In a review of a Left Coast Ensemble concert last week (see www.sfcv.org),
I included a couple of paragraphs about themes for concerts which might
be of interest.  If anyone has any successful or less-than-successful
themes they have experienced, I would certainly like to read your opinions
pro or con.

Here's the relevant excerpt from the review:

   Of all the efforts to increase communication with audiences in
   the last couple of decades, the simplest and, in practice, least
   effective is to ascribe a "theme" to a concert.  When slapped
   on after a program has been selected, such themes may be innocuous
   at best.  Typical is a concert last year at Gardner Webb University,
   entitled "Awakening Global Consciousness," consisting of "nineteenth
   century romantic piano music from various countries as a tribute
   to the September 11th tragedies." Worse is a theme force-fitted
   until it loses all meaning.  For Michael Tilson Thomas' celebrated
   "Maverick" concerts the list of "iconoclasts, pioneers" of
   20th-century composers includes such middle-of-the-road or even
   retrograde figures as Adams, Piazzolla, del Tredici, and even
   Respighi.

   Worst of all is when an ill-conceived theme drives a concert
   to excess.  One can only imagine the result of last April's Ft.
   Wayne Philharmonic concert, "Karaoke Opera!" where the threat
   implied by the theme was described by promotional material: "...
   an exploration of the beauty and emotions found in great opera
   music.  Audience members will be invited onstage to sing along
   with the orchestra, karaoke style, in three selections (lyrics
   provided): "Mon Coeur S'ouvre" from Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila;
   "My Dear Marquis" from Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus; and "In
   quelle trine Morbide" from Puccini's Manon Lescaut [sic].  When
   everybody's good and warmed up, the audience will be invited to
   sing along or come up on stage and sing "Maria," from Leonard
   Bernstein's West Side Story."

   To be most effective, the incorporation of a theme should entail
   as much or more preparation as the musicians invest in the works
   to be performed.  If a theme is to be introduced to the audience
   by a speaker, he or she should be trained in the craft and prepare
   and rehearse carefully.  Program notes, while not being excessively
   long, should explain how the theme relates in some depth to the
   music to be performed.  If the works are new or unfamiliar, an
   effective technique is to play key passages as part of any spoken
   introduction, giving audience members advanced signposts for
   what is to come.

Jeff Dunn
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Alameda, CA