Shortly there after, I began my studies at the Arizona State University School of Music, which conveniently happens to be the birthplace for many of the ideas that trickled into the Oregon Department of Bands.  Here, though a vast majority of the student concerts were standard concert settings in nature, the Arizona State Wind Ensemble lead by Gary Hill was at the forefront of trying new things.  Many concerts lead by Professor Hill would further push the boundary of performance, often times placing performances in or around the audience, like in the final concert of the Messiaen Festival where soloist were placed in the middle of the auditorium to detract attention from changing sets, or the performance of David Maslanka’s Child’s Garden of Dreams where instruments were broken into choirs around the audience with respect to the images that were being portrayed at any given point.

One of the more successful ideas of an alternate performance did not involve changing what we all know to be “the way” a concert should go, but rather adding a simple element to it.  At a concert given by the ASWE entitled “Cane and Abel,” there was an open chat room that anyone with a laptop, iPhone, Blackberry, iPod, etc. could log into.  It was lead by one of the conducting DMA students in which various bits of information would be presented to evoke conversation and discussion amongst those participating.  Though initially it did not seem to aid in the performance at all in my opinion, I realized that it was providing some massive insight into the construction of some of the lesser known pieces that the general concert goer might not be terribly familiar with.  This was extremely apparent when Dr. Tim McAllister took the stage to perform John Mackey’s Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Wind Ensemble (if you don’t know this piece, go listen to it right now, and then listen to it again, because it is amazing).  Though I had played this piece before while back at Oregon, I also took great interest with it while Mackey was writing it.  I studied his motives, the construction of the piece, the brilliant orchestration, the relentless energy, to the point of having it nearly entirely memorized.  Suddenly, a student of mine sitting near by whispered, “oh!  That’s the motive from the prelude!”  I looked behind me to see her observing the chat room on some Apple product.  This meant that the multiple listens required by so many 21st century works (and definitely for this particular piece) might actually be avoided (or increased depending on how you look at it) by showing small bits of formal, melodic, and harmonic structure that hold the music together.  By eliminating the slightest bit of incoherence or confusion by the relationship of one various of Mackey’s motive to another, this student was able to grasp onto that aspect, and instantaneously build an appreciation for the piece as it was unfolding for her for the first time!

This is not the only concert I’ve attended where guided tours of the music occur in conjunction with the performance.  Since Michael Christie has been in residence with the Phoenix Symphony, they have been integrating various different ideas into what people already expect to be the performance experience.  Though I’ve heard stories of performances where a camera has been fixed on the conductor to show the facial expressions the ensemble was seeing, as well as live chats much like at ASU, it seems as though one of the more effective additions to the performance was a written guided tour.  Basically, as the performance unfolded, a series of numbers would scroll across two television screens on either side of the ensemble that would correspond to a set of numbered bullet points on a sheet of paper that had been provided with the program.  This particular concert was a guided tour of Modest Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, where each painting and interlude was described in rather significant detail as to how the music was thought to illustrate the painting.  This was especially important because many of the paintings that the music illustrates are no longer in existence.  It was something more accessible because it was on paper rather than requiring a piece of technology and working knowledge of said technology.  The fact still remains that it gave something more, adding something different to the typical performance experience.

So, where we’re at currently is a fork that leads to two different ideas of tackling the same question:  1.  Try and do something new, abandoning most of what many of us were raised to know as the “concert experience.”  2.  Try to integrate something different for those looking for a new view on what is already in place.  Is one a better approach than the other?  Try one at your next concert experience, or challenge those around you to change things up a bit.

Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.