Last month, I began my tenure as Music Director of the Young People’s Philharmonic of the Lehigh Valley, a terrific youth orchestra based in the Pennsylvania Valley, a large metro area situated between Philadelphia and New York City. I’m so impressed by the work these young people are doing to make music that transforms lives!

As I’ve tried to take stock of the organization, I’ve also been forced to go back to first principles and try to think about what a youth orchestra is all about, and what drives success.

The following draws on three decades of time spent playing in youth orchestras as a kid, assisting them as a young teacher, and conducting them throughout my career. It is also based on a close read of the best writing on the topic by working conductors and from recent discussions with almost two dozen conductors about youth orchestra leadership.

I don’t think I’m anywhere close to hitting bedrock, but in the spirit of this notebook full of ideas-in-progress, here’s what I think I know.

The Infinite Value of Music

Youth orchestras are one of the cultural crown jewels in any community, serving the young musicians who play and the families that support them, the life and vitality of the local community, and the sense of pride of place that comes from a grounded culture that knits families and students together with music, dancing, food, art, and togetherness.

Youth orchestras are first and foremost a place for orchestral music, and that’s always the center of gravity. But there’s more, much more in fact. Concerts are the “product that gives the process meaning.”*

Yet, while transforming lives directly, through “the music itself” (as Stravinsky or Sartre would say), they also transform live incidentally, around the activity of musical performance! Character skills, social skills, roundedness, and wellbeing on offer for students who dedicate themselves to this challenging art form.

And I don’t just mean that these skills and virtues are available for the students, I mean it for the adults in their lives, too. We often like to proceed from a notion that adults are closed systems and completed books: the end was written at age 18, or 21, or 25, etc… and now it’s just time to sit back and enjoy life with fixed beliefs. Carol Dweck blew that out of the water over a decade ago: we are all a bunch of walk, talking, works-in-progress. And research like the Grant Study and popular documentaries like the Up Series show, we change and grow throughout our lives, and the happiest people are the ones who connect and contribute to teams.

A review of this blog over many years is a quick reminder of the extent to which I have gotten to learn, grow, and change thoughout my musical life. And it is in that mode that I think about the ways in which youth orchestras are not just for the young. They are a site of artistic, cultural, social, and ethical growth for anyone in the room. Take it from me, I’ve been around them all my life and I’m still growing!

I don’t have a Grand Unified Theory of Youth Orchestras because like the universe, the multiple values of an orchestra are almost too vast in number to catalogue. But I think at the center of it all has to be the possibility of self-transcendence for the musicians and the families who come and participate by playing and listening to transformative music played with dedication by the young musicians who fill the seats and share their stands. It’s truly not about the individual, and that’s a good thing.

So those are a few musings on the vast reach of the community youth orchestra. I will have to return and put more thought into its benefits.

The River

Four Drivers of Success in a Youth Orchestra

We made a pass at talking about just a few of the aspects of what makes an orchestra valuable. Now, let’s examine what makes a youth orchestra successful. I call this The River.

Musicianship

Music sits at the mouth of the river. It is the source, the way, the Tao. This showed up consistently in reading and talking to conductors, and it resonates deeply with my own experience: The organization must be built around a common love for the joy of excellent orchestral repertoire, performed at the highest artistic level. Up to some upper limit, the quality of the orchestral performance is the single most important factor in determining the satisfaction of each element of a performing arts organization. All of the money in the world will not lead to creating the kinds of value I alluded to above, but striving to play great music with integrity absolutely will. One visit to the Subway in New York or D.C. will reveal this essential truth – some of the best things in life cannot be improved with money.

What exactly is musicianship? At the organizational level, you could say it breaks down into at least three main areas:

Quality Repertoire: If you take you are trying to eat off of the healthy menu, you are going to expect a well-balanced diet of lean meats, healthy fats, and fresh vegetables with fiber. You’d be disappointed to find that they snuck in all manner of sugar into food that doesn’t even taste sugar-y. Repertoire is much the same: it must be healthy and delicious. It has to have substance, and it has to contain musical challenges and spiritual rewards. And it has to matter whether it was played well or not.

Meaningful Rehearsals: Rehearsals are the lifeblood of the orchestra and where they spend most of their time together. I spend most of my time in my newsletter and on this blog writing about rehearsal so I won’t go into much more detail here. Consider subscribing!
Powerful Concert Experiences: It needs to matter that you showed up to the concert. It needs to be a rich performance for everyone in the room. And it needs to be a cultural event that you wish you hadn’t missed.

“The organization must be built around a common love for the joy of excellent orchestral repertoire, performed at the highest artistic level.”

Membership

Orchestras are vast, complex, interconnected social organisms. They live and breathe as the musicians live and breathe inside of them. Each player has a role. Christopher Adey went so far as to catalogue rolls extending all the way to specific chairs like the 3rd chair first violinist.

And yet, every role from the first to the last chair, truly and deeply matters. So much of what matters in music, matters when everyone is moving together. Which means that it really does not matter if you got first chair or last. Your contribution is sacred, from any seat in the room!

Musicians want to play with other good musicians. If the musicianship of the existing group is great, they will attract more of the same, adding to the musical dimension a powerful dimension of friendship, and good will, and section selfies…

Morale

The morale of the organization is a byproduct of the first two factors. Without musicianship and membership, you can’t have morale.

But assuming those are in place, there are a suite of other factors that can contribute either in the positive or the negative, and must also make contributions to the morale or the spirit of the group. Here are some qualities I associate with a musical, member-full youth orchestra which is also firing on all cylinders in the morale department:

Rewarding, fun, social, with a sense of humor
Performance opportunities (Concerts, Run-Outs, Tours, Pop-ups, etc.)
Confidence-boosting, skill-building
Character skills, social skills
High-quality, attractive, concise, informative communication
Prestige in the community
Opportunities for advancement (auditions, leadership roles, concerto competitions, etc.)
Thoughtful, equitable, and transparent procedures
Timely, consistent, concise communication

Money

If Musicianship, Membership, and Morale are all going to plan, Money will naturally follow in many ways. I’m not a money guy as my center of training or inclination: I leave it to those who know more than me. But what I know about performing non-profits in speaking with elite professional orchestra development directors is that you want a three-legged stool as you move towards success:

Institutional Giving: Grant-making Nonprofits, Major Corporate Donors
Individual Giving: Small Businesses, Personal Giving, and In-Kind Donations
Earned Revenue: Tuition, Ticket Sales, Recordings, Merchandise, and other products and services

Meaningful Lives Through Music

Of course, once each aspect of The River is in place, they all begin to reinforce one another. And when The River is infused with deep reverence for the music-making process and its untold richness as we discussed at the beginning, a Youth Orchestra becomes a durable cultural gem that serves to uplift everyone it touches.

Too lofty, too high-minded a take? Perhaps. But spend a few weeks with the members of YPP or a youth orchestra near you, and I challenge you to try walk away empty-handed. Music changes lives.

*(I’m quoting someone here who I will be kicking myself for forgetting until I can source this!)

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