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mojosmomNo, don't go rushing off looking for tickets. Here's what happened.
I went to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last night. The first piece of the second half was Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra. Before it was played, the conductor, Mark Elder, addressed the audience, beginning, "I know most of you came for the Brahms . . .", and then discussed the Webern a bit. A then he said that, after the concert, they would play the Webern again (it's incredibly short - about five minutes), and said that he would invite us (or as many as could be accommodated) to join them on the stage (it's a small orchestra - 19 - for this piece), to, as he put it, "enter our space". So I stayed! It's an intriguing piece, and it was most interesting to listen to the musicians sitting behind them, seeing the hall they way they see it. And Elder talked about the piece for several minutes before hand, having different musicians demonstrate with a note or chord or two what Webern was doing with the instruments. I had such a good time!
This shows the importance of having subscriptions*. I rarely go to the Symphony (not a lack of desire, but a lack of time, money and organization!), but I got talked into a four-concert series. I'd have missed this! CSO is getting a bit more, well, "informal" comes to mind, but that's not quite right. It's more a "demystification" of classical music, via this sort of educational component, early evening "after work" concerts, etc.
Before the concert, I stopped off at a home décor boutique across the street from where I live, as they were having a holiday open house. I had a pomegranate martini (excellent, by the way) and scoped out some cute things. I didn't want to buy as I didn't want to carry packages downtown, but I'm going to go back tomorrow and take advantage of their 20% discount on holiday decorations. Saw some very pretty artist-made Christmas tree balls that will make nice stocking-stuffers.
Last weekend, I went out in the nasty weather for a concert of German Renaissance Christmas music by the Newberry Consort. It was at Saint Clement Catholic Church, which is a gorgeous, Byzantine-inspired church on Chicago's north side. Wish I'd brought my camera! It's not, though, the greatest place for a concert, despite excellent acoustics, at least not for the Consort, because it lacks the intimacy that I associate with this group. (Not to mention that the altar is between the audience and the musicians!) The music was glorious, lots of Praetorius, plus some other folks, including Martin Luther himself (who was, by the way, a very accomplished musician, composer and singer).
*Speaking of which, Danny Newman, who practically single-handedly invented the subscription series, died recently. Danny Newman: 1919 - 2007
Legendary promoter of Lyric, the arts
By John von Rhein
Tribune music critic
December 3, 2007
Throughout his 42 seasons with Lyric Opera of Chicago, the closest Danny Newman came to performing onstage at the Civic Opera House was as a bearer of bad tidings. It was his job to tell audiences that the diva they had come to hear was out with the flu, or that the tenor had laryngitis but would soldier on anyway. "La-dies and gen-tle-men ... " he would begin, his voice ringing with clarion fervor, like a latter-day Moses delivering the 10 Commandments.
Newman, the dynamic longtime press agent for Lyric Opera and a veteran arts and entertainment promoter who revolutionized the way live performances are marketed to audiences via subscriptions, died Saturday night at his home in Lincolnwood. He was 88.
He died of pulmonary fibrosis, according to his wife, Alyce, who was with him when he died. The Chicago native had been in declining health since undergoing spinal surgery in 2004 as a result of a fall at the couple's home.
"Danny was one of the godfathers, if not the godfather, of Lyric Opera," said William Mason, the company's general director. "Without him, who knows whether there would be a Lyric Opera, and who knows whether there would be a lot of arts organizations in this country. He was one of the greatest arts patrons of the last half-century. What he did to help theater companies, symphonies, ballets and opera companies across the U.S. and Canada build a sound financial base was incalculable."
Newman's most important achievement was his deep and lasting impact on how non-profit arts groups build their audience bases. He was responsible, virtually by himself, for the now almost universal use of subscription ticket sales in the performing arts.
His genius for selling tickets and conjuring subscription audiences seemingly out of thin air benefited countless performing arts institutions worldwide and made Newman an institution in his own right.
His 1977 book, "Subscribe Now!," used in 31 countries and printed in 10 editions, has become a textbook in many graduate schools of arts management.
"I'm not a publicist or a director of public relations. I'm a press agent, even though that's a pejorative term now," Newman told an interviewer in 2001, the year he retired as Lyric Opera's public-relations counsel.
He was the only remaining member of Lyric Opera's original administrative staff from 1954, when the organization was founded as Lyric Theatre of Chicago.
Hottest tickets in town
Early on, Newman realized the only way the fledgling company would survive was to build a loyal base of subscribers. And so he aggressively launched the Lyric's first subscription campaign in 1955.
