Live 2.0 Edition 3: Why We Love Live Entertainment

We hope you enjoy the Why We Love Live Entertainment Edition of Live 2.0. This month’s Edition features:

An Act of Antigravity: Benjamin Zander on Why Everyone (Yes, Even You) Loves Classical Music by Sandy Matke

Interview with Avenue Q Creator Jeff Marx

I Bet You’re a Crier, Too by Marni Landes

Where Would I Be Today without Live Entertainment? by David Elzer

An Act of Antigravity: Benjamin Zander on Why Everyone (Yes, Even You) Loves Classical Music by Sandy Matke

“It’s absolutely clear to me that everybody loves classical music,” says Ben Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. Zander is comfortable making a bold statement like this because he has first-hand evidence.

Zander travels around the world sharing classical music with people from all walks of life. Many times he’s asked to speak to business organizations and other groups that have no affiliation to the music industry. “Invariably, even if they’re people from the accounting industry, they respond with fantastic excitement and passion,” says Zander. “How do I know? Because their eyes are shining.”

Zander, who is as full of enthusiasm talking about music as he is playing it, says the key to appreciating classical music is understanding it. You just need someone to unlock the door to the meaning. And he’s made it his personal mission to unlock as many doors as possible.

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, he says, is a good example of a piece that you can easily drink in when you’re given the basic understanding of what Beethoven was trying to accomplish. “He’s shaking his fist at the world, at the complacency of the business-as-usual world that we live in, shaking you up — Pum pum pum pum! Pum pum pum pum! — driving you to a realization that life is lived on the edge, that you can’t take anything for granted.”

Zander’s enthusiasm for classical music is contagious. There’s no meeting him without catching it. “To be enthusiastic means to be full of the spirit,” says Zander. “The great teachers are all people who have access themselves to enthusiasm and have the capacity to bring other people along with them.”

He learned this from his father. As a child, he would sit in admiration as his father played the piano with such wholehearted passion that he worked himself into an ecstatic trance. The sight of his father’s unbounded enthusiasm put one thought in Zander’s head: “Whatever he’s having, I want that.”

This enthusiasm comes through in the live performance in a way that just isn’t possible with the recorded product, says Zander. “I just gave a performance of Mahler’s 2nd in Westminster Cathedral in London. There were 2,000 people in the room, and almost 500 performers, and the experience of hearing them as they’re performing that music all together as a community-that is a life-changing experience.”

He likens it to the difference between watching a live football game and seeing it on TV. “You could watch football on television and you get a lot from it. In fact, some people will say you get more clarity and you could watch the actual kicks. But what people experience when they get into a crowd, all of them feeling the same thing, everybody knows that’s an enormously exciting thing.”

However, Zander points out one important difference between the live experience of a football game and a classical concert. “Unlike football, where the goal is to defeat the enemies, smash the opposition and generally cause mayhem and chaos in people’s lives, classical music is about lifting the spirit up into the heights,” says Zander. He quotes his friend, pianist/conductor Leon Fleischer, in saying, “Classical music is an act of antigravity.”

Classical music has rewards that popular music just doesn’t have, says Zander. “I love popular music. But an average popular song lasts for three minutes. It tells a story, but it’s a very limited story. And just as Catcher in the Rye is a great novel, nobody would compare it to Anna Karenina or to the greatest novels of all time. Classical music brings us to our higher selves. It brings us in touch with all that makes human beings great.”

Zander returns to the memory of that perfect concert of Mahler’s 2nd at Westminster Cathedral. “When you get into a concert hall with great performers and great music, the sense of being a part of spiritual ways is so overwhelming and so intoxicating that nobody can resist it. We all have a part of our life, a part of our being, which is spiritual. And we want to get access to that. Everybody wants access to that.”

A live classical music performance gives us that access. And Zander adds, “A live performance in a good hall versus a bad hall is the difference between eating corn on the cob off the cob or eating it from the can.” In the performance of Mahler’s 2nd, he says there wasn’t one sound, from the beginning of the concert to the end. In the quietest moments, nobody made any distracting noises, not even a cough.

“That is the experience of a lifetime, when you hear it in a space like that,” he says. “And my life is about sharing this experience with as many people as possible.”

To that end, Zander has put out a series of classical music CDs that come with instructional discs explaining the music to a lay audience. He also gives a pre-concert lecture before each of his performances. “I explain music not in academic terms, but in visceral emotional terms, and with that guidance, people get the help they need to get inside classical music. Invariably, they’re drawn to it more and more, and they get more and more excited.”

