Musicians and Sustainability

One of our symposium assistants studies fish in addition to composition. Last night, I had a very good conversation with her about whether or not music was sustainable. Sometimes, it may seem like music has an uncertain future. On other occasions, music serves as a nexus to other things. I thought about this for a while, and well, the nature of music requires that we think about sustainability frequently.

Musicians are frequently confronted with situations that make them consider sustainability. The ACE Chorus, conducted by Craig Hella Johnson, is one such situation. For this year's symposium, many composers were asked to write a choral piece. Let's think about this situation from a perspective of sustainability.

Before the concert, on July 2, Craig has to rehearse roughly 18 pieces (some of which will not be on the concert). When writing for this rehearsal and performance situation, one must keep in mind that the ensemble will have issues with learning harder pieces. Therefore, it is immensely important to write a piece that the choir can sightread and learn very easily. The more successful pieces had this in mind, whereas the  pieces composed without sustainability in mind would take longer than the time available for the Symposium.

In life, the notion of sustainability hinges upon individuals contributing to the larger whole. Ideally, we should all make sacrifices in order to contribute to the overall good. These sacrifices don't hurt us in the long-term. For example, the minuteness of the sacrifice is as small as using less water or turning off a light. In music, we might give a little bit more. In ensembles, we cannot exist without individual dedicated practice time. 

Sustainability is a rather new idea, especially as we are forced to give up some things in order to save scarce resources in our country and on this planet. Musicians, however, have practiced their own sustainable paradigm for, well, as long as we have had printed music on the page (don't you think we should get a patent for this?) 

Our Symposium Director made the comment that law school admissions are down significantly in recent years. Musicians, however, continually adapt to meet the times. Our music is often a nexus for other things. Many composers, for example, develop knacks for computer programming from their experience in music. Some musicians develop a knack for management and can do many things in terms of arts management.

Music is, in fact, more stable and sustainable that people give it credit for.