Translated material
Season of experimentation
Yulia BEDEROVA spoke with the general producer of the House of Music, Grigory PAPISH, who began his work in this very young concert organization a year ago, about the past concert season and what awaits the public in the future.
— I’ll ask right away about what seemed particularly interesting to me on the list of future subscriptions. For example, a series of concerts in which Alexander Lazarev conducts different orchestras, in my opinion, looks very intriguing. How did this project come about?
- The idea was born spontaneously. Initially, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia had a desire to perform with Alexander Lazarev. We met with the maestro to discuss possible program options and during the conversation it became clear that he has so many ideas - extraordinary, truly creative, that limiting himself to one or two of his performances would be an unforgivable omission. This is how his personal subscription arose, in which Lazarev will conduct the music of Richard Strauss in an ensemble with the NPR, Glazunov and Prokofiev - with the Svetlanov State Symphony Orchestra and Brahms and Mahler's "Song of the Earth" - with the Russian National Orchestra.
— Is it possible in the House of Music that a musician offers a producer, say, a sophisticated program, but he is rejected because complex music is difficult to sell?
- This question cannot be answered unambiguously. On the one hand, we always support beautiful and bold musical ideas, on the other hand, there is a real economy in which we must work. Academic art generally rarely makes a profit, moreover, as a rule, it is an unprofitable field of activity for a producer. But today the House of Music has the fortunate opportunity to hold non-profitable concerts, partly thanks to the funds we earn ourselves by renting out halls, and partly thanks to attracting sponsors for individual projects. Every producer and organizer must think about what kind of audience and how to attract them to a specific project and, as a result, how to competently sell tickets. Today, a serious approach to marketing is no longer a dream, but a real task that we have set for ourselves and are solving.
— What do you think about competition in the music market and how does the House of Music intend to attract audiences who were initially unfamiliar with it?
- There must be competition. But she’s healthy. And this is only possible when the production organization has its own identity - its own strategy, its own concept for holding a concert season. Otherwise, we will inevitably continue to live in a rather sluggish, monotonous, event-poor concert field, where the same programs are shuffled, performed by the same musicians. Remember, this is exactly how things were quite recently. Today, in my opinion, concert life has greatly revived. If we talk about the House of Music, we have enormous opportunities both in terms of coverage and presentation of various genres, and in terms of attracting an audience. When designing the House of Music, the Moscow government included three modern, first-class equipped halls in the complex - Bolshoi, Chamber and Theater, which are at our disposal today. Our activities related to non-academic genres - jazz, world music, crossover, border areas - are developing very successfully. But this is exactly what is being done today in the world’s largest halls. Many people are familiar with our subscription series - “Jazz Olympus”, “World Stars in the House of Music”, and from the next season another one will be added to them - “Heroes of the Blues”. And the public who comes to concerts of these styles begins to become interested in what is happening in the House of Music.
Our main task today is to reach a stable level of ticket sales. This strategy also produces tangible results in terms of attracting the public.
— Are there any developments already since you came to the House of Music?
- We spent this season - the first season of work of the new team of the House of Music - not only interestingly: we worked passionately. Imagine the task: in the first half of the year we had to not only carry out all the projects planned by our predecessors, but at the same time develop a concept for the development of the House of Music and formulate the next season. We decided this: we have a Chamber Hall - warm in atmosphere, with good acoustics - and began to fill it with a variety of events, focusing on academic genres of various directions. They considered this economically not as unprofitable as if they had held interesting, but “negative” concerts at the Bolshoi. And today it is obvious that thanks to this strategy we killed two birds with one stone: we gave the musicians the opportunity to “speak out” and gradually accustomed the audience to go to concerts in the Chamber Hall. Moreover, by the end of the year, many of the projects we had planned were completed with financial benefits. Ancient and modern music, instrumental and vocal, sounded here. Here we presented a whole series of operas in concert performance: we tried what we are going to continue next season, but this time in the Great Hall, where the famous verist operas of Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni will be performed.
