David Curtis believes that decisions over choice of a performance venue form a natural part of the process of engaging audiences with music.
There can be very few, if any, orchestras in the UK today that have no experience at all of performing in what may be classified as non conventional concert halls. These can encompass the widest range of venues and are perhaps limited only by the performers imagination and audience accessibility: schools and hospitals, supermarkets and prisons, even hill tops and caves have all been used with varying degrees of success (and occasional failure) but often with surprising and revealing results for audience and performers alike.
Concert spaces are now determined by the desire to perform rather than by architectural design, though this is hardly a new phenomenon. In fact, so called non conventional performance venues are now so commonplace that the current debate over the role of the traditional concert hall and how well it serves todays audience is indeed timely. Do our conventional concert halls simply reinforce unhelpful stereotypes around classical music? When we look to develop new audiences and more imaginative performance practices, does the traditional concert hall present more barriers than opportunities?
A travelling audience
One might think that a busy international airport would present a unique set of challenges as a performance space and this is indeed the case, but with these challenges comes a unique set of opportunities. How many of even the worlds most successful symphony halls have over eight million potential audience members passing through their doors every year, more than 20,000 visitors per day?
Orchestra of the Swan has developed a ground-breaking partnership with its principal sponsor, Birmingham International Airport (BIA), which has allowed the orchestra to experiment with some highly unconventional venues at the airport. These have included the departure lounge, arrivals hall, duty free shops, corporate headquarters and even the airport fire station, an excellent but as yet little exploited performance space in the West Midlands. Perhaps public access is an issue here!
Not only has Orchestra of the Swan performed to the travelling public and staff in all these venues, but BIA has enthusiastically given airport space for education project performances. Pupils from four schools from the local Shard End Education Action Zone have composed, rehearsed and performed music and dance with members of Orchestra of the Swan on site at the airport, much to the delight of pupils, parents and passengers. Key to the success of this partnership has been the vision and support of BIA and, highly important, the willingness of the musicians in Orchestra of the Swan to be flexible, to experiment and to take risks.
There is no doubt that for orchestra and airport this experience has been hugely successful: the orchestra has recruited new audience members, and the airport environment, sometimes stressful, has been enhanced with airport staff and passengers greatly enjoying the surprise of hearing live music of the highest professional standard being performed in unlikely venues.
Clear objectives
There are obvious challenges when performing in unusual spaces: lack of changing facilities, poor acoustics, (though this is hardly a problem unknown in some major concert halls), difficulty of access, background noise& try performing Mozart or Elgar with a jumbo jet roaring down the runway a few hundred yards away!
For Orchestra of the Swan this very successful partnership has raised questions as well as answers and trying to find these answers informs our approach to all our performances, whether in our regular concert hall residencies in Stratford, Cheltenham or Bedworth, or in village halls, schools, prisons or care homes. The question posed is this: What are we trying to achieve when we choose these unconventional spaces, and is what we are trying to achieve any different from what our objectives should be in the normal symphony hall environment?
Orchestras tend to have similar objectives breaking down preconceptions, building new audiences, player development, higher visibility in the community but for Orchestra of the Swan the most important aspect our work is the active engagement of our audiences an active dialogue with the music and musicians, whether performing at Symphony Hall, a village hall, the airport fire station or a private home. Sadly, a visit to any number of concerts on a Friday or Saturday night will occasionally demonstrate that audiences are, at best, tolerated as a necessary evil, and, at worst, viewed with open contempt by some of the performers on stage.
Audience-centred
There can be no performance without an audience, we all have the experience of the sterile recording studio, and we have all experienced that magic when a live performance really does fire the spirit. When asked to explain his frequently bizarre and inexplicable paintings, the great Spanish painter Joan Miró, whose surrealist works are some of the most original of the 20th century, exclaimed, the spirit is everything! How often are we really touched by that spirit, whether as performers or audiences?
Orchestra of the Swan has built an enviable reputation for its audience rapport, &Orchestra of the Swan, a genuine ésprit de corps& Daily Telegraph; &a bunch of professionals who play with obvious pleasure&, Birmingham Post; &a genuine exuberance&, Musical Opinion; and &Orchestra of the Swans genuine rapport with their audience&, The Guardian.
Whilst these comments may be gratifying, what is disturbing is that they highlight the all too obvious lack of rapport between orchestra and audience that we have all experienced. Each time an orchestra gives a performance that doesnt engage the audience, for whatever reason, it does itself and the wider sector a great disservice, reinforcing the stereotypical view that classical music is somehow difficult and, even worse, that the music and musicians, (especially conductor and soloists) are aloof and unapproachable.
If performers make so little attempt to engage audiences in some type of dialogue, how can we expect that same audience to respond to us and our needs? For Orchestra of the Swan our audiences are part of our performances, an integral part of our mutual, live experience. They are valued as active participants, sharing the music with us, sharing the journey of discovery.
Artistic values revisited
So, we come full circle. In the end perhaps the decisions over choice of venue are a diversion from the main purpose of the performance. The same may be said of other contemporary approaches to concert presentation, sometimes more aimed at distracting the audience from, rather than engaging the audience with, the music. No amount of lighting schemes, designer clothes, modern technology, or any of the other often highly imaginative, and sometimes very costly initiatives that orchestras are being encouraged to deploy will, in the end, compensate for the lack of simple and direct communication with our audiences.
Perhaps the value of performing without our safety net of stage, without our audience being corralled at a safe distance, and without polite applause at the appropriate time, is that it does encourage us to re-examine our artistic values. Like many others, I have a passion for music: lets not be afraid to break down a few more barriers and share that passion with all our audiences, wherever we find them.
David Curtis is Artistic Director of Orchestra of the Swan.
t: 01789 267567;
w: http://www.orchestraoftheswan.org