On Asking “Why Art?”
In the previous chapter of this blog, I laid out a general thrust of inquiry to probe deeper into “how we think about what art to create and how to present it; who our art will serve and where to find our audience; and why art?” I truly believe that “Why Art?” is the very first and the very most important question that presenters must ask of themselves and of their communities.
“Why art?” is often answered with platitudes, something about “the joy of music” or “lifting up souls” or other vague notions. Of course, this is all nice; it just isn’t detailed enough to illuminate a clear path of artistic action. The question I’m asking in “Why Art?” is much more specific than that. One could drill down in the particular by asking the question in longform: “Why are we sharing this art, with this group of people, at this time and place?”
“Why are we sharing this art, with this group of people, at this time and place?”
At the outset, I’d like to rid the question of two pieces of baggage. First, I do not mean to ask why an individual artist creates; that is another interesting question but is outside the scope of this discussion. Instead, I’ll address curatorial decision-making by artists and presenters. And second, I implore you to rid yourself of the idea that this post contains a Grand Unified Theory of “Why Art?” As you will see, this question is very specific and dependent on a variety of factors including who is involved in creating and consuming the artistic experience, where and when they will share it, and what their cultural and social needs are. Notice that these factors frame everything in terms of people, their experience, and their needs. ·
Let’s think now about why orchestras (I’m going to pick on orchestras here because it’s the field I work in) create experiences for audiences that are more or less, interchangeable, unimaginative, and tired. Here are some answers to “Why Art?” that might support the status quo:
Because we’ve always made art this way.
We’re playing the Greatest music by the Greatest composers with the Greatest musical performers in our community.
This music is in the soloist’s/conductor’s/orchestra’s repertoire.
It fits our budget.
There is a famous piece or person on this program that will help us sell tickets.
This concert has one new/risky piece, but it’s balanced out with a familiar one.
To fulfill a funding requirement.
We should “give people what they know”.
I don’t know.
What would happen to the experiences offered by those who seek different answers to “Why Art?”, answers that lead to deep relationship-building with the people that we serve? There is an inexhaustible set of great answers, but let’s ponder a few:
To tell the stories of the people in our community.
To meet the needs of our community in this specific moment in time.
To share a singular lens through which our community can experience the world and themselves for one evening.
To advocate for social change, kindness, connectivity, and generosity.
To commemorate a special person, group of people, or event in the community.
To support innovative work by the community of artists affiliated with an organization.
To connect, share, exchange, and/or collaborate with a specific community.
To incorporate cultural, social, and artist work from other disciplines (artistic or otherwise) into our music making.
To share artistic work that we deeply believe in.
To create a fun, exciting, and engaging experience.
To welcome more people in our community into the art we create.
There are a few differences to these two lists that I’d like to linger on:
The first list centers the institutional challenges of the presenter; the second list centers the needs of the community that the presenter serves.
The first list safeguards against destructive institutional pressures by making safe, status quo, bland decisions; each answer in the second list charts a positive path with constructive actions that build deeper ties with others.
The first list looks backwards to the way things have always been done; the second list looks forward to new ways of creating, sharing, and experiencing.
The answer to “Why Art?” can be multifaceted, layered, complex. An organization might, for example, create an experience that simultaneously tells stories of the people in their community, advocates for social change, incorporates work from other disciplines, and shares work that it deeply believes in. In the best case scenario, these overlapping answers contribute to a depth of meaning that rings both thinkingly and emotionally true.
“Why Art?” is not an abstract question; to the contrary, it is deeply practical one. When one truly clarifies their answer and has a clear artistic purpose, the path towards building connective experiences becomes clear. It can and should affect every single choice a presenter makes when planning how to connect with others. In other words, asking “Why?” leads to better answers in determining “How?”
In other words, asking “Why?” leads to better answers in determining “How?”
I’ll share an example from my personal experience. As an undergraduate student at The University of Texas, I found a niche in producing and conducting performances of 20th century chamber orchestra music. I had a feeling that this music, often unexplored, had a power to reach people in a different way than the standard canon. I also knew that Austin was full of art-loving people hungry for out-of-the-box experiences. With my longtime friend, colleague, learning-buddy, and collaborator Nick Clark, the University of Texas Lab Orchestra launched a festival of contemporary chamber orchestra music in the summer of 2017 that eventually morphed into the new music collective Density512.
As a co-producer of the festival, I was in charge of curating and producing one of the four concerts that summer. My answers to “Why Art?” for this performance were:
To connect with people through musicmaking in a specific place they already love.
To explore relationships and create dialogue between music and place.
To connect contemporary classical music to universal stories and experiences.
To create in a genre (contemporary chamber orchestra) unexplored by others in Austin.
To share contemporary classical music with people who have no experience with it.
To strip the concert experience of “concert experience baggage”.
Let’s see how asking “Why?” led to determining “How?”
To connect with people through musicmaking in a specific place they already love. To explore relationships and create dialogue between music and place.