The story is similar with the Theater Hall, which has so-called “speech acoustics”. Until the 2005/06 season, theater events were mainly held here, but since this hall belongs to the House of Music, music should be presented here, and we began to saturate it with special musical projects. In it we will conduct a series of original songs with the participation of Alexander Dolsky, the Mischukov brothers, Tatyana and Sergei Nikitin. In addition, it will be possible to do projects there in the genre of “modern dance”, acoustic concerts of famous rock musicians who may appear there with unusual projects. Groups playing modern jazz and world music, which, in our opinion, will not attract an audience at the Svetlanov Hall, we can also present in this hall with 500 seats. As a result, the number of concerts has increased, and today the situation is such that the House of Music produces more than fifty percent of all events that take place in its halls. This is a very serious result, which we can be very proud of.
I can say that only thanks to the experiments that we carried out this season, we came up with very interesting projects for the next one. For example, we held a concert of Dmitry Pokrovsky’s ensemble and for the next season we have already made their personal subscription. On January 7, the Christmas concert of the Blagovest choir was very successful, and they themselves proposed a wonderful idea for the “Bible for Children” series. Having analyzed the “musical component” of the Theater Hall, we came to the conclusion that jazz projects would take root very well there. We contacted our outstanding jazzman Alexei Kozlov, and he proposed a great series “Jazz, rock and brass pipes”.
-- Coming up with a special “profile” for each of the three halls, determining the format and list of directions and genres that can be presented here, are you looking for some new approaches to programming subscription cycles?
-- We divided them into three conditional categories - subscriptions themselves (more affordable), subscription series (they are more expensive) and cycles, which are sold as separate concerts, but are united by one idea. For example, we will conduct a series under the code name “Famous Choirs of the World.” Today, choral art is presented in earnest only at the Easter Festival. And we decided that such a project could again raise the choral culture that we have always had. This project will also reflect one of the areas of our international activities. We will conduct it jointly with the embassies of those countries whose choirs will be represented in this cycle. During this season, we have established excellent relationships with many embassies, and we intend to actively expand the circle of our international partners. In alliance with the American Embassy, we very successfully held a concert by jazz star Diana Reeves and The Harlem Jazz and Blues Band, in addition, the House of Music organized the musical part of the reception, which was held by the US Ambassador to Russia at Spaso House. To participate in the concert, we invited Russian stars of the new generation - cellists Boris Andrianov and Denis Shapovalov, pianist Peter Aidu, singer Larisa Kostyuk and violinist Gaik Kazazyan. All of them constantly perform in concerts at the House of Music.
There are also innovations in the subscription sales system. We took some risks and now issue not only ticket books, as before, but also single electronic tickets - one form for an entire series. At the entrance to the halls we will install terminals through which holders of electronic tickets will pass. In addition to convenience, this will make it possible to maintain more accurate records of the public. In addition, we simultaneously launched both season tickets and tickets for individual concerts of the subscription series, which can be purchased without waiting for the end of season ticket sales.
-- Do you have an approximate summary of subscription sales?
-- Academic concerts are very successful. These are the subscriptions of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia “Schubert and Richard Strauss” and “European and Russian Modern”. These subscriptions present very interesting programs, often with an unusual combination of composers' names and works, and, of course, excellent conductor names: this is the artistic director of the orchestra, President of the House of Music Vladimir Spivakov, and foreign conductors James Conlon and Ion Marin, and such famous soloists , like Alexander Gindin and Khibla Gerzmava. Children's subscriptions are popular among our audience, and we worked very carefully to create them. A very interesting subscription “...and the dolls come to life”, where we attracted not only Moscow but also non-Moscow theaters, we divided musical performances for children into two age categories - for the youngest and youngest schoolchildren, in addition, we invited a wonderful actor and TV presenter Pavel Lyubimtsev to hold their personal literary subscription. Among the musical projects, I would note the traditional subscription of the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation.
-- How can we expand the regional activities of the House of Music, bringing, for example, orchestras and ensembles from St. Petersburg and the provinces to Moscow?
