Page 45 - APAP - Inside Arts - Conference 2020

AISHA AHMAD-POST
Director, Ent Center for the Arts University of Colorado
We all know the vast majority of work that’s programmed in concert halls was written before 1900. Imagine if we treated music written between 1780 and 1900 the way
we treat music written between 1900 and 2020: You’d miss entire intellectual and artistic movements, and an incredible amount of transformative art. When I talk to presenters about why they don’t program a lot of “new” music, they say that they’re worried about losing long-time patrons or donors. But the reality is that when we shy away from these conversations,
we do the entire field a disservice by not championing the work
being written right now. And that has to change if we’re going to set ourselves up for success in 20, 30, 50 years.
A lot of the classical music scene is built upon audience excitement about the performer, but the repertoire is just as important.
If you’re a presenter, think about
ANDRE DOWELL
what are you trying to say to your audience through the performers you choose and the repertoire
they play. If you’re an agent, make sure there’s a why behind the repertoire your artists chose and that you know that reason through and through. It’s just not enough anymore to throw a Beethoven sonata, a Chopin ballade and a Prokofiev sonata together in recital and call it done. Are those pieces
in conversation with each other? Why that repertoire now, and with what goal? More dialogue is needed between musicians, agents and presenters about programmatic goals and what music supports those ideas. It creates a more meaningful process for everyone.
I think classical music could learn a lot by engaging in dialogue
with the other performing arts. I know my perspective as a classical music presenter was completely changed by my time with Jacob’s Pillow National Dance Presenters Forum, led by Pamela Tatge. She has amazing ideas about how to nurture performers and creators, and about the curator as being
at the center of art, art criticism, community, place making, diversity and inclusion, and so much more. Until very recently, I had never heard any of my mentors or colleagues in classical music talk about our work and mission in
a way that had considered these intersections and perspectives. We would do well as a field to listen to her wisdom and to the wisdom of our colleagues in other disciplines.
FAVORITE COMPOSER: That’s an impossible task, but I’ve listened to Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices on repeat for months now and share it with everyone who does and doesn’t ask.
Senior Director for Education and Artist Engagement The Sphinx Organization
I think we must ask ourselves
how we are reaching the next generation in order to build and maintain a diverse community.
Part of being human is to embrace and come together to support shared values. Absent a deliberate effort to reach the next generation and come together, the field of classical community will look and sound the same or will at the least have little impact. The Classical Connections Committee holds these values to ensure we are reaching the next generation through the
YPCA program and embracing
the audiences and constituents we serve through our various activities throughout the year.
I think we share the same goals as the performing arts world, which requires us to reach outside of that which most consider as “normal.” We have an obligation to ensure we
don't conform to what is considered normal.
The classical music world has
so many diverse voices that could easily go unheard. For our art form to survive, it's these same unheard voices who need to replace the “standards” and become the new normal and way of moving forward.
FAVORITE COMPOSER: Joel Thompson, Jessie Montgomery, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Jimmy Lopez, Damien Sneed. While I can't simply pick one, I can say these different voices are important to my roots and are people who I have connected with on both an artistic and personal level.
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