On defining the mission of a concert

Comments to Dennis Wu's post, "Chinese University Chamber Chorus" (Nov 11, 2005)

The question you posed at the end of your little exposition is something about which I often ponder: As a concert producer, how should I define the goal, or "mission", of my production? A related but more difficult question is: why do people go to concerts anyway?

To these difficult questions I have nothing insightful to offer, other than just describing some of my recent concert going experiences. Last summer my brother and I went to a show put on by the "Blue Man Group", whose productions have by now become a Bostonian attraction well-known to many Americans. A group of performers, painted and dressed in blue, acted as though they were aliens having just arrived the planet Earth. Through rhythmical music and humorous skits, they showed their "curiosity" on human behaviors and some urban social phenomenon. The show was simultaneously a rock music concert, an exhibition of new-age experimental musical instruments, a drama inviting audience participation, an acrobatic display of the performers' agility, and perhaps also, a subtle social critique. At the end of the performance, the audience were invited to clad the theater in white by pulling those hundred rolls of toilet tissue paper installed around the hall; at this time, the ceiling lights were flashing so brightly, slowly, but steadily, as though the distance between the stage and the audience's perception was mediated by a digitizing mechanism. Every one was ecstatic, shouting and cheering loudly with vigorous movements. I felt I was experiencing a moment of mass mania.

This concert, or vaudeville, contrasts sharply with a chamber music recital I went to last week at the Harvard Sanders Theater. The Boston Chamber Music Society (BCMS) performed a Romanian fantasy (arranged for a piano sextet), a clarinet fantasy by Debussy, an 4-hand arrangement of the Rhapsody in Blue, and finally, Brahms's G major string quintet. It was a purely musical journey: no explicit drama, no invitation of audience participation (other than applauding at the end of each piece), no surprising visual experience and action. The last piece - Brahms's Op. 111 - was highlighted in the program by turning all audience lights off. The symmetric seating plan of the five string players under the theater chandelier seemed to have converted the stage into an altar where Brahms's legacy was celebrated with grandeur and solemnity.

In what ways then are the goals of the Blue Man Group and the BCMS similar and different? In the former concert, there was an emphasis on overt audience participation and novel sensory experiences. The audience was invited, as a group, to create and unfold a story, unique to each "performance", with the performers. The audience would find the show convincing, or persuasive, because they would feel that they were not just passive receivers, but active contributors to a process created by every one in the theater. May we say, then, that the "mission" of the Blue Man Group might be to create an environment in which each individual would find him/herself to be a part of a larger whole as he/she actively interacts with the performers.

Similarly, the BCMS had created an environment in which each listener would feel that he/she belongs to a larger whole. But the process of engagement is in this case quite different -- it depends not on overt participation, but on the audience prior knowledge of the repertoire, or the audience curiosity or attentiveness, or just their imaginative power. They could only "contribute" by being quiet witnesses to the ritual being performed by the musicians on stage, and thus, any "engagement" has to be confined within the mind of every individual listener.

Defining the goal, or "mission" of a concert, then, is perhaps identical to finding an appropriate and effective way to engage the audience so that they would find the concert to be a temporary and precious opportunity to experience being part of a larger whole. Of course, this process of engagement would depend on the producer's prior expectation of the potential audience (i.e., asking the question of what the audience would find engaging), and the willingness of the audience to try out a mode of engagement novel to them.


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Original post by Dennis Wu (http://blog.denniswu.org/archives/000534.php)
Chinese University Chamber Chorus
Friday Nov 11 2005 11:18 AM • TrackBack (0)

Every performing group and every show the group performs may have a specific, artistic or socialistic mission. I produced one or two shows which primarily to make fun and educate the ones on stage, rather than delivering well-performed arts or to entertain the ones watching there.

Certainly, mission glues a group together. One will face questions of its existence when it lacks a direction. After the night of the Chinese University Chamber Chorus (CUCC), the need of mission placed me into thoughts again.

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The chorus opened up with a hit Hallelujah chorus of Handel's Messiah (which piece you'll definitely hear some more times in the months to go). The integral music the piece demanded overwhelmed the chorus which hadn't broken the ice. The chorus lifted the energetic songs easily, Rutter's O Clap Your Hands and Joseph Martin's A Festive Psalm were well sung. However, an arrangement of The Lord is My Sheperd exposed certain weaknesses of the chorus.

That was also true to the Hallelujah. I think the parts were not lack of integrity, and for some songs that require purity, that will be a big minus. The few coming a cappella will be daring in this regard. The singers in the groups were having good and sweet voices with good pitch control. But they're not always in harmony.

It reminds me a tiny fragment in the Kyrie of Kodaly's Missa Brevis, when an unaccompanied soprano section is divided into three parts singing high triads. Harmony is the first point to note, purity the second. That is demanding for a small group, but I think all the a cappella singings of the chorus was not that experienced and sensitive in this area.

There were moments of cheers and humours by the members singing and acting energetically. The famed chorus from Les Mis?rables ended first part with the tricolore waving, which was an impress of the concert video of the famous musical. Their performance was not top-notched and well polished, but they have a good musical sense and they're quite well-presented on stage.

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The concert borrowed a term familiar to many travellors. "Final Call" invites me to hurry for a journey. This musical journey is a bit an assorted one, it was a religious first half and an entertaining second. However, there were rooms of improvement in running a smoother show. Not many patient people can concentrate through many breaks to change stage settings and run-ins run-outs. The chorus's action may look even more charming when they were acting in uniform, for example the Masquerade.

The amplification should have a little adjustments transiting from mass chorus to ensemble group, and miking position matters as well: the breath and sheet-turnings became increasingly annoying. Curtain calls arrangement could be made better by simply adding a full-light cue after a black-out. More can be added to the list.

And, finally, what the Chorus wants its next show to be is the question that remain unsettled after the thought. To sing perfectly well, or to perform in a perfectly entertaining, or even a surprising show by means of drama, actions or any media, or to do everything? It's a good sign to have new elements in a choral production, which is certainly entertaining and brings more listeners to the art of singing. Putting everything together nicely requires more efforts to be put in the production, and that will be even more challenging when the trade-off
starts to take effect.