Michael James Oberhauser
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Classical vs. Popular Music

12/10/2012

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So, this is an op-ed I wrote for a class. I normally don't prefer speaking this formally myself, but I feel strongly about the topic, so here goes:


Classical music is struggling. Orchestras and opera companies compete to sell tickets, and some have folded. Meanwhile, the least expensive tickets currently available to see a typical Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden cost $119. Such concerts routinely sell out.

At some point since its inception, classical music stopped being cool. Even the name sounds stuffy and old fashioned. The name classical, not to be confused with the Classical Era, implies tied to the past – not fresh and new. By contrast, pop music can be little beyond its name: Popular music.

Classical music was once popular music. Throughout history, new styles of music have come into favor: Jazz, rock, pop, rhythm and blues, and rap, to name a few. Unlike Pop Art in the world of visual arts, many such new styles of music remained beyond the sphere of classical music. Jazz was absorbed only to a small degree. Composers have experimented with jazz and have incorporated jazz chords to add color to their compositions, but Beethoven is rarely programmed with Miles Davis or pop music’s Britney Spears. By contrast, art museum visitors are free to view the Rembrandts and walk down the hall for the Warhols.

Potential ticket buyers are of three types: Conservative classical fans, experimental classical fans, and concert-goers who are not yet fans of classical music.

The conservative classical fans enjoy music primarily from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. Such concert-goers are more likely to buy tickets to classical concerts, but they are likely to avoid music lying beyond their comfort zone. Sadly, as this group ages, few will join. The tastes of experimental and conservative fans are similar, but the experimental fan’s interests also stretch forward into classical music written by living composers. Such listeners tire of hearing the same pieces programmed in concerts year after year. This group is comprised largely of academics and fans who have both time and patience to listen intently and to explore new music. Concert programmers can successfully please both the conservative and the experimental fans, but concert-goers who are not yet fans of classical music exceed their grasp.

Many pop-classical crossovers who create inferior music contribute to the third group’s distaste for classical music. Crossovers often are banal and inauthentic: They embrace neither pop music nor classical music in their effort to appeal to both.

Some musicians have had luck in both fields: The composer Nico Muhly was recently co-commissioned by the English National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera to compose a new opera, which premiered in London in 2011 and will premiere in New York in 2013. Muhly, who studied with John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse and has worked as a MIDI programmer and editor for Philip Glass, has also collaborated with pop artists Björk, Grizzly Bear, and Sufjan Stevens. Other classically trained musicians, including pianist Tori Amos, violinist Andrew Bird, and composer and violinist Owen Pallett, have left classical music altogether to forge careers solely in popular music.

Tori Amos’s 2011 album Night of Hunters, a series of popular music variations on classical pieces om such composers as Satie, Chopin, and Schubert, fared well on the Billboard charts. At its peak, it reached high positions on the Billboard Top 200, the Billboard Top Rock and Alternative lists, and even peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Top Classical Albums list. Perhaps some of her fans were encouraged to seek out these classical pieces.

Classical musicians provide new hope for bringing popular and classical fans closer together. A new breed of composers has emerged to help fill in the gap between classical and popular music. Judd Greenstein’s music is a mix between already accessible minimalist music and driving pop and rock rhythms. Many of his compositions feature both rock and traditional classical instrumentation with sophisticated harmonic and formal structures. The Ecstatic Music Festival, founded by Greenstein, headlines such indie-classical musicians as himself and indie-pop musicians as Owen Pallett. Here, they combine forces to create concerts of their own music and of collaborations.

Many classical musicians are worried about the future of classical music. It may change form, but the interest for classical music will survive and grow. If musicians from both classical and popular music can be more adventurous and continue to tear down the wall of pretension and disinterest between classical and popular music, both genres will emerge stronger. Perhaps then even orchestras and opera houses will be restored to their former glory.
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What is Art, part 2

12/8/2012

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I got some great responses to this post, so I thought I'd summarize the answers I got before posting my own:

1.) What do you want art to do?

Your answers: Fill my mind, challenge, change us and make us more aware of ourselves, one another, and the world.

My answer was nearly identical to Molly's answer of "I want art to invite me to think or to feel. " She used invite, when I just said make. Strong word choice.

2.) What do you think art is to the common American/Australian (or whomever else)?

