The classical music superstar Yo-Yo Ma traces the fate of the Festival Series at Bowling Green State
University.
He performed there in its first season back in April, 1981.
The concert was mentioned in a profile in the New York Times that announced the arrival of a new
classical music star. The proclamation proved prescient.
When Ma returned 19 years later he was a superstar. The kind of act that would pack the house.
Those are the performers audiences will come out to see, noted Jeffrey Showell, the dean of the College
of Musical Arts. They are also the kind of acts that are priced well beyond what the college can afford.
And performers, no matter how good, of less celebrity don’t draw the crowds.
After several years of soul-searching and experimentation, the college has decided to let the curtain
fall on the Festival Series, which was started in 1980 in conjunction with the opening of Kobacker Hall
in the Moore Center for the Musical Arts.
Attendance has continued to decline over the past couple years, Showell said. Even when world music
pioneer Hugh Masekela was in town in 2013, Kobacker was about two-thirds full.
More critical to the series’ bottomline, private money to underwrite the performances has dried up.
Money intended for education, the dean asserted, should not be spent on the series.
So jazz pianist and composer Jon Cowherd, who performed in April, sounded the final chord of the
35-year-old tradition.
Showell said efforts to broaden the audience, such as the screening of a vintage "Frankenstein"
accompanied by a live orchestra consisting of faculty members and graduate students, didn’t work.
Though not part of the series, the college also experimented last summer with a summer music series,
including a "Sound of Music" sing-along. That didn’t really generate audience interest either.
What is working for the college, Showell said, are the performers brought in through other endowments.
The Dorothy E. and DuWayne H. Hansen Musical Arts Series brings in top performers and speakers to campus
for residencies that can last several days. Last fall, the brothers Anthony McGill, flute, and Demarre
McGill clarinetist, were the Hansen fellows. They interacted with students, both teaching and answering
questions about their careers, and performing a recital.
It’s the kind of interaction that makes visiting artists so valuable – and that Ma, even though a
superstar, did very well.
Helen McMaster Endowed Professorship in Vocal and Choral Studies similarly brings those in the vocal arts
to campus. That’s included such world renown figures as bass Samuel Ramey and composer Libby Larsen.
Again, they not only performed, but taught.
To an extent, the Festival Series worked with these programs – The Thirteen, a vocal group, that
performed in fall came under auspices of the McMaster fund and performed a Festival Series concert.
Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, one of the most popular Festival Series performers, visited campus as
a Hansen scholar.
Now Showell said the college will market these guests in a more unified way.
Certainly the campus will not be bereft of performers.
David Bixler, the director of the jazz program, has been aggressive in bringing in guest artists, many
performers he has worked with in New York. This year alone, he’s brought in jazz saxophonist and
composer Jimmy Heath, alto saxophonist Jim Snidero and trombonist Conrad Herwig.
Also on the jazz front, an improvisation clinic sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, brought in
flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell for a show at the Clazel.
The MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music has its own Music on the Forefront series. Some of those
shows also use the Clazel as a venue.
Showell said he is passionate about finding new ways of presenting music, and that he’s found a
particularly strong ally in Emily Freeman Brown, the director of orchestral activities.
The orchestra, he said, is the most traditional of the ensembles and needs to pioneer the approach more
than wind bands and vocal ensembles.
Brown and the Bowling Green Philharmonia concluded the semester’s performance schedule with a concert
featuring "Pictures at a Exhibition" with original films by student filmmakers projected above
the orchestra, an experiment that will be repeated.
Brown has had audience members seated on the stage with the orchestra and allowed live tweeting at one
show.
Choral director Mark Munson also presented a multimedia spectacle this semester with "The Armed Man:
A Mass for Peace" and a group of faculty and graduate students brought Bach’s "Coffee
Cantata" back to its roots and performed
(See FINAL on 7)
it in a coffeeshop, Grounds for Thought.
All these are welcomed efforts to draw the audience into the music.
What those listeners will find is sheer excellence of performance.
Fans around the country would die to see Nicole Mitchell or Conrad Herwig, for example, perform free
show. And the $10 charged to hear Heath or Herwig with the university’s top big band is nominal, less
than the cost of cocktail in big city night club.
The performance faculty, all with stellar reputations, perform regularly.
The demise of the Festival Series is sad, but not surprising. Such series are struggling mightily
nationwide. Festivals that can bring in the bigger names do better, and smaller series that rely on
local and regional talent are hanging on.
Still the university will continue to offer more performances than music lovers can fit into their
schedules. They just need to take note, and then go. Otherwise they are missing out.
