Peter Smith
Top: Joseph Horowitz (right) with Robert Birman, executive director of the Louisville Orchestra. Above: Composer and conductor Pierre Boulez with Reno Philharmonic Music Director Laura Jackson.
from January 26 to 28 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Subtitled Enlarging the Circle: Creating Partnerships in Research and Performance, the summit examined the wide-reaching cultural impact that the orchestra has had and explored how arts institutions and academia might partner effectively for mutual benefit. The authors of this article—Professor Mark Clague, musicologist and director of the University of Michigan’s American Music Institute, and Michael Mauskapf, a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at the University—organized the summit, which was born out of a conversation last sumamericanorchestras.org
mer with Joseph Horowitz, a writer and authority on classical music in America. The idea of jumpstarting a dialogue between orchestra scholars and administrators picked up steam, and by the end of the year more than 30 speakers had signed on, including not only administrators and scholars but students, musicians, union leaders, conductors, composers, grant officers, and board members. We decided to host the summit at the University of Michigan because our School of Music, Theater & Dance offers a wide range of interdisciplinary expertise, and because universities offer a fresh en-
vironment in which to examine industry concerns. Our hope was to catalyze a new and lasting partnership between orchestras and academia. We scheduled the summit to coincide with a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra celebrating the 85th birthday of Pierre Boulez, who spoke at the summit’s final event with Glenn Watkins, an emeritus University of Michigan professor of musicology. Attendance at the summit exceeded our expectations; clearly we caught a wave of interest due to widespread concerns throughout the orchestra industry, and the one-day strike at the Cleveland Orchestra just before the conference only highlighted the need for conversations outside the pressure-packed atmosphere of such a crisis. As a university host, we were able to leverage the tools of academic research to address questions of mutual concern to musicologists, organizational theorists, business faculty, arts administrators, musicians, and other stakeholders. By considering their own institutional histories, for example, orchestras could better understand and address the challenges and opportunities of the present. Over the course of three days, six panels, four breakout sessions, and two concerts, our small Rackham Amphitheatre was filled to capacity. Nearly 200 participants gathered to have an open conversation about the state of orchestras, creating a collective snapshot of the industry and offering up possible solutions to the difficulties so many face. Participants included representatives from the New York and Reno philharmonics, the San Francisco and Memphis symphonies, the Philadel-
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