At 1:34 PM -0400 7/25/11, David Froom wrote: >On 25 Jul 2011, at 1:00 PM, John Howell wrote: > >And even the regional orchestra I played with for > > several years drew big crowds for outdoor summer >> concerts--and not all on July 4th, either. > >Free outdoor concerts -- not necessarily pops -- show how much people >want to hear classical music. Given the fact that most concert series >derive such a small proportion of their budget from ticket sales, >maybe all concerts should be free. It seems vastly easier to make a >case for a donor to support this activity that communities like so >much as opposed to giving money to keep tickets under $100 for the >wealthy patrons.
Actually that's exactly what our orchestra did. Those summer concerts were free, and they were sponsored by businesses. The venues weren't terrific--a minor league ball park and a crowded space down by the river--but the people came out, and FAMILIES came out! The figures that the orchestra was aware of was that a concert cost the sponsors $10,000, which seems AWFULLY high to me. Our per-service pay wasn't all that high, and the local players were not paid as far as I knew. (I was one of the 2-rehearsals-plus-concert ringers.) I'm all in favor of hard-core serious music on such concerts, although they are obviously the venues for which the "semi-classical" repertoire was developed and very popular. But I'm very impressed by the contemporary works your orchestra has programmed. John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music School of Performing Arts & Cinema College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "Machen es wie Sie wollen, machen es nur schön!" (Do it as you like, just make it beautiful!) --Johannes Brahms _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