Before I started selecting music, I first went on a journey to discover locations in the city that would provide a fertile ground for exploring the relationship between music and place. Of course, there were practical considerations (how much space we would need to perform, if the room would sound OK, fitting within our budget, etc.), but I didn’t let those parameters drive the exploration. Instead, I looked first for the places that seemed exciting to be in; only after finding a location I loved did I assess whether or not it would be a good logistical fit.
We settled on Thinkery, a children’s museum in the Mueller district of Austin. A popular institution for people of all ages, Thinkery had a history of hosting events for adults that were well known in the community. One perk of holding event at Thinkery was that attendees had a chance to explore the location’s science exhibits, toys, and other neat things that adults normally don’t get the chance to play with (even though they’re so much fun!)
To connect contemporary classical music to universal stories and experiences. To create in a genre (contemporary chamber orchestra) unexplored by others in Austin.
So, we had a concert at a children’s museum. But what would the concert be about? I landed on three big concepts: toys, children’s tales, and children’s imagery. Looking back, the concert would have been more impactful had I organized around just one. But there were three, and that’s a fact, so I’ll have to share things as they happened.
Because we were going to perform as a contemporary chamber orchestra, my search for repertoire was quite narrow. We had to fit the usual parameters of total concert length, fitting within our instrumentation, and selecting music of an appropriate difficulty that we could successfully perform. In addition, the music had to be about toys or children’s tales. That led to the following program:
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND OTHER TOYS
—Opening Set—
Luciano Berio
Sequenza V (1966)
Steve Parker, trombone
—Concert—
Edmund Anger
Toy Symphony (1765)
David Del Tredici
Vintage Alice
Fantascene on a Mad Teaparty for soprano, folk group, and orchestra (1972)
Suzanne Lis, soprano
I. Narration
II. First Evocation of the Queen
III. Cadenza I
IV. The Mad Hatter’s Song: Verse I
V. Second Evocation of the Queen
VI. Cadenza II
VII. The Mad Hatter’s Song
VIII. Interlude
IX. Changing Places
X. Cadenza III
XI. Quodlibet-Return
XII. Hymn to the Queen
XIII. Sleeping Coda
Aaron Jay Kernis
Toy Piano Concerto (2002)
Southwestern premiere
Robert McDonald, toy piano
I. Ostinato
II. Lullaby-Barcarolle
III. Blue Whirl
To strip the concert experience of “concert experience baggage”.
This was a matter of evening-building and concert staging. At 7:00, the doors to the museum opened and our audience had the opportunity to walk around, play with the toys and science exhibits, and drink beer donated by a local brewery (the only fully adult part of the night). At 7:30 trombonist and sound artist Steve Parker played an opening set, a performance-art deconstruction of both his instrument and Berio’s Sequenza V. The audience then wandered around museum to play with more toys. At 8:00pm, we called the audience to their seats with a postmodern rendition of Edmund Angerer’s Toy Symphony (often mis-attributed to Haydn) using sirens, melodicas, party-blowers, and modern toys in lieu of the traditional cuckoo, triangle, and nightingale. Then, the concert began in earnest, right in the middle of the children’s museum. By this point, one hour into the evening, we weren’t simply sharing a concert, we were sharing an experience!
To share contemporary classical music with people who have no experience with it.
I do not know how successful this performance was in attracting people who had no experience with contemporary classical music. Looking back, I wish we had made a greater investment in collecting information to the impact of the entire Density512 2017 summer festival.
What I can tell you, anecdotally, is that my family drove in from Dallas to see the show, and they had a great time. It had always been so hard to describe why the music I love is so wacky and different from mainstream music and even the standard classical repertoire. But in a context that fully embodied musical storytelling in every way, my family members were enthralled by the adventurous sound worlds of Kernis and Del Tredici (or at least they told me so). Convincing? I don’t have enough data from this particular experience to write a report about, but if it’s good enough for Grandma, it’s good enough for me.
I’m not advocating that all concerts should be played in nontraditional venues like children’s museums (but it’s fun, isn’t it!?), or that all concerts should be contemporary music concerts (though it’s exciting when they are, no?), or even that all concerts should answer the all-important question in the same way that this one did. What I am advocating for is that arts presenter must have strong answers to “Why Art?” at the very top of their planning process. Without clarifying what it is that you are trying to accomplish, how could you possibly accomplish it?
By asking “Why Art?”, you set a North Star, a guidepost for successful programming. It can push you to think outside the box, challenge the presuppositions about presenting your art, and discover new ways of creating and sharing with others. Most importantly, it will bring everything into line with the overlapping priorities that you find to be truly important.
I urge all of us to more deeply ask “Why art?” to discover what we really ought to be doing as arts presenters in our time, for the people we seek to serve. “Why are we sharing this art, with this group of people, at this time and place?”
“Why are we sharing this art, with this group of people, at this time and place?”
If you know the answer to this all important question, the rest will follow.
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Jacob Schnitzer is a conductor, composer, curator, producer, and interdisciplinary collaborator. He is Co-Artistic Director and Executive Director of Density512 in Austin, TX, and a Doctoral student at the UMKC Conservatory. Find him on social media @JacobSchnitzer or at jacobschnitzer.com.