Your Answers:
Misunderstood, under appreciated, as entertainment, weird, not important, ornamental, decorative.

I agree with all of you on all those points. My specific answer was that the common American sees art as entertainment or decoration, but often also art events are things you attend so you can be seen. How many people attend the Met's opening night gala every year who care absolutely nothing about opera? They just want to wear their glamorous borrowed clothing and jewelry and be photographed looking cultured and just as cool as all of the other glamorous people there.

3.) What do you want art to be for the common American/Australian (or whomever else)?

Your answers: Exciting, invigorating, fun, cool, magic, something that makes the common American more empathetic. Molly said "I want art to be for the common American what it is for me." Another friend said that he didn't care about what art was to the common American.

That's an interesting batch of answers. I'm particularly drawn to a few points there: Invigorating, magic, empathetic.

Molly's point is interesting - it would be great if everyone thought art was as wonderful as we artists do, but I think we need some sort of a gradient amount of interest. This is going to sound a little selfish, but we need some people who are a sort of culture or taste expert. If everyone was equally excited by art, that might make all of the time and effort put in by dedicated artists seem just as meaningful as the casual artist. Not that the casual artist doesn't produce meaningful work: It's a tricky subject. Many of my friends and I have one, two, or three degrees in our field, and we've spent countless hours of practice and study fine-tuning what we do. Do you get what I mean?

The friend who doesn't care about what art is to the common American: that's a dangerous viewpoint. I think the common American should be able to enjoy art. I understand not wanting to "dumb down" art for the masses, and I wouldn't expect everybody to want to do that. However, we as artists all have an audience. If we're Richard Wagner, it's going to be a giant group of devoted followers who will seek out our art. If we're John Williams, our audience won't be there for us, but will generally enjoy our work. Heck, if we're Johannes Brahms, our audience will mostly be just Clara Schumann and a few other close friends. That doesn't make one piece of art more worthwhile than another - all are needed.

My answer: People should have easier access to free, cheap, or affordable art that will make them think and feel. Everyone has different levels at which they want to be challenged. Not everyone will want to listen to Shostakovich in the afternoon. Sometimes even I don't, and Robyn is as much as I want to be challenged that day. Either way, I should have access to the oppportunities that I want. The internet is helping greatly with that, but nothing beats a live performance, especially when it comes to my next point: I want the common American to be able to experience art as a community-builder. There's such a great feeling when you leave a good concert or other performance and other people feel the way you do. I wanted to dance and make friends with everybody after seeing Tune-Yards or Yeasayer in concert. I wanted to have deep, philosophical conversation after seeing Mahler 2 in concert. I wanted to sit down with everybody and make sure everyone felt welcome in our audience community after seeing Peter Grimes. This goes back to thinking and feeling: it's great stuff. It's a powerful drug. I think, for the right person, it has the power to change opinions.

4.) Why are you an artist?

Your answers basically boiled down to "I wouldn't know what else to do" and "that's the best way for me to express myself." Molly had an interesting point with it's fun, I enjoy the social aspect, and I like the attention. I hadn't thought of those last three, and I think they're perfectly valid.

My answer: I want to know myself, connect with my community, make people feel, and make people think. Even if I only ever manage to entertain, I'm happy with that. There's value in entertainment. I would hope to be able to do more than that and really make people think and feel more complex things, but any way I can help bring people together would be a success in my book.

Thank you, everybody, for your input. I love talking about this stuff, and you've all helped to make this topic way more interesting!
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What is art?

12/6/2012

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This discussion came up in a class recently. The professor asked us four questions:

1.) What do you want art to do?
2.) What do you think art is to the common American?*
3.) What do you want art to be for the common American?*
4.) Why are you an artist?

I was going to post my answers to this, but I think I'll leave just the questions for a week or so. I'm interested to know what you think. Let me know!

*I hadn't predicted that this post would draw commenters from non-Americans. I welcome any thoughts, so please change the questions as needed!
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And they danced. You heard me right.

5/5/2012

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Last night I went to the University of Maryland to see their orchestra concert. Professor Mark Wilson invited me and got me a ticket. We sat in the spot that he thought had the best acoustics, and had a chance to talk about the school, my goals, the people I should meet, etc. That made it start to sink in - I'm really going to school again in the fall.

