing.  We ask
them for suggestions and are sure that they are aware of the last few
year's programming.  We also take a detailed audience preference survey
every few years (which covers both ensemble preference as well as
repertoire) and we do listen to audience suggestions which are often
actually reasonable.:-) We feel that since our regular audience is "paying
the bills", their preferences should be given the highest consideration.

We try to have a mix of traditional "war-horses" (everybody loves the
late Beethoven Quartets) as well as some less widely known repertoire.
Usually, the professional musicians we hire have a very good sense of
what will work together to provide a balanced, interesting program.
It's almost unheard of for us to veto the ensembles suggestions.

One thing that I've learned after being on a large symphony board and
several different chamber music boards, is to NEVER try to impose my own
particular tastes on to our audience.  If our series was being presented
to only please me, our chamber series would have a lot of less well known
and a lot of contemporary composer's works.  However, since we are not
a "New-Music" series, we keep the repertoire to something that our
established, supporting audience likes.

As I'm sure you know it's a lot easier to loose an audience that to build
one.

Nicholas J. Yasillo
Director, Norton Building Concert Series
Lockport, IL
http://home.earthlink.net/~nconcerts/