Nanette McGuinness 00:00
[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Jennifer Higdon. [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]
Nanette McGuinness 00:28
Where do you hope to see the future of classical music go beyond what you were just saying?
Jennifer Higdon 00:33
Yeah... I want it to be healthy and surviving.
Nanette McGuinness 00:39
Mmhmm.
Jennifer Higdon 00:39
I worry a lot about opera. We're seeing a really dangerous, wild tipping of the boat.
Nanette McGuinness 00:46
Oh?
Jennifer Higdon 00:46
Yeah! Washington National Opera just left the Kennedy Center...
Nanette McGuinness 00:47
Yes.
Jennifer Higdon 00:48
...but I have... I am now talking to a lot of people in... in opera, both composers and administrators, just because I cross paths with them sometimes at conferences...
Nanette McGuinness 01:02
Yeah.
Jennifer Higdon 01:02
...and everybody is struggling financially because the model for putting on opera is really not working because it requires so much money.
Nanette McGuinness 01:11
It does, yeah.
Jennifer Higdon 01:12
You know, to have one show go down... doesn't sell well? But I think... I worry about orchestras, and I worry about... I think smaller ensembles are in better shape, quite frankly, because I think opera and orchestras are struggling to bring people in.
Nanette McGuinness 01:29
Yeah, when you own your own venue, you have a level of fixed costs that are....
Jennifer Higdon 01:33
Yeah.
Nanette McGuinness 01:34
...it's.... it's just brutal.
Jennifer Higdon 01:35
Right, right, exactly. I know.
Nanette McGuinness 01:38
Well, and it's in... Sorry, go ahead.
Jennifer Higdon 01:40
It's just one of those things we have to think... if we...it's the definition of insanity: if you keep doing something over and over, and it's not working, don't expect it to fix anything.
Nanette McGuinness 01:51
[laughter]
Jennifer Higdon 01:52
This is what I'm saying. You've got to program women. You need to kind of update what you're doing, and doing music from your own time makes a...
Nanette McGuinness 01:59
Yeah.
Jennifer Higdon 02:00
...big difference. It really does. So... but my hope for the art is that it survives. Right now, I'm feeling... things feel perilous to me.
Nanette McGuinness 02:09
I think that's part... part of the financial situation.
Jennifer Higdon 02:12
It is.
Nanette McGuinness 02:13
You know?
Jennifer Higdon 02:14
Yeah, it is. It's and it's... it is real, and I can see... I can see the entire economy of the world is shifting right now...
Nanette McGuinness 02:23
Yeah.
Jennifer Higdon 02:23
...because I know there's less funding over in Europe. The governments are pulling some of their funding from organizations that receive funding, and... and people in other countries aren't used to having individual donors step up.
Nanette McGuinness 02:34
Right.
Jennifer Higdon 02:34
But I also know that younger donors who have a lot of money are not giving to the arts.
Nanette McGuinness 02:39
Correct. They're... they're giving to social justice and and other very important needs. ,
Jennifer Higdon 02:44
Yeah, right, exactly. Or they're not giving. That's the other side of it. Some of the wealthiest people in the U.S. aren't giving at all. But I...
Nanette McGuinness 02:54
Oh, no!
Jennifer Higdon 02:54
I know. I mean, when you think about it, I don't think Elon Musk is giving any money whatsoever to any of the arts. I mean, there... and he is like one of the wealthiest people on the planet. So... and you know, it's interesting when Apple... Apple's founder, Steve Jobs, was around, he never gave out money either. He did not donate to anything...
Nanette McGuinness 02:55
Huh
Jennifer Higdon 02:55
...and it's it depends on the... the people you're looking at. I mean, I knew the Lenfests, Jerry and Marguerite Lenfest.
Nanette McGuinness 03:24
Okay.
Jennifer Higdon 03:25
They founded Comcast.
Nanette McGuinness 03:27
Ah.
Jennifer Higdon 03:27
They happened to be in... they lived in Philadelphia. They gave money to Curtis, and I was constantly crossing paths with them, and they gave... their big thing was to give all their money away, and they... they really made great strides in doing that, and it enabled a lot of art. So I've been... a lot of the things I've been involved with have had individual donors step up...
Nanette McGuinness 03:49
Mmhmm.
Jennifer Higdon 03:48
...to cover costs for things, for recordings, for... so I know the people are out there, and they're quietly doing their work, but I also worry that this may not continue going down the road because they're of a different generation that kind of valued art differently than younger people might now. So it's...
Nanette McGuinness 04:12
Mmm...
Jennifer Higdon 04:12
So I worry about the arts in terms of just surviving right now, and I think it's just because the world's in such a perilous state. It... it's on my mind all the time.
Nanette McGuinness 04:23
Yeah, no, that... that makes a lot of sense, that the current generations of kids and young adults, and even adults in their middle ages...
Jennifer Higdon 04:32
Right.
Nanette McGuinness 04:32
...they grew up when the arts, at least in America, had been cut from the schools.