-- We already have joint developments in organizing concert activities in other cities. We believe that the House of Music should be in the regions, and the regions should be in the House of Music. This is something that will incredibly develop the market and raise the interest of the audience. Today we are already actively working with Samara, Novosibirsk, and St. Petersburg. But so far our regional activities are selective. And we need to build a whole system out of this. I think, for example, that in Moscow they don’t know St. Petersburg musicians well, and in St. Petersburg they don’t know Moscow musicians as well as they would like. In connection with this, my partners and I in St. Petersburg had the idea to make a cycle - something like a musical offering by musicians of the northern capital of Moscow.
The House of Music will now hold about 500 concerts a year. Such a turnover of musical products requires a very strict planning system. To bring musicians from other cities, you need to have funds. Organizationally we can cope with this, but financially it is quite difficult. After all, now bringing an orchestra from Novosibirsk is the same as bringing an orchestra from Europe: the price of air tickets is approximately the same. It is impossible to do this without a sponsor. And without the support of the regions themselves, too. With all that, today's life in the regions is very lively. But there are also neighboring countries, not to mention Europe and America. Our task is to show a cross-section, to give the public the most complete picture of what is happening in the musical art of both Russia and the West.
- But for now, guest performers are not included in the academic subscription series.
- They do, but in small quantities. One of our subscriptions - “The Art of Chamber Ensembles” - consists entirely of concerts by foreign groups. As part of this subscription, we present the best string quartets in the world, including the famous Juilliard String Quartet, which is already 50 years old, and the wonderful French Ysaye Quartet, and the Kopelman Quartet, created two years ago by our former compatriot Mikhail Kopelman, who now lives in London . Our main task is not to saturate the season with concerts of popular artists. We strive to ensure that our choice - the choice of the House of Music - is always and in everything a guarantee of quality and professionalism, so that the public learns to trust our choice, regardless of whether it is familiar with the name of the artist or not.
- You must somehow fight this inertia, you must have your own PR capabilities.
- The question is not a struggle, but a systematic, progressive work. And expanding PR opportunities is only one of the tasks. This season we have actively started working with our public. We conduct a survey, do targeted mailings using the created database, and this produces results. Information can be conveyed to the public in different ways, but in each individual case you need to choose the one that is guaranteed to work.
— By the way, how did you become friends with the Philharmonic, and what are your plans for cooperation?
- They have already been partially implemented. Our directors, Alexey Alekseevich Shalashov and Vitaly Leonidovich Matrosov, met a year ago at a conference of the Association of Directors of Concert Organizations. Today everyone has begun to think about the need to somehow build a common concert life. And our alliance with the Philharmonic is one of the first and important steps on this path. We have now already made three joint subscriptions for our Chamber Hall. In addition, we plan to build our relationship with the Philharmonic as an agent of famous artists. We already have such experience, and we believe that working with artists through an agent is the only way to establish civilized relations in the music market.
-- Russia has a fairly large market for artists, but there is insufficient demand for them. How can this problem be solved?
-- There is a general global decline in consumption with an oversaturated market of artists, partly due to increased ambitions. And this problem also exists here to some extent. To balance this side of concert life, new halls and agencies must appear, producers must come up with new opportunities for representing artists. The main problem is that the software market is not yet large and diverse enough.
We very much hope that the law on patronage will be adopted. This would make life much easier for the entire cultural environment. In addition, we plan to create a board of trustees of the House of Music, which will collect funds and distribute them.
- On the one hand, there is a lack of funds, and on the other, memories of star concerts for crazy fees, which have already become a characteristic of Moscow concert life.
- There was such a time, but today the situation is different. Of course, there are individual concerts for which producers sell very expensive tickets, compensating for the crazy fees of the stars and trying to make money. But the House of Music in this sense has taken a completely firm position: one of our tasks is to explain to everyone that we are a serious concert organization, that we do not strive for easy money and do not earn big money from popular artists. We are ready to pay fees, but not astronomical ones, but real ones, corresponding to our capabilities, and we will continue to adhere to this position in the future. Today we have a colossal number of ideas and plans and a great desire to work in the direction that we have determined for ourselves.