As the artistic quality grew and the Lyric's international fame increased, so did the demand for tickets. As a direct result of Newman's marketing initiatives, Lyric performances became among the hottest tickets in town. For numerous seasons, the company reported capacity ticket sales at the 3,500-seat Civic Opera House, and the present subscriber roll stands at more than 33,000, according to the Lyric's marketing department.
A short, round man with white tufts at his temples and smiling eyes behind big spectacles, Newman was part P.T. Barnum, part Billy Sunday.
For more than six decades his press releases trumpeted the virtues of vaudeville acts, crooners, blues belters, opera divas, actors and dancers. His season-ticket brochures sang with baroque verbiage as inimitable as his velvet fedora.
During a career that began in 1933 when he became, at 14, the publicist/manager of a Chicago theater troupe, Newman juggled many roles in show business and the performing arts, each with a colorful flair unique to him. He served as a manager, actor, scriptwriter, impresario, publicist, agent and producer -- wherever his skills at flackery could prove most useful.
But it was as the era's supreme guru of subscription sales that Newman scored his most lasting influence.
Committing patrons in advance to a season-long slate of performances was, in his view, the most cost-effective, longest-lasting solution to the ongoing problem of empty seats in theaters, concert halls and opera houses. Everywhere he went, he talked up the subscription concept. His evangelical rants against "the slothful, fickle single-ticket buyer" versus "the saintly season subscriber" became enshrined in legend.
"Some people in the arts have an aversion to selling," he told the Tribune's Richard Christiansen in 1997. "But the wise ones know that their art has been made possible through my subscriptions."
Crisscrossing the globe as a consultant for the Ford Foundation and the Theater Communications Group, beginning in 1961, Newman helped launch subscription campaigns at more than 500 arts organizations on five continents, in countries from Finland to the Philippines.
W. McNeil Lowry, vice president of the Ford Foundation, once said Newman did "more for the performing arts in this country than 10 foundations."
Everywhere Newman went, it seemed, the gospel according to Danny helped turn countless casual concert and operagoers into committed subscribers.
To prove it, he would trot out 104 pages of single-spaced quotes from arts leaders praising his audience-building.
"Danny was the godfather, the founder of the feast," said Roche Schulfer, executive director of the Goodman Theatre. "He invented the method that allowed theaters to prosper across the country."
Newman's talent for the hard sell and the publicity cravings of opera singers were a match made in press-agent heaven. Thanks to his efforts, performers such as Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi were greeted by cadres of flashbulb-popping newspaper photographers the instant they arrived at O'Hare International Airport. He personally delivered the photo negatives to the city's seven dailies and even wrote the captions for the grateful editors.
Joined acting troupe at 14
The son of a tobacconist was attracted to the theater as a boy. Newman was raised in Rogers Park and began selling subscriptions door to door at 14 when he joined an acting troupe called the Mummers of Chicago. As a young press agent, he beat the drums for just about every vaudeville act that came along: lion tamers, ventriloquists, acrobats, jugglers, strippers, you name it.
He served in the Army at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, when he was wounded twice and won the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and five battle stars. In 1948 he married his first wife, the stage and screen actress Dina Halpern, who died in 1989.
After his military service Newman returned to Chicago.
From 1946 to 1951 he co-produced the pioneer celebrity radio show "Famous Names," hosted by Mike Wallace, later of "60 Minutes" fame.
In Chicago, he publicized concerts and recitals for the former Allied Arts Corporation and was executive producer for the Chicago Yiddish Theatre Association.
Newman received many honors, including a knighthood from the Italian government and the Gold Baton Award of the American Symphony Orchestra League. A consortium of 150 Boston arts organizations named him its "Arts Angel," and the Vancouver Symphony commissioned a symphonic work in his honor. He held honorary degrees from DePaul and Roosevelt Universities in Chicago.
One of Newman's final projects was an anecdote-rich book of profiles of famous people he knew in show business and the performing arts. Titled "Tales of a Theatrical Guru," it was published in 2006 by the University of Illinois Press.
On the occasion of Newman's 88th birthday, last Jan. 24, Lyric Opera named its box office for him, inscribing his famous motto, "Subscribe Now!," on the box-office wall.
In addition to his wife, Newman is survived by stepsons Paul Andre Katz and Leonard Katz. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Weinstein Funeral Homes, 111 Skokie Blvd., Wilmette.
