![[Valid RSS]](/images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
« Happy Earth Day | Home | Tennessee Ticket is on Twitter »
April 24, 2008
Putting some Sasse back in the symphony
Former Allied Arts director Molly Sasse has been named the new Executive Director of the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera Association, reports the Chattanoogan.
Several of the symphony's core musicians (of which there are a shocking few, as the rest are considered contractors) have come to me in the past couple of years and requested that I write about the deteriorating environment at the CSO. I regret that I have not found the time to do so, but I hope that improvements will come with this change in leadership.
A successful city will have a thriving arts community; and though great strides are being made in the visual arts (think CreateHere and related efforts), a healthy symphony is critical as well. The patronage pool for Chattanooga's symphony is mighty shallow (in more ways than two), even though a few pockets are deep.
We need an infusion of interest. The millennium generation needs to be introduced to quality art music. But it's a two-way street. The board and the conductor need to program works that will appeal to more than just the blue-hair Lookout Mountain contingent. Will doing so risk pissing off said cadre of cash-givers? Yes, perhaps; but one never knows until it is tried. Look, Mozart is brilliant, but he died in 1791. (My music history professors died a little just now when I had to look that up.)
This is not to say that the classics should in any way be abandoned. There is a reason for their endurance thus far. It's just that some of us would like to hear shimmering new sounds (or, heck, even some that were coming out around a hundred years ago, from Stravinsky, Copland, or Poulenc, would be nice too.) And perhaps a new board director can help. We'll see (er, make that "hear").
teh Arts | By joe lance | 10:41 AM
