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By James Kelly, September 21, 2009

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Fancy seeing the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on October 4th? Tickets are still available for their forthcoming performance of Chopin’s 1st and 2nd Piano Concertos, at a price of €9.90 a head.

The catch is, of course, that you will experience this concert live (8pm, Berlin time) via broadband beamed into the comfort of your own living room (kitchen, bedroom or study)… what you lose on the physical experience, you gain on savings (no need for flights / babysitters / taxis etc).

Launched at the end of 2008, the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall is an exciting development, and no doubt a sign of things to come over the coming years. Such online experiences will never replace the actual experience of attending a performance, and in this sense (I hope) would not compete with the live experience.

Rather, could it be the case that an increasingly diverse range of high quality artistic experiences will become available in the comfort of our own living room, providing stiff competition for television, which has long held a monopoly on such matters?

Faced with the choice of an evening with the Berlin Philharmonic, two hours of ‘Friends’, or another indepth report on ‘the crash’, the philharmonic could well win out.

It’s worth mentioning that there are still some barriers to be overcome – for one thing, computers on the whole still occupy a different space in our homes, and are more often located in a work context than a leisure one (e.g. in the not so comfortable ‘home office’). Secondly, you need a very good broadband signal to guarantee an uninterrupted experience. However, it is early days, and over the coming few years these barriers will be overcome.

I’ve yet to view a performance, and would be keen to hear if anyone has given it a go?

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Appearing one night only – Berlin Philharmonic – neat dress essential

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By James Kelly, September 9, 2009

The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston runs a ‘Teen Night’ which combines art, socialising and a sense of shared ownership of the event.

It started out with one wild (alcohol free) party with music, dancing and general socialising. Gallery staff were on hand to answer questions about the art, but the primary goal seems to have been to get young people in the door.

It has evolved into a quarterly event that is conceived, promoted, and run by teens, employing short programs inspired by the collection. There have also been classes on video, weblogging, podcasting, digital photography, video boot camp, design graphics, t-shirt design, a DJ school, and an in-school writing program.

Started with a small group of teenagers in 2005, ICA is now drawing 300 to 450 young people per event and hitting its goal of engaging 2,500 teens annually, up from 700 in 2005.

More info from www.icateens.org

It would be great to hear if these is anything like this going on in Ireland – do let us know!

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By James Kelly, August 28, 2009

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Looking to play in a session with some of the fine musicians, but still only learning your jigs from your reels?

The BBC website has a virtual session (click here) where you can play along with Michael McGolderick and friends; you can call the tunes, taking your pick from a choice of jigs, reels, hornpipes and waltzes.

It’s pretty basic actually (for example you can’t ask Michael to slow down a bit), but of course so was pong when it arrived. With some development, such a online application could provide a fantastic resource for those eager to get into the world of traditional music.

There is of course no doubt – playing in your slippers by your computer will never replace the live vibe of a session (not to mention that, for those inclined, a virtual pint of stout just don’t have the same appeal).

However what a virtual session can provide is access for those learning the basics, and such a facility may be of great interest to those in places where beginners sessions are not so readily accessible, whether they’re in certain parts of Ireland, or in the UK or US, where there is a growing interest in traditional Irish music.

Image courtesy of www.feilebelfast.com

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By James Kelly, August 25, 2009

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Seeking to build new audiences for its work, the San Francisco Opera, well aware of the challenges in bringing new audiences into traditional performance spaces, brought the mountain to Moses. In June 2008, they  staged a free simulcast of Lucia di Lammermoor in the AT&T baseball park . The performance took place in the War Memorial Opera House, and using their website to draw audiences, the opera was relayed live to the stadium where 23,000 attended. This attendance has since been topped by this year’s simulcast of Tosca, which drew a crowd of 27,000.

Speaking of the first screening, the opera’s director of marketing Marcia Lazer told the Wallace Foundation;

“In our 2007-8 season, we analyzed our data base for the number of audience members 25-44 years old and found that 19 percent of our patrons were in that age range. One of our (…) goals over next few years is to increase that base by 15 percent.

“We scheduled a simulcast of Lucia di Lammermoor to AT&T Park in June 2008 and offered signups on the web, and that is probably the most important thing we did because it was the only way to get contact information. When we did a demographic overlay of the list, we found that 30 percent of our 9,000 signups were between 25 and 44. The best thing about the simulcasts is they invite in a much younger audience than we get in the opera house”.

Beyond the success of that single event, however, were the longer-term payoffs for the Opera in building a database of potential future ticket-buyers: 8,660 households signed up online for pre-event registration, 30 percent of whom were between 25 and 44, and more than 5,300 of the sign-ups were not previously on the Opera’s Tessitura database.

Those interested in attending next month’s free upcoming simulcast of Il Travatore can sign up here.  This link also offers the visitor the opportunity to hear extracts from the opera and to read a plot summary, as well as offering the opportunity to buy a picnic basket for the night out. Focaccia anyone?

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By James Kelly, August 17, 2009

Many will be familiar with TED – the ‘ideas’ conference which takes place annually in Long Beach, California. For those unfamiliar, the TED site is well worth a look – with hundreds of presentations on every kind of subject from becoming a buddha to the future of the electric car, there is, as the saying goes, something for everyone.

The TED site says; “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world“, so in this context it’s great to see a lot of interesting arts material to be found here. Some examples;

A talk by Brazilian visual artist Vik Muniz, (readers may have seen a solo exhibition of his work in IMMA some years back)

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an inspiring look at classical music and ‘one-buttock’ piano playing….

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Finally, poetry like I’ve never heard it performed before;

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