I went to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last night. The first piece of the second half was Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra. Before it was played, the conductor, Mark Elder, addressed the audience, beginning, "I know most of you came for the Brahms . . .", and then discussed the Webern a bit. A then he said that, after the concert, they would play the Webern again (it's incredibly short - about five minutes), and said that he would invite us (or as many as could be accommodated) to join them on the stage (it's a small orchestra - 19 - for this piece), to, as he put it, "enter our space". So I stayed! It's an intriguing piece, and it was most interesting to listen to the musicians sitting behind them, seeing the hall they way they see it. And Elder talked about the piece for several minutes before hand, having different musicians demonstrate with a note or chord or two what Webern was doing with the instruments. I had such a good time!
This shows the importance of having subscriptions*. I rarely go to the Symphony (not a lack of desire, but a lack of time, money and organization!), but I got talked into a four-concert series. I'd have missed this! CSO is getting a bit more, well, "informal" comes to mind, but that's not quite right. It's more a "demystification" of classical music, via this sort of educational component, early evening "after work" concerts, etc.
Before the concert, I stopped off at a home décor boutique across the street from where I live, as they were having a holiday open house. I had a pomegranate martini (excellent, by the way) and scoped out some cute things. I didn't want to buy as I didn't want to carry packages downtown, but I'm going to go back tomorrow and take advantage of their 20% discount on holiday decorations. Saw some very pretty artist-made Christmas tree balls that will make nice stocking-stuffers.
Last weekend, I went out in the nasty weather for a concert of German Renaissance Christmas music by the Newberry Consort. It was at Saint Clement Catholic Church, which is a gorgeous, Byzantine-inspired church on Chicago's north side. Wish I'd brought my camera! It's not, though, the greatest place for a concert, despite excellent acoustics, at least not for the Consort, because it lacks the intimacy that I associate with this group. (Not to mention that the altar is between the audience and the musicians!) The music was glorious, lots of Praetorius, plus some other folks, including Martin Luther himself (who was, by the way, a very accomplished musician, composer and singer).
*Speaking of which, Danny Newman, who practically single-handedly invented the subscription series, died recently. Danny Newman: 1919 - 2007
Legendary promoter of Lyric, the arts
By John von Rhein
Tribune music critic
December 3, 2007
Throughout his 42 seasons with Lyric Opera of Chicago, the closest Danny Newman came to performing onstage at the Civic Opera House was as a bearer of bad tidings. It was his job to tell audiences that the diva they had come to hear was out with the flu, or that the tenor had laryngitis but would soldier on anyway. "La-dies and gen-tle-men ... " he would begin, his voice ringing with clarion fervor, like a latter-day Moses delivering the 10 Commandments.
Newman, the dynamic longtime press agent for Lyric Opera and a veteran arts and entertainment promoter who revolutionized the way live performances are marketed to audiences via subscriptions, died Saturday night at his home in Lincolnwood. He was 88.
He died of pulmonary fibrosis, according to his wife, Alyce, who was with him when he died. The Chicago native had been in declining health since undergoing spinal surgery in 2004 as a result of a fall at the couple's home.
"Danny was one of the godfathers, if not the godfather, of Lyric Opera," said William Mason, the company's general director. "Without him, who knows whether there would be a Lyric Opera, and who knows whether there would be a lot of arts organizations in this country. He was one of the greatest arts patrons of the last half-century. What he did to help theater companies, symphonies, ballets and opera companies across the U.S. and Canada build a sound financial base was incalculable."
Newman's most important achievement was his deep and lasting impact on how non-profit arts groups build their audience bases. He was responsible, virtually by himself, for the now almost universal use of subscription ticket sales in the performing arts.
His genius for selling tickets and conjuring subscription audiences seemingly out of thin air benefited countless performing arts institutions worldwide and made Newman an institution in his own right.
His 1977 book, "Subscribe Now!," used in 31 countries and printed in 10 editions, has become a textbook in many graduate schools of arts management.
"I'm not a publicist or a director of public relations. I'm a press agent, even though that's a pejorative term now," Newman told an interviewer in 2001, the year he retired as Lyric Opera's public-relations counsel.
He was the only remaining member of Lyric Opera's original administrative staff from 1954, when the organization was founded as Lyric Theatre of Chicago.
Hottest tickets in town
Early on, Newman realized the only way the fledgling company would survive was to build a loyal base of subscribers. And so he aggressively launched the Lyric's first subscription campaign in 1955.
