Karl Miller wrote:

>Reading your note I could not help but wonder what you meant by the phrase
>"an orchestra in the real world."

I meant:  an orchestra which has to pay its bills.  It is relatively easy
to come up with a fantastic program for an imaginary orchestra, which
doesn't actually have to sell tickets.

By the way, I see by today's Philadelphia Inquirer that Gunther Schuller
disapproves of this idea, because he thinks that segregating 20th-century
music in its own season and cutting it off from earlier centuries is a bad
idea--a grandstanding gimmick.  If the orchestra were to make a general
practice of this sort of thing, I would agree, but given that this is a
one-shot affair, with the orchestra's centennial coinciding with the turn
of the century, I think it can be excused this once.  (I suppose they will
do a similar thing again in the 2099-2100 season, but I'm not going to
worry about that.)

Given Schuller's very straight-laced view of how to present music, I
suppose this comment was to be expected from him, but personally I don't
see any harm in presenting even CM with a little show-person-ship (there's
a lovely new coinage for you!).  After all, it is a performance art.  (And
of course no one knew that better than the Phillies' own Stokie.)

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]