A thing that concerns me is, in our efforts and enthusiasm to create an improved space for new music in the United States, whether what it is that we're cultivating is in fact a system built around presenting truly great music, or whether it is instead nothing more than merely another style, a style known collectively as "new music."
In actual practice in particular, it often seems that the concert event is designed - whether intentionally or incidentally - to be about "being about new music," and it's first mission is not necessarily focused on great music that happens to be new music.
I tend to believe that focused missions/goal points and clear, simple priorities are necessary for an organization to thrive. I also tend to feel that the continued growth of new music in the US will necessitate us stepping up our game. Focus is a key, especially for the smaller organizations - resources are so tight and there is nothing to waste, and it is so hard to get people in seats even once in the first place. Once s/he's there, we need to do all we can to make absolutely sure that what the audience member then witnesses is something that is both artistically incredible and that will make them curious and anxious about coming back next time. Given the current US new music situation, to my mind one truly spectacular new music event is of more value than a thousand mediocre shows: I believe we need to bet big, with greater focus, for greater returns, instead of handing the new (and potentially lifelong) audience member something inconsistently ranging from bad to decent to occasionally great. We talk so much about the remarkable in our music but the public gets to see so little of this in reality.
I love new music in large part because of its particular ability to be so utterly fantastic, to push and pioneer out into the unknown music of the future, for the options that right now we have yet to have any idea about. And I see the potential of new music for creating this experience to be one of our great kinetic strengths in promoting ourselves to the civilian music world, and in changing the cultural landscape of the US as it relates to new music over the course of this and this next generation.
However, in our vigor to be ecumenical we can lose sight of the most important word necessary to maintain a crucial excellence: No. Excellence of intention, excellence of execution, excellence of curatorship. Not every newly composed work "deserves" to be presented at the same level, and pretending like they do encourages programmers, especially less experienced programmers, to flood an already struggling scene with so much mediocrity. Mediocrity is the albatross around the collective neck of our scene - and ironically so, as contemporary music has traditionally loved to pass itself off as quite elite. And while I tend to feel this attitude of elitism is intensely counterproductive, at the same time I believe that mediocrity will never save us. We need a consistent excellence, but absent an attitude of elitism. It is about the excellent and the fantastic.