Zander will soon be on his way to China to appear on a television program that could potentially reach the entire population of 1.3 billion people. “I know all of those 1.3 billion people will be totally turned on and excited about classical music,” he says. According to Zander, there are 13 million people in China learning the piano, and 10 million learning the violin. They’re making more instruments in China now than they’ve made in the whole rest of the world put together.

“Well,” concludes Zander, “doesn’t that prove my point that of course everybody loves this stuff?”

Watch Ben Zander’s speech at TED

http://www.benjaminzander.com

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Interview with Avenue Q Creator Jeff Marx

Live 2.0: For people who haven’t seen the show, how do you describe it?

JM: Avenue Q is a tuneful, funny musical using puppets, very much like Sesame Street. (But for adults! Don’t bring the kids!) It uses puppets in the way that children’s television shows used to use them to teach children like us how to read, write, count, and share. When we grew up and made the transition from college to the real world, we wished there were friendly puppets like the ones we grew up with, to teach us all the things we needed to know — how to deal with breakups, how to gently encourage your roommate to come out of the closet, how to deal with losing your job, trying to scrape enough money together to rent a tiny apartment in NYC, how to stop watching so much tv and porn, how to get out of your apartment more, and how to get along without your parents’ money. It’s all the things we should have learned in college, as we prepared to become adults, but somehow nobody ever taught us.

L2: You’ve probably answered this a thousand times, but tell us the story of the origin of Avenue Q. Did you watch a lot of Sesame Street as a kid?

JM: Bobby Lopez and I met in the BMI Workshop in NYC, a class for musical theater songwriters. We wanted to write a musical for people like our siblings and straight friends — people who didn’t already necessarily love musicals as much as we did. We also wanted to write something contemporary, relevant, and very funny. But we knew the transition between speaking and singing in musicals was a difficult one for a lot of younger people to swallow, because it can often come off as stilted, like our parents’ generation’s artform instead of our own.

There’s a layer of fakeness when people start singing their thoughts, and we wanted to find a new way to tackle that. We realized that it’s one thing when human beings start breaking into song, but it’s quite another when animated characters or puppets do the same. Somehow, when a puppet, which you already know is fake, starts singing, it seems totally natural and believable. Because the audience is participating and investing in bringing this inanimate character to life, they don’t mind when it sings… In fact, puppets are so lively and colorful and friendly, they seem like they have to sing.

Also, we grew up watching Sesame Street like everyone else. Friendly puppets who are “teaching” us lessons do it way more successfully and joyfully through songs. So using sort of “adult versions” of characters like the puppets we grew up with on children’s television seemed like a real natural way to do a musical concerning adult problems, but with a lot of winks and laughs and singing.

L2: Are you a fan of musicals in general? I ask because in some ways, Avenue Q could be seen as a parody of musicals, while still being a great musical in itself.

JM: Oh God, yes. Pretty much all I listen to in the car is Sirius XM’s Broadway station and my ipod is full of cast albums. My favorite show is “A Chorus Line.” I grew up loving musicals and seeing every show I could. I performed in musicals in high school, studied musical theater as an actor in college, and directed musicals in summer camp. I even wrote and produced the law revue musical shows in law school. When I came out of law school, I wanted to practice entertainment law and produce musicals on Broadway, so I joined this writing workshop, looking for clients and young talented writers whose shows I could produce. But writing songs every week like everyone else, I got pretty good at it, and the project Bobby and I were working on in class became Avenue Q and went all the way to Broadway… and I never went back to law.

L2: Avenue Q is obviously designed for a somewhat younger audience than most other Broadway productions, and it’s not exactly sanitized for your protection. Has this been a plus or a minus for its marketing?

JM: Well, when we created the show, we were just making the transition ourselves from college to the real world. We were writing the show for people like us — our friends who were all struggling through the same things. It was aimed at a little non-profit Off-Broadway theater. We didn’t really expect it to have the big life it has, but we found that people were coming out of the theater and telling all their friends, of all ages, that they had to come see this show and that they’d love it. We couldn’t believe it, but younger people, older people, grandparents, everyone seemed to get something out of watching the characters’ struggles to find their purpose in life, deal with breakups and stuff, anxiety and depression, you know…

I guess the simple answer is that even though the characters are in their 20s and 30s, the puppets are pretty much ageless and their stories are about things that either everyone goes through or has gone through. The basic thrust of the message of the show is that even if you’re not happy with where you are in life, even if you think it “sucks to be you” right now, everything in life changes, so hold on and enjoy what you can because life won’t be this tough forever. I guess that’s a reminder that doesn’t really have a specific-age target audience, especially in these rough times. It’s comforting to be reminded of what you already know — that good and bad times come and go, nothing lasts forever, and we’ll all get through this.

