LET’S say that an orchestra has an opening for a violinist. The two finalists are both young men, both graduates of top conservatories. One is a brilliant player who has made several appearances as a soloist with noted orchestras. The other has been active in his home city playing in a contemporary-music ensemble and teaching at the neighborhood music school. In concerts he has proven adept at giving informal talks before the performance of, say, a difficult new work.
Which candidate will get the job? Typically, the audition committee and the orchestra’s music director would choose the violinist with the impressive soloist credentials and the bravura technique. But will such an ambitious player really be content to sit in the second violin section of an orchestra, even a major one?
Hasn’t the other candidate, with his commitment to living composers and his passion for teaching, demonstrated a special capacity to reach the public? Such a musician might feel excited to be part of great orchestra that also gave him a chance to give back to the public: to be, in a sense, a good musical citizen.
Too many orchestras, intent on recruiting absolutely the best players (however such a subjective thing may be measured), have tended to undervalue a musician’s skills at outreach. With a new program announced on Tuesday, Clive Gillinson, the executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, and Joseph W. Polisi, the president of the Juilliard School, will try to alter that thinking.
Called the Academy, the program, run by Carnegie Hall and Juilliard, is a performance and education initiative for postgraduate musicians. In the first phase of this program, which begins on Jan. 7, 16 musicians will become resident artists at Carnegie Hall, where they will perform concerts and undergo additional professional training. They will also take master classes and study at Juilliard.
In addition the Academy will collaborate closely with the New York City Education Department to develop the teaching skills of these high-powered players, who, during this pilot phase, will each spend one and a half days working in one of the 16 public schools across the city that have been selected so far. When fully in effect, the Academy will involve two-year fellowships for some 50 aspiring professional musicians.
The reasons for the decline of both music appreciation and of direct involvement in music-making among the larger public in recent decades have been discussed to death. But if this situation is to change, then an ability to connect with the public, to generate excitement and sympathy for classical music among young people and adult audiences, must become essential to the job description of every professional in the field.
The Academy seeks nothing less than to create a new paradigm for what it means to be a musician, especially a member of an orchestra or chamber ensemble. Think of it. Through this program talented musicians on the brink of a career will be chosen as resident artists at Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School, America’s most prestigious concert hall and most prestigious conservatory, not because they have won fancy competitions or secured professional management, but because they are willing to work in public schools in New York.
The school system, which has pledged nearly $200,000 to the pilot program, is essentially hiring dynamic young musicians to work with and inspire the students. But for the program to succeed, the fellows must appreciate that they can learn as much about artistic communication from working closely with a music teacher in a Brooklyn high school as from taking private lessons with a master musician at a conservatory. Orchestras and ensembles will have to adapt as well and understand that cultivating players who are engaging proselytizers is critical to the future. Mr. Polisi and Mr. Gillinson are convinced that if the Academy works as planned, its graduates will be prime candidates for the few jobs that open up every season in orchestras and ensembles.
Mr. Polisi said in a recent interview that he envisioned an orchestra with such a vibrant presence in the community — with members so involved in teaching and taking music to schools and community centers — that “citizens will feel it is unthinkable that this ensemble would go out of business.”
Mr. Gillinson, who implemented a program similar to this one during his notable tenure as the managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra, said that it was probably too much to expect the fellows to shift their career sights and devote themselves to public school teaching in the long term. Still, he added, “having built up a portfolio in New York, some fellows may decide to stay, and maybe we can keep some of them in the public schools.”
But for that to happen, the schools would also have to adapt and create many more adjunct slots for professional musicians who could work alongside full-time classroom teachers, band leaders and chorus directors.
In any case the Academy’s first roster of fellows — refreshingly diverse, with four string players, two pianists, two percussionists and woodwind and brass players ranging from a flutist to a trombonist — are about to enter the public schools. Orchestra managers everywhere, if they are smart, will be watching.
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