The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

120 events per year, and they have made
a real commitment to promoting culture in
Sacramento and the Davis areas. Their operating
budget per year is in the area of five million
dollars. They have presented groups and
individuals such as the London Philharmonic,
the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the San Francisco
Symphony, Bill Clinton, Karen Hughes, and
Michael Moore. They have incredible jazz
programs and dance programs. Some of the
top companies from around the world have performed
there. As I recall, the Mondavi management
has identified 63 events that are geared
toward diversity, and these programs originate
from five continents and represent 21 countries.
With all the planning and drawing on performers
from around the world, you would think the
Center would be a great success. It sounds like a
perfect example of a large cultural organization
responding to what it sees as the cultural needs
of Sacramento and the area. Unfortunately,
what has become increasingly evident is that
Sacramentans and Davisites are not responding.
The hall seats 1,664 individuals, yet often you
can be there, for example, at the Beijing Opera,
and only 150 people are in the audience. This
is something that has been recurring at the
Center. Certain companies, like the Julliard
String Quartet, came, and they only had 200
people in the audience. Eurythmy, which is a
major, major tenant of the Waldorf School in
California—especially in Sacramento, where
there are a lot of Waldorf institutions—only had
200 people in the audience. That is less than
1/8 of the entire seating capacity for these
events. So, the community is not responding.
In retrospect, some of the reasons why these
cultural programs aren’t succeeding are pretty
obvious. Their effort at promoting Chinese history
was the Beijing Opera. For many people,
myself included—I grew up on the East coast—
Chinese culture in America is a completely
different culture from Chinese culture in China.
I probably had the same experience with the
Beijing Opera as most people have with the
circus when they experience it for the first time.
Those clowns scare the heck out of you! I was six
years old, I saw the Beijing Opera, and I freaked
out. It had nothing to do with my experiences,
my background. As a Chinese American, there
is no reason why I would be compelled to see
the Beijing Opera simply because it is supposed
to be representative of an aspect of my culture.
Now, to the opposite. The Oakland East Bay
Symphony is directed by Michael Morgan,
who is also the conductor of the Sacramento
Philharmonic. The Oakland Symphony had an
experience similar to that of the Sacramento
Symphony, only about 10 years earlier. The
Oakland Symphony was a huge, sprawling, wonderful
orchestra that went bankrupt in, I believe,
the ‘80s. Michael Morgan took the helm after
that event. He launched the revived orchestra
into some creative programming. The programming
featured crossover types of performances
in which, for example, he presented opera and
Broadway, like Bohème on Broadway or something
similar. In addition to Oakland East Bay’s
crossover programs, the orchestra audiences are
incredible. They are fierce. They are enthusiastic.
They jump to their feet, they clap, whatever.
I am going to give you an idea of some of the
programming. One of the programs that they
have had is Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and
Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4. Then, after that,
they had a piece that was called Omnivorous
Furniture, a sinfoniette for an orchestra. Another
one of their programs featured a very popular
DJ in Oakland, DJ Spooky, and the attraction
was not necessarily having DJ Spooky perform,
but they commissioned a piece in which the
first part of the concert was Bolero and the last
part of the concert was Beethoven’s Seventh,
and in the middle of it, they had the composer
create a construct where DJ Spooky could
improvise. It was little snippets of Bolero and
little snippets of Beethoven’s Seventh, and
then it had whatever DJ Spooky wanted to do.
Michael Morgan said it was one of the scariest
performances of his entire life. It was really quite
wonderful. But the thing is, in that instance is
something that is succeeding incredibly well.
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