An Important Letter from an Important Choral Conductor
Greetings fellow musicians,
I am writing you because I feel you will be interested in what I have to say. I am very frustrated, to say the least, running my wonderful all-professional choir, The New York Virtuoso Singers (NYVS), which is just finishing its 21st season. And I am wondering if I have the mental fortitude and physical and mental energy to keep it going much longer. Sure, we have had scores of very positive reviews from the New York Times and many other publications. Sure we have won various awards, including the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming (multiple times). Sure we have collaborated dozens of times with orchestras, and have been invited by Tanglewood, Juilliard, etc. (see www.nyvirtuoso.org for more details). And of course there is the repertoire: a concentration on great published as well as unpublished works by living American composers, which we do more of than any other chorus in America. In the past three years alone, we have performed works by about 50 of them, including dozens of world premieres. We have an annual choral composition competition (I have received 3,000+ scores, and have gone through all of them). As a consultant and editor for G. Schirmer, I have submitted some and have been gratified to see a few of them published (in the Harold Rosenbaum Choral Series).
However, great forces are working against me and the choir and are taking their toll on me. Can you imagine what it feels like to schedule the complete a cappella choral works by John Harbison, including a world premiere written for us, and have the NY Times completely ignore us (no pre-concert Friday listing OR review). Same with all of the choral music of Elliott Carter (with a pre concert lecture by him). Plus there was a NY Premiere by Mr. Carter AND by Arnold Schoenberg on the program. Same with all the choral music of Charles Wuorinen. In fact, after mentioning every concert of ours for eight solid seasons in their Friday listings, The New York Times has not done so for any of the nine concerts in the last three seasons. And they have not reviewed us in three years. The New Yorker used to list EVERY ONE of my Canticum Novum Singers and New York Virtuoso Singers concerts. Now, once every few years they list one. The list goes on and on.
That’s only a small portion of what I am frustrated about. I am stunned at the small size audiences we get. When I did concerts for Ned Rorem’s 75th and again 80th birthdays (with the composer giving pre concert talks), we had small audiences. When I conducted a concert for peace and included Poulenc’s stunning masterpiece Figure Humaine, 50 people paid to see it. And a professional publicist was even engaged for that concert. She sent notices out to 17,000 media outlets, and the concert was listed in so many places! We regularly send season brochures, postcards for each concert, take paid ads on www.vocalareanetwork.org, the Calendar for New Music, and on WNYC. We send PatronMail announcements to 3,000 people 8 times per year. And our CD’s have been played on many radio stations this year. But as Elliott Carter says in a recent article in The New Music Connoisseur, “Contemporary music is very much more accepted in England than it is here, in general for many different reasons, but one of them is that it’s just been played more and more frequently. And it’s been more intelligently reviewed. …Serious music is taken seriously. I have a feeling that happens less and less in this country.”
When I did the Bach motets once with NYVS, we had a huge audience. But that is not what I want to do with this special group of enormously gifted professional singers. There are many other ensembles that are doing the standard repertoire. NYVS singers make the rounds of professional choirs, are happy to do so, and make a living doing that (plus other things to augment their income). But these singers, the most gifted of the many hundreds of professional choral singers in NYC, YEARN to do the difficult and sublime music that we do. It is a challenge that they and I are willing to take. It is a passion that we have to do this GREAT music that other groups shun. But where is the reward? It WOULD be nice, after spending $20,000 for a concert, to come home with more than $600-$800 in ticket sales. It would be nice for the collaborations with orchestras, opera companies and other organizations which we have so enjoyed, to return. We had one lined up with the Brooklyn Philharmonic (I’ve collaborated 58 times with them, more than a dozen with NYVS) for April. Regretfully, they had to cancel due to the same budgetary woes that are inflicting us all now.
It is not so much the financial problems that are bothering me, but the fact that we are being ignored by almost everyone. And if we cease to exist, then what? I have tried to interest the powers that be at Lincoln Center and other institutions in sponsoring an American choir which could tackle the great and varied American repertoire. Institutionalizing NYVS would benefit everyone. We could collaborate with American and visiting orchestras (We have over 400 singers on our roster). We could do retrospectives (Eight years ago I co-produced with Merkin Concert Hall 6 concerts of what I believed were the 50 greatest a cappella choral pieces of the 20th century, from 13 countries. About 135 people came to each concert. The small hall holds 457!!!). But, as Elliott Carter says in that interview, “The BBC, in general, has been very sympathetic to contemporary music, and it gradually developed quite a large public.” It’s such a shame that The New York Virtuoso Singers is not appreciated. Soon it might not be around at all. Now wouldn’t that be a tragedy! Why am I continually knocking my head against the wall? I could spend more time guest conducting, writing music, and playing with my grandkids (yes, I have two). If you have any suggestions for me, or could give me a bit of encouragement, especially with concrete news or info, that would be most welcome.
Harold Rosenbaum
914 763 3453
haroldrosenbaum@gmail.com
