Music Dictator Wish List

[Brahmsian]

Alright, you have been named the world's first official Classical Music Dictator. 

Your reign is short and you only have time to implement one official law.

What is your decree?

Order the destruction of all music ever written for the recorder and destruction of all said recorders.

Have fun.    Remember that you only have the opportunity to implement one law.

[amw]

Set government funding for the arts in all countries around the world at a suitable level to support approximately one professional orchestra, opera company, or similar organisation per 100,000 people without need for profits or donations, pegged to the rate of inflation.

[Brahmsian]

Set government funding for the arts in all countries around the world at a suitable level to support approximately one professional orchestra, opera company, or similar organisation per 100,000 people without need for profits or donations, pegged to the rate of inflation.

Ooooh. I like that! 

[Brian]

Set government funding for the arts in all countries around the world at a suitable level to support approximately one professional orchestra, opera company, or similar organisation per 100,000 people without need for profits or donations, pegged to the rate of inflation.

Purely for fun, I decided to map out an imaginary plan for the USA under this dictatorship. We'd have about 3,250 orchestras, opera companies, ballets, or chamber music series/festivals under this plan. So I thought, what would that look like?

I decided to imagine a need for multiple orchestras in a large number of cities, to account for new NPR Orchestras and maybe the occasional baroque or contemporary specialist. Ultimately I came up with this plan:

- New York City: six orchestras, three operas, two ballets, fifteen additional chamber/piano/organ/festival etc. orgs (26)
- Los Angeles: three orchestras, two operas, two ballets, ten additional orgs (17)
- Chicago: two of each big ensemble, ten additional (16)
- Houston: two of each big ensemble, ten additional (16)
- cities #5-11: two orchestras, one opera, one ballet, six additional orgs (10)
- cities #12-50: one or two orchestras depending on proximity to a larger city, one opera or ballet, three additional orgs (5-6)

This gets us down to cities like Wichita, Anaheim, Corpus Christie, and Aurora, CO. For these I'm thinking one orchestra and one additional organization/festival. So then my question was: how many more cities could we include?

Well, in the top 50 cities we have roughly 300 organizations. That leaves us with 2,950 left to allocate. The USA has only 317 cities with a population over 100,000, so let's say that if you're in cities #51-317, you get an orchestra and some other thing, and even then, we're still left with 2,400 organizations left to fund!

So then we add Puerto Rico, which needs its own "national" versions of all the big ensembles, and has 5 biggish cities. We can get them 15 easily.

Then, I'd say we'd need at least two cool rural performing festivals per state/island, to compete with European festivals in places like Spoleto and Colmar and that one island in Finland with all the organs. Maybe three. Let's go with three. So that's 153 more.

Then, we definitely have to give orchestras to medium-sized cities with populations between 48,000 and 100,000. That's 470 more cities like Charleston, West Virginia; Enid, Oklahoma; Galveston, Texas; Elkhart, Indiana; Pensacola, Florida; and Hoboken, New Jersey. Many of them are suburbs. But hey, a lot of educated people live in the suburbs!

Now we're down to about 1,750 more orgs. Retroactively, I think I goofed giving too few to the big cities. NYC, for example, has enough performing groups, under amw's rule of thumb, for just 1.4 million people. So let's throw a lot more money at America's ten biggest cities to create specialty ensembles that can cater to weird niches with global reach, like baroque opera companies (Dallas has one in real life), wind bands, and an annual attempt to perform Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony. Down to 1,600.

One more thought: some of our smaller states are getting deprived because they don't have cities. Wyoming, for example, would receive just two orchestras and three rural festivals. Vermont would have no orchestras or full-time organizations at all. So for these small states, we'll have State Orchestras and radio groups. Add 20 more groups to our tally.

Then I'd say the government should subsidize ways to get all this music to be heard. Arts radio networks, record labels, a streaming service that pays artists more than $0.01. Publishing houses. Also: means to generate new music. Composer retreats. Instrument invention prizes. A recorder for every kid (hi, OrchestralNut  ). Down to about 1,400.

And, finally, any money left over would go to schools, conservatories, master classes, and tutoring.

[Brahmsian]

Purely for fun, I decided to map out an imaginary plan for the USA under this dictatorship. We'd have about 3,250 orchestras, opera companies, ballets, or chamber music series/festivals under this plan. So I thought, what would that look like?

I decided to imagine a need for multiple orchestras in a large number of cities, to account for new NPR Orchestras and maybe the occasional baroque or contemporary specialist. Ultimately I came up with this plan:

- New York City: six orchestras, three operas, two ballets, fifteen additional chamber/piano/organ/festival etc. orgs (26)
- Los Angeles: three orchestras, two operas, two ballets, ten additional orgs (17)
- Chicago: two of each big ensemble, ten additional (16)
- Houston: two of each big ensemble, ten additional (16)
- cities #5-11: two orchestras, one opera, one ballet, six additional orgs (10)
- cities #12-50: one or two orchestras depending on proximity to a larger city, one opera or ballet, three additional orgs (5-6)

This gets us down to cities like Wichita, Anaheim, Corpus Christie, and Aurora, CO. For these I'm thinking one orchestra and one additional organization/festival. So then my question was: how many more cities could we include?