Jennifer Higdon 04:36
That's right, and that this is we're starting to see the result of that. I mean, we're really seeing it actually in a pretty profound way, and I can tell because I'm just standing backstage talking to administrators after I've gone off, I've taken a bow, it's intermission, and we're standing there and just having a random conversation, and everyone's wrestling with the same thing: how do we keep it going?
Nanette McGuinness 04:56
Right.
Jennifer Higdon 04:56
That's the number one question, and I can tell. That it it permeates all levels of making art...
Nanette McGuinness 05:04
Absolutely.
Jennifer Higdon 05:05
...and it's also in the colleges right now. This is... the college applications in the arts has dropped tremendously. Very few colleges are getting as much as they were before the pandemic, or more... almost no one is getting more, but most places, they're cutting. They're cutting the program.
Nanette McGuinness 05:23
Yeah
Jennifer Higdon 05:23
So... so I'm worried because it looks like we're on... a knife's edge at the moment, and I'm not sure which way things are going to fall. So, had we talked like a year earlier, I might be saying something different.
Nanette McGuinness 05:37
[laughter]
Jennifer Higdon 05:37
But it does feel perilous right now. It really does.
Nanette McGuinness 05:40
It does, and the whole culture of philanthropy...
Jennifer Higdon 05:44
Yeah.
Nanette McGuinness 05:44
...has...
Jennifer Higdon 05:45
...shifted.
Nanette McGuinness 05:46
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Higdon 05:47
Yeah.
Nanette McGuinness 05:48
Yeah. No, I'm actually with you. I, in a sense, I watched opera change in the '90s. At first, people were saying "opera's dying," "opera's dying," and then all of a sudden, there was this resurgence, and funding went to opera, and everybody realized how powerful opera could be and started writing operas. And now the whole funding and money-I agree-it's perilous times.
Jennifer Higdon 06:11
It's scary. It is really scary, and I can see similar things happening in the orchestra world. It's just not as overt because they have more concerts, so they can absorb a concert that's less, but... but I was thinking about this because you know... Opera Philadelphia was really on the... on the edge, and 10 years ago yesterday...
Nanette McGuinness 06:29
Mmhmm.
Jennifer Higdon 06:29
...was the anniversary.... Basically, my opera went up; "Cold Mountain" went up in Philadelphia, Opera Philadelphia, 10 years ago. So 10 years ago, February 5...and that opera was the third highest-selling opera they had in their entire history.
Nanette McGuinness 06:29
Wow!
Jennifer Higdon 06:33
And I'm like, okay, so that... it wasn't the Mozart or the Verdi. I'm sure Mozart was in one or... position one or two, but it was pretty shocking that "Cold Mountain" turned out to be their third highest-selling in their history. So I was like, okay, so something contemporary can do well. It can.
Nanette McGuinness 07:05
Yes.
Jennifer Higdon 07:06
And my second opera sold out so fast that they added a performance. This was way in advance of the actual premiere.
Nanette McGuinness 07:11
Nice.
Jennifer Higdon 07:12
And then it sold out, and then they sold tickets to the dress rehearsal, which also sold out.
Nanette McGuinness 07:18
Congratulations.
Jennifer Higdon 07:18
And that was a chamber opera because I...
Nanette McGuinness 07:20
[laughter]
Jennifer Higdon 07:20
I realized after looking at "Cold Mountain" I was using these large forces and we'd figured out a way to do it so it didn't cost that much, but the second opera I'm like, I'm gonna do like 12 instruments and five singers. I wanted to make something more compact, but... but the crowds showing up to get tickets was unreal at both of those things. I... I was so stunned, especially since I'm not known in the opera world. It's not like I'm a known quantity.
Nanette McGuinness 07:48
Mmm.
Jennifer Higdon 07:48
I'm known for my instrumental music, which I think probably every critic mentioned. "She's known for her instrumental music."
Nanette McGuinness 07:53
[laughter]
Jennifer Higdon 07:54
I'm like, yeah.
Nanette McGuinness 07:55
Well, now you're...
Jennifer Higdon 07:55
Don't ask me to sing because I would sound awful! But... [laughter]
Nanette McGuinness 07:59
Well, now you're known for both your instrumental and your operas, right?
Jennifer Higdon 08:02
[laughter] Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. Maybe I'm still not known in opera world. I don't know. "Cold Mountain" is still getting done, even at small festivals and tiny little venues with, like... students on a stage, which is amazing when I think about it. But, yeah, it's interesting. But my hope, honestly, and... that was a huge answer to your question. My hope is just that it can survive and thrive and grow. That's really... right now, that's my main thought, and everything I do kind of goes in that direction. Trying to see if we can help prop it up in some ways, or something I notice that we can problem-solve.
Nanette McGuinness 08:40
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a wonderful hope and a great answer. So I think that's a good place to end our chat. So, thank you so much for joining us.
Jennifer Higdon 08:49
Oh, you're quite welcome. My pleasure, really.
Nanette McGuinness 08:53
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest Jennifer Higdon for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at www.e4tt.org. This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and Audio Engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts, and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]
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