# Programmes of New Music



## Guest (Jun 24, 2018)

Recently it seems like when we discuss the programming of new or recently composed compositions, the discussions have been primarily about Major [American*] Orchestras.............

But, in all honesty, I don't really go to an orchestral concert to keep in touch with the new. I prefer going to *New Music Concerts* and *Festivals* for that kind of entertainment. They seem like they better reflect current thoughts, aesthetics, styles locally and/or worldwide.

There are quite a few New Music Ensembles here in Melbourne, including the internationally renowned *ELISION Ensemble*, whose process in commissioning, learning, rehearsing and performing new music is rather different to the rehearsal process of a Major Orchestra. Performance venues can also be quite different; concert and recital halls have great acoustics, but other churches, old convents, art galleries, basements, outdoor public spaces and even private music rooms in someone's house are just a few other venues that New Music has found a place to be heard.

Major Orchestras who perform maybe up to 200 or more concerts a year have very limited time to learn and rehearse *New Music* regularly. As more recent orchestral repertoire gets performed more often, then I wouldn't be surprised to see it more commonly on concerts programmes when the players in the orchestra are familiar enough with the pieces-pieces that don't ask for too much on the players' behalf-then it could be rehearsed and performed with the efficiency of the more standard repertoire. A different process entirely.

I am yet to see any real evidence to justify why *regular commissions from major orchestras* should be a benchmark for living composers generally. Perhaps the informed members of TC would be able to enlighten me................


*I have a feeling there are many people here who are familiar with the programming tendencies of orchestras in the US, perhaps due to being American themselves................


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

shirime said:


> .. Performance venues can also be quite different; concert and recital halls have great acoustics, but other churches, old convents, art galleries, basements, outdoor public spaces and even private music rooms in someone's house are just a few other venues that New Music has found a place to be heard.


One could infer from that that the audiences tend to be relatively small.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> One could infer from that that the audiences tend to be relatively small.


You really have a chip on your shoulder.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Chronochromie said:


> You really have a chip on your shoulder.


You're not up-to-date on the conversation.


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2018)

DaveM said:


> One could infer from that that the audiences tend to be relatively small.


Hmm, it depends on how you look at it.

(for now, let's ignore the fact that Stockhausen, in his day, could attract audiences of more than a million)

So, it has the ability to prosper in a wider variety of performance contexts, a wider variety of locations and barely has to rely on maintaining a subscriber base in a centralised location that a Major Orchestra has to worry about.

I would infer from my statement (and this is actually what I *meant* from it) that New Music has the potential to exist and thrive without the need to worry about a centralised location or a subscriber base. The fact is this: it exists, there are performances of New Music happening *all the time, everywhere* and people love it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

shirime said:


> The fact is this: it [new music] exists, there are performances of New Music happening *all the time, everywhere* and people love it.


It certainly exists. Performed all the time, everywhere? Surely a bit of hyperbole! People love it? Well, some people, probably. Who? How many?

Then there is the question of how much it is valued. How many people are willing to pay for the performances, and how much? It is a truism that you can move almost any product, even of inferior quality, if you give it away for free.


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2018)

KenOC said:


> It certainly exists. Performed all the time, everywhere? Surely a bit of hyperbole! People love it? Well, some people, probably. Who? How many?


A bit of a hyperbole, but you'd be surprised. At least in my corner of the world there are New Music events at least every week, and more I am not even aware of. It wouldn't surprise me if it's the same in California.

I don't know the people who love it; there are too many to know something as unimportant as 'audience size.'

What I can tell you, however, is that my city has (according to the Melbourne Live Music Census, 2018) one performance venue per 9,503 residents (for comparison, Los Angeles has one venue per 19,607), and 55% of these venues have had an audience increase in the past year. It's only logical to assume that such a great number of performance venues (many of which _are_ small) will result in a _lot_ of music being performed throughout the year in a _huge_ range of styles to a *very diverse audience of diverse taste.*


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> You're not up-to-date on the conversation.


Oh, but I am, I've been here before you...


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

shirime said:


> A bit of a hyperbole, but you'd be surprised. At least in my corner of the world there are New Music events at least every week, and more I am not even aware of. It wouldn't surprise me if it's the same in California.


I don't know about every week, but it's a large population so maybe so, but audiences probably not that large compared to those for the many regional orchestras which insert the occasional contemporary works in their programs, but not in the Ferneyhough category. However, the Michael Hersch music I mentioned was up front at the recent Ojai Festival which according to reports was a first for a festival like that.



> I don't know the people who love it; there are too many to know something as unimportant as 'audience size.'
> 
> What I can tell you, however, is that my city has (according to the Melbourne Live Music Census, 2018) one performance venue per 9,503 residents (for comparison, Los Angeles has one venue per 19,607), and 55% of these venues have had an audience increase in the past year. It's only logical to assume that such a great number of performance venues (many of which _are_ small) will result in a _lot_ of music being performed throughout the year in a _huge_ range of styles to a *very diverse audience of diverse taste.*


I can't speak for Australia so I take your word for it. I suppose it remains to be seen what the future holds and I'm thinking in particular of the Ferneyhough and related. Btw, I give you credit for tackling (on the piano) the Ferneyhough work. It's technically well beyond my pay grade.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Chronochromie said:


> Oh, but I am, I've been here before you...


But you weren't part of a previous conversation with the OP which referred to a specific category of 'new music'. The discussion here is respectful...except for your personal shot.