Well, in the top 50 cities we have roughly 300 organizations. That leaves us with 2,950 left to allocate. The USA has only 317 cities with a population over 100,000, so let's say that if you're in cities #51-317, you get an orchestra and some other thing, and even then, we're still left with 2,400 organizations left to fund!

So then we add Puerto Rico, which needs its own "national" versions of all the big ensembles, and has 5 biggish cities. We can get them 15 easily.

Then, I'd say we'd need at least two cool rural performing festivals per state/island, to compete with European festivals in places like Spoleto and Colmar and that one island in Finland with all the organs. Maybe three. Let's go with three. So that's 153 more.

Then, we definitely have to give orchestras to medium-sized cities with populations between 48,000 and 100,000. That's 470 more cities like Charleston, West Virginia; Enid, Oklahoma; Galveston, Texas; Elkhart, Indiana; Pensacola, Florida; and Hoboken, New Jersey. Many of them are suburbs. But hey, a lot of educated people live in the suburbs!

Now we're down to about 1,750 more orgs. Retroactively, I think I goofed giving too few to the big cities. NYC, for example, has enough performing groups, under amw's rule of thumb, for just 1.4 million people. So let's throw a lot more money at America's ten biggest cities to create specialty ensembles that can cater to weird niches with global reach, like baroque opera companies (Dallas has one in real life), wind bands, and an annual attempt to perform Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony. Down to 1,600.

One more thought: some of our smaller states are getting deprived because they don't have cities. Wyoming, for example, would receive just two orchestras and three rural festivals. Vermont would have no orchestras or full-time organizations at all. So for these small states, we'll have State Orchestras and radio groups. Add 20 more groups to our tally.

Then I'd say the government should subsidize ways to get all this music to be heard. Arts radio networks, record labels, a streaming service that pays artists more than $0.01. Publishing houses. Also: means to generate new music. Composer retreats. Instrument invention prizes. A recorder for every kid (hi, OrchestralNut  ). Down to about 1,400.

And, finally, any money left over would go to schools, conservatories, master classes, and tutoring.

Ha ha, Brian!! 

Boy oh boy...... You have put a lot of thought into this. You're in charge of implementation!

[Todd]

Well, in the top 50 cities we have roughly 300 organizations. That leaves us with 2,950 left to allocate. The USA has only 317 cities with a population over 100,000, so let's say that if you're in cities #51-317, you get an orchestra and some other thing, and even then, we're still left with 2,400 organizations left to fund!

Too complex.  I would think it quicker and easier to use the OMB's MSA and μSA designations.  Assuming a lot of money would come from the feds, this would also have the built-in benefit of using existing allocation models.

I, for one, would not mind some type of summer festival being set up in the Moses Lake-Othello Combined Statistical Area.

[Florestan]

Alright, you have been named the world's first official Classical Music Dictator. 

Your reign is short and you only have time to implement one official law.

What is your decree?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of musical canon or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

[Florestan]

Set government funding for the arts in all countries around the world at a suitable level to support approximately one professional orchestra, opera company, or similar organisation per 100,000 people without need for profits or donations, pegged to the rate of inflation.

Or else what?

[Wanderer]

I'd commission a piece of performance art, in which one or numerous performers, impersonating iconic operatic characters, blow up a pile of Boulez manuscripts. To be repeated every year on 5 January. Multiple simultaneous performances encouraged.  0:)

[steve ridgway]

Radio stations shall not play a particular recording of a piece again until they've played all the other recordings.

[71 dB]

Order the destruction of all music ever written for the recorder and destruction of all said recorders.

My music education in school was so lousy I wasn't even forced to play recorder. I don't have a reason to hate recorders and I don't. I would be a benevolent dictator. No destruction of anything. You can make me your dictator safely: Your favourite music is not in danger.  0:)

[71 dB]

Radio stations shall not play a particular recording of a piece again until they've played all the other recordings.

So, if only 25 % of the recordings are good, radio stations are playing bad performances 75 % of the time? 

[Florestan]

My music education in school was so lousy I wasn't even forced to play recorder. I don't have a reason to hate recorders and I don't. I would be a benevolent dictator. No destruction of anything. You can make me your dictator safely: Your favourite music is not in danger.  0:)

Article the First, the One and the Only: Everyone shall be entitled to listen to whatever they wish.

[Florestan]

So, if only 25 % of the recordings are good, radio stations are playing bad performances 75 % of the time? 

Good point.

[DavidW]

I would do two things:

Bring back music instruction to all schools.

Require radio to play entire works and not just individual movements.

[Florestan]

I would do two things:

Bring back music instruction to all schools.

Require radio to play entire works and not just individual movements.

Thread winner.

[Wanderer]

I would do two things:

Bring back music instruction to all schools.

Require radio to play entire works and not just individual movements.

Δαυΐδ ο Σοφός. 

[vandermolen]

Ban the 'New Year's Day Concert from Vienna' and have everyone associated with it arrested and thrown into prison without trial. 

[steve ridgway]

So, if only 25 % of the recordings are good, radio stations are playing bad performances 75 % of the time? 

Listeners might come to think why they're good or bad, and even debate them on forums.

[steve ridgway]

My music education in school was so lousy I wasn't even forced to play recorder. I don't have a reason to hate recorders and I don't.

Believe me, if you'd been forced to play recorder you'd hate them all right.