I think we all know that there's something flawed -- crippled, really -- about the situation of new music at orchestras.

I'd express it this way. Suppose we had a discussion at a Forum retreat about the best movies of the past year. Most of us would be able to join in. Many of us would have strong opinions. Some of us would have seen all the movies most people would talk about, and all of us, I'd bet, would have heard of all of them.

But now suppose we had a discussion of the best new orchestral works premiered in the past year. We'd be helpless, wouldn't we? We wouldn't have heard the pieces. In fact, we wouldn't have any way to hear them, since most wouldn't be played by more than one or two orchestras, and wouldn't have been recorded. Maybe if someone recorded a broadcast (should one exist), or if we cared enough to contact a composer's publisher and get a private recording -- maybe then some of us would have at least a distant shot of hearing a piece that people talked well about. But really I think things are even worse than this .Most of us, I'm sadly willing to bet, wouldn't even have heard of leading candidates for a five-best list. These pieces -- even their names -- just don't get around.

(One example: Jennifer Higdon's Concerto for Orchestra, which I believe really made a sensation when the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered it with many people from that year's ASOL conference in the audience. I remember that David Stearns, one of the Phlily critics, devoted almost his entire review to a rave about the piece, with only a few words at the end for the rest of the program. But assuming any of us heard of all that excitement, how could we have heard the piece for ourselves? We had to wait a couple of years for the recording to come out. And we're lucky that there even was a recording.)

We ought to understand -- and have no hesitation in loudly saying -- that this situation is completely, totally, absolutely unacceptable. There's no way for new music to gain any ground if even professionals have no way of even naming five top orchestral works premiered in any given year. And if professionals can't do it, where does that leave the audience? The only people I know who'd normally keep up with new orchestral music are artistic administrators.

So this has to change. I don't have any quick remedies. The most explosive and helpful one would be for orchestras to play two or three or four or five times as much new music as they do. Ideally, in my view, half of all pieces played would be by living composers. Or even more! If a new work made a good impression in some city, it could be immediately programmed elsewhere. But I'd also like to see orchestras tell the world about successful premieres elsewhere. Put word about them in the program book, on the website. Distribute CDs (if the publishers or other rights-holders would allow this) to the staff, board, and musicians, so everyone can be aware, not just of new music their own orchestra is playing, but of the entire new mujsic scene. Which, by the way, includes a lot of pieces that aren't designed for the mainstream classical concert hall, so the lack of information we all suffer from is even greater than I've so far said.

(One big failure in the past: Gorecki's Third Symphony. Remember when, maybe 15 years ago, this became such a hit? It got on the pop album charts in Britain; pop critics in America put it on their ten-best lists; all kinds of people bought the recording and loved it. But did American orchestras rush to program it? Of course not! What a disgrace. And what a missed opportunity. Doesn't matter if any of us like the piece or not. It's a serious, sincere work, and many people loved it. So by playing it, an orchestra could only win friends. Not to mention whatever the orchestra would gain by responding to the current world. And by the way, if you're going to play the Third Symphony, why not take a look at the first and second? The first is nothing like the third; it's atonal, quite in the orthodox old Darmstadt way. The Second Symphony is a fabulous piece, quite explosive in places, and very beautiful. Could we imagine any orchestra, faced with the sudden popularity of the Third Symphony, quickly performing all three? Of course not. But why?)