The reason the musicians have a hard-line contract is because of PERPETUAL ABUSES of “the industry.”
So the composer gets caught in the middle.
But assuming that an orchestra should just “not be so strict about the rules” because we live in a new-media age is really naive. Some of the arguments surrounding this topic seem to border on that. “It’s not a big deal, relax, Mr. Recording enforcer” is not a viable solution to this problem.
Media, information, cultural practices, and the intersections between them are an issue facing society at all corners, due to the internet. Resolving them is going to take time, patience, and a willingness to examine all of our underlying assumptions about what music is, what the music ‘object’ is, what a recording really is, etc.
There is no easy answer to this, and I urge everyone to strongly resist the temptation to simplify the challenges.
]]>For what it’s worth the ensemble I lead [WCFSO in Iowa] makes all performance recordings of new works available not only to their composers but also – at each composer’s discretion – to the public online.
Now if we could figure out a way to loosen up these publishers …
]]>I see a lot of composers rallying their support and agreement here. Lovely, but please make sure y’all don’t forget that performers have rights for a really good reason, and at the end of the day, we’re all trying to balance making art and paying the bills.
I understand your frustration. You just want to refine and polish your craft. My choristers would love to do the same–it’s so vital to observe and listen to your product in order to listen critically and grow–but archival recordings are simply not legal.
If my choir were performing a Nico Muhly piece, we’d have to pay you and/or your publisher for recording your piece, via mechanical licensing, even if we didn’t sell the recording or upload it on a website. This is the legal right of the copyright holder of the music. We simply have to pay.
Conversely, if you want a recording of your work, it is the right of the performers to be compensated fairly. When using unionized musicians, pay them the standard rate, or bargain with the union reps before the rehearsal/performance process begins. It’s their right as performers. They are professionals, and they are doing their jobs. You said, “I understand that there are union regulations” and “I am really pro-Union for musicians.” Well then, show them your support. Financially.
Simply put, it’s not your right to have a recording of other people playing your music any more than I have a right to have a recording of my ensemble singing someone else’s music. Life costs money. If it costs too much for you, ask for that amount of money when you are negotiating and contracting your commission with the orchestra.
Yes, it sucks, but that’s how it works. You make money off of me, and I make money off of you; but in the end, you win. You get royalties when I buy your scores. You get royalties when I perform your (absolutely fantastic) music. You get royalties when I record and distribute a CD with your music on it. In this economy of reduced ticket sales and slashed funding for the arts, performers and ensembles are lucky just to break even at the end of the day.
]]>Couldn’t agree more about the challenges facing young composers as they seek to get their music played by professional orchestras, and the importance of recordings to the growth of composers in writing for orchestra. As the executive at American Composers Orchestra, we’ve got a big stake in this whole question, and have been wrestling/brainstorming many of the issues you point out for many years—and dedicating ourselves to trying to change some of that. For example, at ACO, we always make recordings available to composers for use in their portfolios, for study purposes, for applications and grant proposals, etc., whether in our annual Underwood New Music Readings for emerging composers, or on our concert programs. When it comes to Readings, we even construct the program, so that each composer gets two shots with the orchestra: a working rehearsal and then a touch-up and run-through a day later. In between the two sessions, each composer gets feedback from mentor composers (who act as extra sets of informed ears), musicians, and the conductor, and has the opportunity to make edits and notes to pass along to the conductor and the orchestra. The two-step process allows for the kinds of changes related to dynamic, articulations, and orchestral doublings, and interpretation that help improve the quality of the performance, and help the composer grow in his/her work.
The fact is that providing an archival recording to a composer is something of a “gray area.” It’s not really addressed in any of the national agreements, and it is subject to interpretation. Each orchestra may be different. Lacking clarity, the knee-jerk — play it safe reaction from some orchestras may just be to say “no.” But that is not always the case.
You may be interested to know that ACO is also working with other orchestras around the country to improve the situation, at least as far as Readings go. The EarShot network (run by ACO in cooperation with Meet The Composer, League of American Orchestras, American Composers Forum, and American Music Center) provides a toolkit of resources (such as program design, artistic, technical, production and financial support) too help orchestras around the country mount their own Readings and other composer development programs. EarShot is just a few years old, and still growing, but already we’ve worked with such orchestras as Nashville Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, and others to help them create great programs that provide the kind of support that really helps emerging composers. As part of the EarShot effort, we’ve even created a “template” for recordings use, that we provide to each orchestra we work with, in order to encourage them to provide composers with a recording. That template spells out the kinds of study and professional uses the recording may be used for, and the kinds of limited “one-off” duplication that are permissible (while clearly prohibiting broadcast, commercial recording, internet, or other mechanisms for distributing the music to the general public). The template has worked well as a way to focus orchestra managements and players on the issues facing composers, and to address some of the concerns orchestras have had about providing a recording to composers.
Michael Geller
Executive Director
American Composers Orchestra
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/09/11/when-composers-cant-hear-their-own-compositions/
]]>Enjoyed your blog post! I agree with so much of what you said, and those early experiences at Juilliard did truly become important for me in later projects, (especially the recordings).
Things in general seem to get better (Aaron Kernis and Minnesota Orchestra allowing recordings of the Composer’s Institute to be aired on NPR Minn. and the internet?!)…maybe it’s generational (i.e. we are the Napster gen.), or we are just more comfortable with technology and recordings than we used to be in the age of blogs,vlogs, remixes,etc.
I want to reiterate your last plea, of what we can do as composers to push back, forward, or whatever direction it takes, on the powers at be that prevent the “recording” or video (gasp!) of a performance from reaching our hands.
In certain way, us as composers have made life difficult for ourselves, or more likely future generations of composers, by not making more of a fuss about these issues in the past.
Too often listening/exchange of (orchestral) recordings become a sort of closeted activity amongst composers, committees, and academies.
Is it maybe the ambiguity of how we handle the problem that ultimately left us where we are? Or is it simply a result of submission to the weightiness of the organizations that we work with?
I leave you with those questions as they continue in my mind answered/unanswered.
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