The Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra have announced plans for their 50th Anniversary Season, with a celebratory\u00a0focus on familiarity, conservatism, convenience and conformity.<\/p>\n
You’ve heard it all here before<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started thinking about how best to celebrate this special anniversary, our music director Cauze Perdue originally suggested we \u201cpush the boat out\u201d with a season of memorable commissions and ambitious artistic projects\u201d said MSO Executive Directore Piere Gruppedenken. \u201cHowever, we soon realised this was the last thing on earth any of our patrons wanted us to do. We realised the best way to celebrate our 50th anniversary was to push the boat in<\/em>: to offer the safest, most conservative, least \u201cinteresting\u201d series of concerts we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n M<\/strong>ore of the S<\/strong>ame O<\/strong>ld<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of market research to find out what our listeners want, and what they want is the \u201csame old, same old\u201d. What they want is conformity. We\u2019re celebrating this milestone in the orchestra\u2019s history by committing ourselves to be the most conservative orchestra this country has ever seen. \u201d<\/p>\n No Surprises. No shit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a one-off celebration,\u201d said Gruppedenken. \u201cThis is a vision for a new kind of orchestra. A new kind of orchestra which will always be the same old orchestra. We are going to pick the 20 most popular symphonies, the 20 most popular overture\u2019s and the 20 most popular concertos, book the 20 most popular soloists, and we\u2019re going to cycle through those pieces and artists every 12-18 months for as long as the orchestra stays in business. Gone are the days when one of our listeners bemoans the fact that he or she has missed Scheherazade or the New World Symphony, because now we\u2019ll be playing them again in just a few months. We used to strive to make every concert we did an unmissable event. It turns out people hated that. Our new advice to our patrons is \u201ccome or don\u2019t come- it\u2019s no big deal! That\u2019s true visionary programming for the modern lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n Come or don’t come- it’s no big deal<\/p>\n The MSO will also be changing the way they program the mini-festivals and single-composer cycles which have been such a mainstay of the orchestra\u2019s programming in recent years. \u201cWe took a hard look at last year\u2019s 8-concert Tchaikovsky \u00a0Festival and realised it was chock full of shit that absolutely nobody wanted to hear. Manfred? Give me a break! And the Second Piano Concerto? Do you think there are even three people in Metropolitana who have any idea there is more than one Tchaikovsky piano concerto? No. Let\u2019s face it, even the Pathetique is a morbid, miserable piece of shit. This year\u2019s Tchaikovsky Festival will also be 8 performances, but only two programs. We\u2019ve got one with the Fourth Symphony, the Violin Concerto and Romeo and Juliet, and one with Cappriccio Italien, the Nutcracker Suite and the Fourth Symphony. That way, nobody has to worry about missing the Fourth Symphony, which research says is the piece most likely to result in a standing ovation in the repertoire. All of our concerts from now on are going to end with standing ovations. It’s going to be great- no more soft endings to anything, ever.\u201d<\/p>\n The only real innovation left is to stop innovating<\/p>\n The orchestra has also replaced \u201cExplorations,\u201d their well-regarded series of pre-concert talks with a series called: \u201cNarrowing the Focus.\u201d \u201cThe new pre-concert talk series will be a great way to help our listeners understand our approach to programming. Listeners will discover why the only Mozart symphony we play is the Jupiter, why the only Brahms work anyone wants to hear is the Academic Festival Overture and why we\u2019re better off without Schumann.\u201d<\/p>\n No Schumann. Ever.<\/p>\n The financial benefits of the new approach to programming are already being felt at MSO headquarters. \u201cWe\u2019ve closed our accounts everywhere- all the rental places like Boosey and Hawkes and all the music suppliers like Lucks and EMS. We\u2019ve also laid off our library staff. We\u2019ve got all the music we\u2019ll ever need in our library, and it\u2019s all been bowed. We\u2019re never again going to spend money on printed music at the MSO. If we don’t already have it, our audience doesn’t want it\u201d<\/p>\n The best vision is no vision<\/p>\n The new artistic strategy has been warmly welcomed by the musicians of the MSO. \u201cI\u2019ve seen the list of the 60 pieces that will form the orchestra\u2019s repertoire from now on, and I\u2019ve known all of them backwards since I was 24\u201d said principal trumpet player Lance Shredwell. \u201cThis new vision for the orchestra means I\u2019ve been able to convert my practice room at home into a multimedia man cave. I don\u2019t even have a shelf for my trumpets at home any more. I just leave them here at the hall, because I can\u2019t see any reason why I\u2019ll ever have to practice outside rehearsal again. It\u2019s a life-changing thing for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n We already know how it goes<\/p>\nMSO<\/h1>\n
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The MSO Musicians<\/h1>\n