As the artistic quality grew and the Lyric's international fame increased, so did the demand for tickets. As a direct result of Newman's marketing initiatives, Lyric performances became among the hottest tickets in town. For numerous seasons, the company reported capacity ticket sales at the 3,500-seat Civic Opera House, and the present subscriber roll stands at more than 33,000, according to the Lyric's marketing department.
A short, round man with white tufts at his temples and smiling eyes behind big spectacles, Newman was part P.T. Barnum, part Billy Sunday.
For more than six decades his press releases trumpeted the virtues of vaudeville acts, crooners, blues belters, opera divas, actors and dancers. His season-ticket brochures sang with baroque verbiage as inimitable as his velvet fedora.
During a career that began in 1933 when he became, at 14, the publicist/manager of a Chicago theater troupe, Newman juggled many roles in show business and the performing arts, each with a colorful flair unique to him. He served as a manager, actor, scriptwriter, impresario, publicist, agent and producer -- wherever his skills at flackery could prove most useful.
But it was as the era's supreme guru of subscription sales that Newman scored his most lasting influence.
Committing patrons in advance to a season-long slate of performances was, in his view, the most cost-effective, longest-lasting solution to the ongoing problem of empty seats in theaters, concert halls and opera houses. Everywhere he went, he talked up the subscription concept. His evangelical rants against "the slothful, fickle single-ticket buyer" versus "the saintly season subscriber" became enshrined in legend.
"Some people in the arts have an aversion to selling," he told the Tribune's Richard Christiansen in 1997. "But the wise ones know that their art has been made possible through my subscriptions."
Crisscrossing the globe as a consultant for the Ford Foundation and the Theater Communications Group, beginning in 1961, Newman helped launch subscription campaigns at more than 500 arts organizations on five continents, in countries from Finland to the Philippines.
W. McNeil Lowry, vice president of the Ford Foundation, once said Newman did "more for the performing arts in this country than 10 foundations."
Everywhere Newman went, it seemed, the gospel according to Danny helped turn countless casual concert and operagoers into committed subscribers.
To prove it, he would trot out 104 pages of single-spaced quotes from arts leaders praising his audience-building.
"Danny was the godfather, the founder of the feast," said Roche Schulfer, executive director of the Goodman Theatre. "He invented the method that allowed theaters to prosper across the country."
Newman's talent for the hard sell and the publicity cravings of opera singers were a match made in press-agent heaven. Thanks to his efforts, performers such as Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi were greeted by cadres of flashbulb-popping newspaper photographers the instant they arrived at O'Hare International Airport. He personally delivered the photo negatives to the city's seven dailies and even wrote the captions for the grateful editors.
Joined acting troupe at 14
The son of a tobacconist was attracted to the theater as a boy. Newman was raised in Rogers Park and began selling subscriptions door to door at 14 when he joined an acting troupe called the Mummers of Chicago. As a young press agent, he beat the drums for just about every vaudeville act that came along: lion tamers, ventriloquists, acrobats, jugglers, strippers, you name it.
He served in the Army at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, when he was wounded twice and won the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and five battle stars. In 1948 he married his first wife, the stage and screen actress Dina Halpern, who died in 1989.
After his military service Newman returned to Chicago.
From 1946 to 1951 he co-produced the pioneer celebrity radio show "Famous Names," hosted by Mike Wallace, later of "60 Minutes" fame.
In Chicago, he publicized concerts and recitals for the former Allied Arts Corporation and was executive producer for the Chicago Yiddish Theatre Association.
Newman received many honors, including a knighthood from the Italian government and the Gold Baton Award of the American Symphony Orchestra League. A consortium of 150 Boston arts organizations named him its "Arts Angel," and the Vancouver Symphony commissioned a symphonic work in his honor. He held honorary degrees from DePaul and Roosevelt Universities in Chicago.
One of Newman's final projects was an anecdote-rich book of profiles of famous people he knew in show business and the performing arts. Titled "Tales of a Theatrical Guru," it was published in 2006 by the University of Illinois Press.
On the occasion of Newman's 88th birthday, last Jan. 24, Lyric Opera named its box office for him, inscribing his famous motto, "Subscribe Now!," on the box-office wall.
In addition to his wife, Newman is survived by stepsons Paul Andre Katz and Leonard Katz. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Weinstein Funeral Homes, 111 Skokie Blvd., Wilmette.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 09:29 pm (UTC)Which brand of vodka, BTW? Three Olives? I work in the liquor industry.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:01 pm (UTC)Actually, I have no idea!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:16 pm (UTC)