Eric James asks, Re:  mixing contemporary with standard rep:

>I'm curious about this.  If one has to resort to this kind of gentle ruse
>to lure people in to hear 20th century music, I wonder why one would want
>to perform it at all.

There's so much wrong with this, I don't know whether I can get to it all
in one post.

First, why play new music at all? Because you may find something you like.
Because it interests you.  Second, remember that Beethoven was once new
music, and, no, not everyone liked it.  Lurking behind this question are
a number of attitudes, one of which may be that no work of music is worth
an effort or that all music must be "sugar-coated" to get it past the
listener.  This is the TV mentality, even the public-TV mentality.  If
we take the question to its absurd conclusion, we wind up listening to
absolutely nothing.  Again, I live in New Orleans, a city which has very
little connection to classical music, where audiences in general don't know
very much classical music.  They also don't know what they "should" like.
As a result, they're remarkably honest in their reactions to works.  I've
heard major complaints against Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart, for example.
Would you be willing to eliminate these from the repertory of the orchestra
you subscribed to? Outside of their brand-name cachet, why would you keep
them? Apply your answer to all composers.  After all, if we knew what
sure-fire was, it would be extremely easy for an arts organization to make
money.

All art entails the willingness to take a risk from everyone involved -
composers, performers, and indeed listeners.  When no one is willing to
risk anything, we have a dead culture - one which feasts on the dead, which
has stopped growing, and where the possibility of hearing something new
(from any era, not just this one) has dropped to zero.

Second, although musical organizations need money to survive, this can't
be the sole consideration.  Otherwise, they could fill halls with the
"symphonic" Andrew Lloyd Webber and backing Michael Bolton.  The repertory
must have a value beyond the cash it generates.  Of course, there's no
guarantee that non-classical programming will bring in the bucks.  You
could fail here, too.  If you're going to fail, you might as well fail with
honor.

>Is there a genuine sense that this music needs to be heard whether people
>want to listen to it or not; or is it performed out of some sense of duty?

First, define "people" and "this music." There are "people" who like music
not normally programmed.  The music includes works by Vaughan Williams,
Poulenc, Prokofiev, Nielsen, Pettersson, etc.  In fact, the classical-music
audience is remarkable for its simultaneous segmentation and overlap.
Against all odds, there are people who actually like Bellini, for example,
or Josquin or Varese.  There are even people who like all three.

There are performers who do perform out of a sense of duty.  Generally
speaking, under those conditions they don't perform very well.  There are
also performers interested in playing what they haven't played before, who
find the act of exploration stimulating.  They tend to convey that
excitement.

>Is it perhaps performed because musical organizations
>are more likely to receive Arts funding if they do so?

In the US, not likely.  In Canada, it could be the case.  It could also be
that the performers like music you don't care for.

>I would hope that money isn't the bottom line here.  It is interesting
>that a musical group like the Canadian Brass, where funding and Canadian
>content" are not issues, do nothing to promote new compositions in the
>genre.

It's also interesting that they don't play very well.  I'm amazed they have
a career, when there are so many better players around.

>There are hundreds of original works written for brass quintet but the
>most famous and influential quintet in the world won't touch them with
>a fork.

Influential? Whom do they influence? To me, they're the Charlotte Church of
brass quintets - famous, but not particularly interesting or technically
sufficient.  The Miller Brass Ensemble of Chicago plays rings around them
and plays much more difficult repertoire besides.

Steve Schwartz