I'll talk about the second half of the program first - Mahler 2. What an emotional workout.  The orchestra and chorus were so wonderful - so much so that I feel like I can't really talk about it. I can't put into words the emotions I felt. (I can say, though, that it was fun to watch various brass players and percussionists run off stage now and then to play the offstage sections. They got a bit of a workout.)

The first half of the program was Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. It was listed in the program like this:

CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Liz Lerman, movement designer
with Keith Thompson assisting.

... Movement designer? Were they having dancers? Awesome!

The stage was empty except for the harps and a few stools. Then the pre-recorded Kojo Nnamdi pre-performance speech began. The orchestra walked on with their instruments - wearing green shirts of different shades, some in khaki pants, some black pants, different shades of neutral skirts, and most barefoot. Then the stage went dark.

When the lights came back up, the most of the orchestra were lying on the stage, "sleeping." The "conductor" (who only rarely conducted) walked on, and was shortly followed by the flutist. She began to play and walk around. The orchestra "woke up" to play their parts - wandered around the stage, formed little circles of solo instruments when just one small group was playing, walked in circles - the bassists even lifted their basses over their heads, mimicking a balletic lift. At first I was wondering if this was going to seem a little hokey, but it really worked. It was a great performance, it was fun and interesting to watch, 

And that was that time I watched an orchestra dance while they played.
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Well, that's new.

4/27/2012

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I haven't had much time to write in here - for the longest time I didn't have much to write, but then I got a lot to write about - just no time to do it.

First off: In the Fall, I'm starting work toward my Doctorate in Music Composition at the University of Maryland, College Park! I'm very excited to be going back to school.

Second: I finished Temptation, the third mini-opera in the Fallen Angels cycle! I'll talk about this more later, but I'm very proud of it.

Last piece of big news: The three completed operas in the Fallen Angels cycle will be performed in the Capital Fringe Festival this July! I'm so excited about this that I'm giddy. Auditions are in a few weeks (May 12, noon to 4, in case you're interested). 

I've been involved with Fringe before, as a music director (Pasatieri's The Women and Signor Deluso with Opera Alterna in 2008), as a performer (Gorgibus and The Magistrate in Signor Deluso), as composer/music director (Magnum Opus with Opera Alterna in 2009), and also with some producing responsibilities (Magnum Opus). This time, though, I'm producing all on my own. It's... really tough. But rewarding.

Tonight, for example, I directed a photo shoot for the promotional photo for the show. The amazing photographer, my friend Mark Noel, helped us out with this, while Francesca Aguado, Caitlin Budny, and Joshua Brown stepped in as models. It ended up being fun - and pretty easy, once we figured a few things out.

I'll be blogging more about the Fallen Angels process in the Production Blog on the website of the company producing the show: Silver Finch Arts Collective. If I haven't talked to you at all about SFAC, go take a look at the website (which I'm slowly, slowly working on). That'll get you up to speed with some of my ideas, at least.
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Somewhat productive...

2/3/2012

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Well, I'm trying to stick to my New Year's resolutions. I'm having some success, some of the time. Vauge? A little.

I'm throwing all of my effort right now at a new Fallen Angels opera - Temptation. This one deals with Satan tempting Jesus in the desert, only is set in current-day corporate America. The temptation isn't quite what you're expecting, either.

In the other Fallen Angels operas, the "good guy" in the Biblical story becomes the villain in my story - and they usually end up being kind of a jerk. In Temptation, Jesus (or, Joshua in my story) is definitely the antagonist. I had intended to make Joshua just as much of a jerk as Eli, Josephine, and Adam, but he's not, for the most part. The libretto for Temptation is mostly done (more edits will happen as more friends of mine give me suggestions,) and I've started some work on the music, too.

I had some time to kill this week before meeting a friend for dinner, so I found a coffee shop and sat down to write some music without a keyboard or Finale telling me what it sounded like right away. I do this every once in a while - it's a good exercise to get your brain to hear the music you write. I wrote the trio from Temptation, trying my best to imagine what it would sound like. A day or two later I put that into Finale and was mortified. It sounded really difficult and way too dissonant for what I was going for. I decided to keep it, though. Another day or two later I came back, fiddled with the tempo, added dynamics, etc. I didn't change a note, and it already sounds so much better - it sounds like music now. Much closer to what I heard in my head. Dynamics are important!

