David Brothers Chairs / The Strad
The performing arts are a three-legged stool. The performers, the composers, and the audience each occupy an integral part of art-making.
As the artist Marcel Duchamp famously said, the spectator completes the work. The audience is our final and most important collaborator. And in the artists’ communication with the audience, we can discover opera’s true anti-elite potential.
–Yuval Sharon: A New Philosophy of Opera
The conductor is first and foremost a member of the performer group. Yet, through curating the concert, rehearsing the ensemble, and speaking to the audience in some cases, this role becomes facilitative. The conductor helps to place a composition, the group of performers, and the audience into conversation.
I find that music educators sometimes make the mistake of trying to balance their stool on just the first two legs, acknowledging the music and the musicians, but disregarding the audience. I understand the impulse: the parents are there to support their students. This is true, but it is not enough. We owe it to the families of our students to serve them as well. And in so doing, we give even more to our students.
Meanwhile, I find that some conductors who work only in professional and pre-professional settings tend to try to balance their stool on perhaps one and a half legs. Many will think of the music first and foremost. Some will think of their role in conveying the music to the audience, some won’t. Some will think of their role in advocating to the orchestra, and many won’t. I think it is because the power of the music is sometimes taken for granted - because it is difficult to remember what it was like to learn about and experience this music for the first time.
I’d like to live in a world where a composer’s deepest utterances are lovingly prepared, skillfully delivered, and meaningfully received. In so doing, the three-legged stool is honored.