Spontaneous interviews

I went to the La Jolla Symphony dress rehearsal on Friday and got a chance to interview some of the audience members. It didn't really go as well as I hoped mainly because most of the audience that came for the dress rehearsal were friends/family of the performers or music students writing concert reports (a group to which I admittedly belonged to) and either were their reasons for attending that night. I also did not initially plan to conduct any interviews but thought that the opportunity would be wasted. Still, I'm proud that I  had the courage to approach strangers and was happy that they were willing to work with me. I plan on interviewing some of the performers about the program and other things.

The program:

OLD WORLDS/NEW WORLD May 4-5, 2013	Steven Schick conducts
Chou Wen-chung Richard Strauss Edgard Varèse	Landscapes Horn Concerto No. 2 Amériques
Special Guest: Nicolee Kuester, horn

It was a fairly interesting concert especially in the context of Schick's notes. Schick is good friends with Wen-chung who was Varese's student who was both acquainted and inspired by Strauss. Nice programming. I was to pay attention to the Strauss for my concert report, but I really came for the Varese, which is reminiscent of The Rite of Spring - thankfully no riots though! While I greatly enjoyed this piece (and Steven Schick's amazing dance-conducting), reminding why I personally enjoy attending Western art music concerts, I was more importantly interested in what the audience thought.

I talked to: 3 music students, 1 non-student musician, 2 non-musicians

There was a consensus among them all: Ewww Amériques!!


Well, they put it more nicely than that. While I'm sure that I probably would have felt the same if you had asked me at an earlier time in my life, I was a bit shocked (just a bit..). Sure, it's not the most 'harmonious' piece, but the scope, colors, and intensity of it very much fascinated me and thought that those aspects, at least, could appeal to a wider audience as I had been recently trained to open my mind to such music (not saying that I enjoy it all - see last week's entry). Nope...not even the other music students agreed (though everyone enjoyed Schick's conducting of the piece).


In fact, most people liked the Strauss the most, which (to me) was the least interesting (though Nicolee did extremely well!). I expected more people to like the Wen-chung which is still very consonant, but it's probably too 'exotic' for many. Some words used to describe the Varese were: random, intense, anxious, disharmonious, and loud.

While their reasons for attending that night were not anything remarkable, I did get some insight about what types of concerts they do like to attend and why and their general thoughts about classical music concerts.

Planning on updating with some more specific info on the interviews and more clearly tying that into my project soon.