I'm also sitting on some potentially exciting news, but I don't want to say anything about it yet - don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched! I hope I'm not jinxing it just by saying this.
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Resolutions

1/1/2012

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The theme of my resolutions this year: No excuses.

I will create more. Since that in itself is a pretty awful resolution, here's how I'm going to quantify it:
-I will spend at least 10 minutes at least every other day writing music, searching for/writing text, or doing other work that pertains to advancing my career.
-I will not listen to music, check my email, get on Facebook, get on Twitter, or anything else like that unless I have already done this work. Eating dinner first is fine, and I can listen to music while I'm eating, but none of those websites will be on.
-If I need to, I will turn on my old desktop before I change out of my work clothes to entice me to work right away. (This is one time when it would be nice to have Finale on my laptop...)

I will take better care of myself. I still don't know exactly how I'm going to measure this one. Once I figure that out, I'll work on sticking to it.

I might have more resolutions on the way as I think of them. 2012 might be the year of rolling resolutions. Always, though: no excuses.
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Applications, and New Plans

12/22/2011

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So, it's been forever since I wrote in this.

A lot has been going on:

 - After the recital, I finished Lilith, I orchestrated it, then put together a recording session for both Lilith and The Name on the Door. I have great new recordings of each that are up on the specific pages for those pieces. Check them out: Lilith . The Name on the Door

I applied for doctoral programs again. They were due December 1. With work on those and the start of holiday season, I've been pretty busy. The applications are in... and I've already received two rejections. Bummer. But whatever, I have two more. Fingers crossed.

Other big news: I paid the application fee for a spot in the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival. Guess that means I have to finish the application now... by January 6. I'm submitting Lilith, The Name on the Door, and... one other mini-opera from Fallen Angels, which hasn't been written yet. Yep. I still have a lot of work to do. Always.
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Post-recital

7/30/2011

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I am so happy with how New Inspirations went on Thursday evening. Everyone performed beautifully, we had a nice turnout in the audience, and the recordings turned out well.

I took Friday off and didn't do much of anything - it was much needed. Then, today, I've been in musician mode all day: I took part in the Duo Fujin competition: at 9:00am we were given a prompt, and we had until 9:00pm to compose and email in a new composition for flute and alto saxophone. I won't talk about my composition much until we hear the results some time in the next few months.

When I wasn't composing, I was creating all of the mp3s of the recital. My pieces are now on the website: Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil, and Love is Not the Last Room. Give them a listen!

I still have a lot of work to do to finish redoing the rest of the website: I have to move all the recordings from the Samples page and put them on their own pages, finish writing program notes for each piece, and add pdfs of the scores. It'll take me a while, but I'll get there.

I have other news of an exciting new project of mine, but I don't want to say anything until I get it worked out a bit more. Ooh, suspense!
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365 Project, String Quartet No. 1, Lilith, and website overhaul

7/7/2011

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365 Project - that's been done since the Summer Solstice. Have I talked about that yet? I can't remember. Well, either way, it's done, and I'm actually pretty proud of it. I showed it to my good friend Rameen, and he said "Hey, you should make this a string quartet!" I thought, "No, Rameen, you're crazy." But then I thought about it some more. Then I actually liked the idea.

String Quartet No. 1 - Yep. It's done now. The 365 Project has been arranged for string quartet, thus making it my String Quartet No. 1. This flew by so quickly - it practically arranged itself. I really like how it sounds, and am dying to get it performed. Any string quartets out there looking for new music?

Lilith - I've started work on the new opera. Lilith's introduction/arietta thing is done. I was wrestling with the baritone aria for a long time yesterday, and I thought about it all day today. I think I have something workable now, though I'm not completely sold on it yet. For one thing, it's very simple. It actually is in a completely different vein than Lilith's arietty immediately before it. I don't know how much of a problem that might be.

Website overhaul - I'm completely re-doing how you hear samples of my work. When I'm done, you'll be able to go to my Compositions page and click on any piece from there. This will bring you to a new page, where you can read lots of information on it, including program notes. There you'll also be able to hear a sample of, or in some cases all of, the piece. I'll even put downloadable pdfs of just about everything up there. All for YOU, my friends. All for you.
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