Stirling Newberry proposes that the Boston Symphony Orchestra restructure
its concert season around three themes:

>The first would be a series devoted to Historically Informed Performance,
>The second would be an unmixed series devoted to teh avant-garde
>A "beginners" concert series.

And they would instantly lose me as a twenty one concert two seat
subscriber, and contributor.

This plan seems to overlook the great pool of "second tier" "accessible"
music, the stuff not numbered among the 50 or 100 canonical works that
people mistakenly claim is all modern "musical musuem" orchestras play,
unless these works are to be subsumed in the HIP series.

My guess is the avant garde series would be financial disaster, and most
of the orchestra's patrons would find the notion of a "beginners" series
offensively condescending.

I do not go to the BSO to hear music I have never heard before or do not
yet like in an attempt to come to terms with it.  I can do that far more
productively with CDs.  I go to the BSO to hear music I know and love in
live performance, which is a qualitatively different experience from
hearing it in my home.  And I suspect much of the rest of the BSO's
audience feels more or less the same way.

len.