UNCOVERED

NCO on MTV!

MTV.com anyway. A Google news search turned up THIS from last week. Trey Anastasio, late of the monster jam band Phish, has released an all-instrumental album called The Horseshoe Curve, with a cast of guest luminaries including renowned jazz pianist John Medeski and members of the NCO. It's not the only time the NCO has worked with Anastasio. The orchestra backed him on stage at Bonnaroo in 2004 in an epic set that placed Trey's smart, adventuresome songcraft and guitar against a huge backdrop of sound. As it happens, it was that encounter when Trey told Paul Gambill for the first time about ArtistShare. So in many ways we can thank Anastasio for NCO Uncovered. The new album sounds interesting and is on sale at Trey's website HERE. The full, albeit brief MTV.com news item appears after the jump.

The "Superhero Maestro of the Universe" issue

by Paul Gambill

Following the NCO’s season finale we emailed audience members, which included 314 attendees of the American Symphony Orchestra League’s National Conference that had attended the concert, and invited them to blog about their experience with us.

The feedback we received was for the most part very supportive. We also received two responses from orchestra professionals who were attending the ASOL conference and had been offended by a segment of the program that included me talking to the audience, and that’s what I want to discuss. But before going any further, check out the segment in question:

Before summarizing and commenting on the negative feedback, I think it’s important to know some context on the concert. The program was titled Gypsy Nights, and was firmly in our Music Without Boundaries style, which typically features cross-genre works we have commissioned, plus some established masterworks from the traditional repertory. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PROGRAM

Final Countdown - Sign Up for Uncovered NOW

NCO's first UNCOVERED project is about to go live in the next day or two and the other getting set to go live within two weeks. So it seemed like a good time to update our readers on a few basics.

Remember there are TWO Uncovered tracks, and you can become a member of one or both. The one we're just about to launch follows master guitarist John Jorgenson through a year in which he'll record an album of pieces he's composed with the NCO. When we go live this week, members will have access to audio and video coverage of the first of those recording sessions, including a short documentary that takes you in the studio (in this case the majestic Schermerhorn Symphony Center) and the remote recording truck that captured John's piece "Tarantella and Reverie" at the very end of June. It's an incredible front row seat to a process few people ever get to see.

Soon to follow, the NCO's own Uncovered project, in which you'll follow along as the orchestra plans and stages its 2007-2008 season. It will be an incredible window into a side of Nashville's extraordinary musical community that you'd never see on CMT or hear on the radio. The NCO will be staging concerts with Americana star and hit songwriter Darrell Scott, while its Adventure Series will stage performances that explore Tango and spiritual music, as defined by the orchestra and its community.

FINAL PREPARATIONS ARE UNDER WAY. TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN THE SITES ARE LIVE, LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS HERE FOR BOTH JOHN JORGENSON UNCOVERED AND NCO UNCOVERED. YOU'LL BE PART OF AN EXCLUSIVE COMMUNITY OF MUSIC FANS AND YOUR SUPPORT WILL HELP THE NCO STAGE ITS BEST SEASON YET.

Total lack of coverage!

While the press in Spokane seems interested in the NCO (see below), it seemed like time to observe the deafening silence in our hometown press here in Nashville in the wake of the Gypsy Nights concert two weeks ago. Neither our daily paper The Tennessean nor our weekly, The Nashville Scene, reviewed or followed up in any way on that show, which as I said, with as much objectivity as I can muster, was a phenomenal night of music with three great soloists and two world premieres. Both papers ran preview items but they focused on the high profile of Bernadette Peters who sang on Saturday night, proving that even among our ostensibly sophisticated music critics in town, celebrity is more alluring than innovation. Neither offered any follow-up, and I just don't think that's justifiable. I know Paul and Connie have struggled with this for years because I used to be a music critic at the Tennessean and when our classical music critic failed to write about the NCO's concerts routinely, they would inquire with us pop and country guys about whether maybe, perhaps, they might get a bit of ink in their Music City hometown press. There are several issues at play here, but the biggest is that Music-In-Boxes thing that the NCO wants to overcome. The classical critic can look at the NCO and, because it does some crossover work with pop musicians, say 'that's not my beat.' The pop critic can say 'Hey it's a chamber orchestra. They play Brahms. That's not MY beat.' What we're looking for here is a little bit of music commentary without boundaries. Not glowing reviews. Just respect and honest analysis. Were any of you music writers at Gypsy Nights? Did you know about it? Were you aware that one of the founders of the Turtle Island String Quartet was premiering a new work? Is that not news in Music City?

Okay enough from me. What do you think? Don't just tell us. Tell the newspapers. Here are the folks you should write to:

Nashville Scene - TRACY MOORE, Music Editor
Nashville Scene - JOHN PITCHER, Classical music writer

(If those links don't work, go HERE and select the names from the dropdown list to send a message)

The Tennessean - LINDA ZETTLER, Entertainment Editor: lzettler@tennessean.com
The Tennessean - JONATHAN MARX, Music Writer: jamarx@tennessean.com

Nice coverage!

I just Google Newsed the NCO (hey if to Google is a verb, then so is that) and found this nice piece from late June in the Spokesman Review of Spokane Washington, of all places. It references the NCO's "Kid Pan Alley" CD of last year and illustrates nicely how music and real life can intersect in the best of ways. Link to the story HERE or read it after the jump.

Hold the funeral...

Another Sunday. Another New York Times piece decrying the state of classical music. Or rather reviewing a book decrying the state of classical music, specifically Lawrence Kramer's "Why Classical Music Still Matters," which seems to be sort of a primer in the skills of listening to complex composed music and a eulogy at the funeral of a great tradition. The key passage from Edward Rothstein's review:

What has changed is not how much the tradition means to its devotees, but how little it means to everyone else. From being the center of cultural aspiration, art music has become almost quaintly marginal; from being the hallmark of bourgeois accomplishment (“Someday you’ll thank me”), music lessons have become optional attempts at self-expression; from appearing on newsmagazine covers, maestros now barely rate boldface in gossip columns.

Prescriptions have been plentiful, but so many years have gone by without significant music education in the schools and musical commitment in the homes, and so many ears have gotten used to different sounds and minds to different frames of references, that the question has changed from “What can be done?” to “Why should anything be done at all?”

Why, in other words, should we care? After decades of arguments asserting that different cultures just have different ways of expressing themselves, that distinctions and assertions of value are tendentious, and that Western art music deserves no pride of place in a multicultural American society, it may be that even the problem is no longer clearly seen. The premises have shifted.

Unfortunately I don’t think the answers Mr. Kramer gives will make the difference, if any answers even can. Mr. Kramer — who teaches English literature and music at Fordham University and whose lyrical and suggestive studies of music and 19th-century culture have been fascinating contributions to recent musicology — sees the problem clearly enough. But in trying to explain the value of this repertory and its unique status he writes more like an introverted lover than an extroverted judge, more like someone gazing at its marvels from within than someone determined to articulate its virtues to a skeptical outside world.

The key here is to read this in the context of the posts from Matt and Matt immediately below. If college students who don't have a background in classical music per se but who like music can find themselves on the edge of their seats at a classical performance, then clearly one core challenge is to win converts in the concert hall. Which means the challenge is to get them in the hall. That's 90% of the battle. One reason I belive in the NCO is that getting to one of their shows seems like a perhaps less formal, intimidating prospect than a full symphony performance. It's as much of a hang as a concert. More on this as the year unfolds...