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2018)

DaveM said:


> I can't speak for Australia so I take your word for it. I suppose it remains to be seen what the future holds and I'm thinking in particular of the Ferneyhough and related. Btw, I give you credit for tackling (on the piano) the Ferneyhough work. It's technically well beyond my pay grade.


I've played through some *Ferneyhough* but on guitar.....as I play guitar and not piano :guitar:


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

shirime said:


> I am yet to see any real evidence to justify why *regular commissions from major orchestras* should be a benchmark for living composers generally. Perhaps the informed members of TC would be able to enlighten me................


Indeed, many, or most, living composers now realise that getting new works commissioned by a major orchestra is a rarity, especially when the works are challenging. Here in the Netherlands I would conjecture that more people hear smaller ensembles in places like you described: churches, old convents, art galleries and in the open air.

Most commonly when the concerts are either free or low-cost, people are willing to take more of a chance with the programme. The big concerts in the concert hall here, the ones with the larger price tag, are most often crowd-pleasers. The Sunday concerts with the well-trodden repertoire are the best attended, by the pensioner contingent (and some younger people like me). Even a performance of Shostakovich's 4th I attended had a sprinkling of empty seats. 
The concert hall is where established works are played, along with the odd commission.

It's a wise move for contemporary composers to write for ensembles like chamber orchestras when they are looking to showcase larger works. Waiting for a commission from a major orchestra has a tradition of not materialising; even Bruckner didn't see performances for most of his symphonies in his lifetime.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The OP is overdue! But I don't understand how the gainsayers wish to use popularity - audience size, willingness to pay - as their benchmark for disagreeing. Taken a step further this argument would do away with all classical music. 

My classical tastes range from before Monteverdi to the present day but there are aspects of the classical concert scene that I don't very much like - the formality and so on - and, providing good musicianship is on offer, I prefer smaller and less formal events. When I worked in London I used to love the occasional lunchtime concerts that were on offer. 

In the case of contemporary music the technical challenges are often huge, even when compared with the older classics, but this is not stopping musicians who have dedicated their lives to mastering their instruments from wanting to perform the new. This says something already. Presumably they could make more money (if older music is so much better at drawing in audiences) if they were less adventurous. But they do find audiences for the new and this is perhaps a golden age for getting good performances of new music. Many of our now favourite classics were initially blighted by awful first performances.

Of course, I do wish the big orchestras would programme more genuinely new music and do so in more adventurous ways - rather then just occasionally slotting new pieces into more traditional and conventional programmes. The classical concert as we know it was largely an invention of the Romantic period, after all.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

shirime said:


> There are quite a few New Music Ensembles here in Melbourne, including the internationally renowned *ELISION Ensemble*, whose process in commissioning, learning, rehearsing and performing new music is rather different to the rehearsal process of a Major Orchestra.


I'm sure this is true. Could you give some sense of just how different the process is for new music ensembles and new music? Basically I wonder how much more rehearsal time is necessary for unfamiliar works which may require unfamiliar techniques. I suppose such ensembles become more familiar with the necessary techniques, but I'm not sure how much these techniques may differ from one contemporary composer to another.


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## Guest (Jul 3, 2018)

mmsbls said:


> I'm sure this is true. Could you give some sense of just how different the process is for new music ensembles and new music? Basically I wonder how much more rehearsal time is necessary for unfamiliar works which may require unfamiliar techniques. I suppose such ensembles become more familiar with the necessary techniques, but I'm not sure how much these techniques may differ from one contemporary composer to another.


Sorry, I didn't see this post earlier, but I will respond as best as I can now...........

When it comes to learning unfamiliar music with unfamiliar techniques, I am pretty sure that there's a certain study of contemporary performance practice that would be useful. Unfortunately, not all conservatories/music schools/universities provide courses in contemporary performance practice, so a lot of the time the musicians interested in performing New Music would have to attend New Music workshops in performance and composition elsewhere. I think the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz has a really good one.

For, say, a violinist with standard tertiary education in orchestral and chamber music, I guess most standard courses will be good enough to train them for a typical job playing typical orchestral/chamber repertoire. They will learn certain techniques and taught not to make other kinds of interesting sounds that composers these days might be asking them to make. This is also why we have courses in historical performance practice as well, because the style and techniques of playing music in a period instrument orchestra is different from a modern concert orchestra, as is the focus on specific kinds of repertoire. Having to re-learn how to play one's own instrument was a challenge that period instrument musicians faced when they decided to make the switch over from the typical conservatory orchestral playing, and I'd say its a common enough problem for those who want to perform new music but are faced with rhythms and playing techniques that just aren't explored in the 'canon' 18th, 19th and early 20th century orchestral repertoire. For an orchestra to perform a programme featuring music by composers as significant as Lachenmann, Haas and Ferneyhough but have only been fed a diet of Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner and Mozart, well, there will be at least some issues in the _very_ limited rehearsal time a typical orchestra has.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

DaveM said:


> One could infer from that that the audiences tend to be relatively small.


Yes, sadly a decent number are.


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## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

Nonetheless what matters is that they happen, so that those who are interested can listen.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

soni said:


> Nonetheless what matters is that they happen, so that those who are interested can listen.


And very skilled and gifted musicians put their hearts and skills into them ... . So many works in history that we now know as great didn't have such a start. I also like the idea of such concerts (and their smallness) as probably really enjoyable experiences. Perhaps only one or two pieces really catch your imagination, it still sounds like a great way to hear music. Sadly we have no such concerts in rural England or even (as far as I know) in any of my nearby cities.


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