Thomas Cabaniss

Doug writes: "But orchestras are actually remarkably efficient in their current configuration to do what they have been designed to do these many years."

Orchestras are remarkably efficient? I love orchestras, but that's not the first word that comes to mind when I think of them. In their present form, they often create too much of the wrong kind of product, they cannot respond nimbly to collaborative possibilities, and they have weighed themselves down with an overbearing matrix of rules and traditions. Orchestras deserve our support and love, but I'm not sure they deserve envy as models of efficiency.

Doug McLennan

Tom: I meant efficient not in the sense of responding to market but in terms of creating the forces to produce the music they do at an extremely high level. I bet if there was a "mission statement" for orchestras when they were originally created, it would have been very simple - to play great music at a high level. While there are certainly huge inefficiencies in the governing and business practices of orchestras, one thing they are very good at is playing music.

Marianne Lockwood

I just wanted to clarify the way St. Luke's works and respond to Doug's comments about the difficulties that this creates for 'artistic focus'. While St. Luke's is certainly an orchestra for hire, it preserves artistic control over several of its orchestral and chamber series. We are responsible for our Carnegie Hall series and for our three chamber series. We have input into our summer-long residency at the Caramoor Festival and advise many of our other collaborators. The musicians elect directors of chamber music - these are rotating positions - and their music director, and they take responsibility for the hiring and firing of their colleagues. They program all of the chamber music with input from relevant staff and other participating artists and they advise on guest conductors.

We are sometimes stretched in 'different directions to pay our bills' but I don't agree that this limits us artistically. For one thing, we have more offers than we can possibly take, and many of the gigs that come our way are ones that we wouldn't generally have the financial capacity to accomplish. Perhaps most importantly, the artistic challenges of our various collaborations have made us artistically adventurous and flexible - qualities for which St. Luke's is often noted. As John says, our belief is that we must create an environment where our musicians can reflect on and realize their creative potential. If we do this successfully, we might find the engagement with audiences that we all crave.'

Doug McLennan

Sorry Marianne: I certainly didn't mean to suggest that St. Luke's wasn't artistically focused. Indeed, the orchestra's reputation is one of being more adventurous and having a wider range than many other orchestras. The model has clearly worked well for St. Luke's. But I wonder if that would also apply for larger orchestras where the costs are higher and the pool of those with the resources to hire is much smaller? I also wonder if that model would work many places outside of New York...

Doug McLennan

Tom: I agree with you on pretty much every point. But aren't we talking about a matter of degrees here? In almost any structure you could see ways to make it better, and the faults you list are certainly real. Creating a structure that is satisfying artistically for musicians is a real problem, and there's a reason that on job satisfaction studies orchestra players express a high degree of job unhappiness. Artistic leadership does seem to have somehow become detached from the main engine of the orchestra in many cases. Orchestras aren't very flexible at all at changing to take advantages of opportunities or at responding to their audiences in meaningful ways. But it is indeed a model that has produced some extraordinary accomplishments over the decades.

And there are Plenty of orchestras, there is plenty of chamber music, and where big orchestras haven't served a demand, smaller specialized ensembles have stepped in. Could orchestras do better? Of course. Should they? There's no question - they won't survive unless they do. I think the discussion you're trying to start is exactly the right one. I guess the point I was trying to make is that for one specific purpose, orchestras are able to get the job done. But if that one specific purpose isn't enough for a sustainable scenario, then the purpose needs to broaden and the narrow definition of an orchestra needs to expand. Being "efficient" at producing music doesn't mean efficient at surviving or adapting or becoming a more artistically fulfilling enterprise.

Thomas Cabaniss

Doug; thanks for the clarifications. I see what you mean and in general I agree with you. You're trying to push the discussion towards broadening the narrow definition of the enterprise that has music making at its heart. I'm saying yes, but we also cannot forget that at the heart of the enterprise is music-making and therefore we need to do it better and more flexibly in order to expand that narrow definition of the enterprise. A small difference with the same endgame in mind, I think.