L2: There are a lot of people, particularly in arts marketing, who struggle with reaching an audience in their 20s and 30s. Some established organizations want to do that without really changing their content. Is that even possible? Suppose you were the Executive Director of the performing arts center in Buffalo (for example) and you were worried about the organization’s future because it’s average patron is 55. What would you do?

JM: I don’t know, I guess stop holding out hope that masses of young people will somehow find a way to get excited about seeing Camelot and My Fair Lady… try to do new stuff by younger people, written about themselves and their peers, intended for them and their peers.

L2: Are there any deep, dark (ok, not dark) secrets about Avenue Q that would be interesting or funny to people in the business of making or selling live entertainment?

JM: I think the key to Avenue Q is that we didn’t realize we were writing a big Broadway show that would win Tony Awards and run for years all over the world and tour. I think if we knew we were creating something for such huge mass markets and longevity, we would have tried to be more careful, we wouldn’t have included songs about racism and porn, or maybe even puppet sex or expletives, and we probably would have generally just tried to be safer (and, inevitably, more bland). Because it was all about us and our friends, and intended really just for us and our friends, it had a particular voice that people will either like or not like. Happily for us, it turns out that people tend to like it. Which is a big relief and awfully flattering. Having written a musical that people are enjoying sure beats waiting tables or practicing law!

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I Bet You’re a Crier, Too by Marni Landes

I cried at a Jonny Lang concert. And you know what? I was surrounded by criers. The man does that to people.

I’m part of a generation that is very tech savvy, and entertainment for us geeks often comes in virtual ways, like via Facebook and Twitter and Meetup groups. But even with all the plugged in distractions a girl could ever ask for, none can replace live entertainment.

Consider me a case study in why people love and need live entertainment. I’m going to be so honest I’ll probably embarrass myself somewhere in here.

It must have been a year or so ago that I attended an Adam Pascal concert. He’s the guy who played Roger in the original cast of Rent on Broadway. If you know anything about Rentheads, you know I was drowning in a sea of them at this one-man intimate performance, and they were screaming, drooling, crying, going completely ga-ga over Adam. While I refuse to admit to any of that silly behavior, I did have a “moment” during the show when I thought Adam looked me in the eye from the stage and winked at me. My heart instantly melted. Though I have no way of proving it, and he certainly wouldn’t remember me now, for a split second I felt connected to the live performer and we were the only two people in the room. That moment justified my purchase of the tickets, my getting all dressed up, dealing with parking hassles, and LA traffic. It was a perfect night and one I could not get any way but with a live show.

Sports are another way I feed my thirst for live entertainment. I am a diehard Oakland A’s fan and when I make the trip up from Los Angeles to Oakland, I feel right at home. I am surrounded by people wearing Oakland A’s face tattoos, green and gold hair scrunchies, matching socks, jerseys, pants, earrings, green eyeshadow, and even boxers and thongs sneaking up over their pant waist lines. They’ve offered me their peanuts, or even offered to share their blanket during a chilly night game; it’s one big happy family. None of that happens on my couch where I’m only experiencing the cameraman’s limited perspective. At a game, I’m singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the 7th Inning Stretch, high fiving my friends during homeruns, contributing to a human wave, and using my binoculars to get better views of the players in their tight pants – and I know I’m not the only one who does that! You simply cannot do that without attending.

One weekend when I flew to San Francisco to spend time with my mom, we were lucky enough to secure tickets to a Liza Minnelli performance. It was a packed house at a large venue. If we turned to our left or our right, we had instant friends because as long as we were there for Liza, we must be good people, or so the theory went. At one point during the show, Liza cried out to the audience, “I love you. You must know. You must!” Right then, my neighbor stood up and screamed back at the top of his lungs, “We love you, too!” It was an incredible feeling to be surrounded by so many people who would take a bullet for Liza, and I’m only sort of exaggerating. This feeling of connectedness to something much bigger than any one of us was profound and overwhelming. I loved it and look forward to the next time it happens to me at a live event.

Putting the legendary Liza Minnelli aside for a moment, I am proud to say I loved Chico’s Angels, a small scale Mexican drag queen version of Charlie’s Angels, performed in the basement of a Mexican restaurant. Huh? I was completely lost in the world of sexy crime fighters Chita Parol, Frieda Laye, and Kay Sedia (get it?) that they could have handcuffed me and used me as a prop, and I wouldn’t have noticed. To add to the intimacy, one of the angels told me after the show, as I posed with the three for a priceless photo opp (and we’re talking priceless), that he hosts Tupperware parties in costume on the side and to give him a call sometime. What a coincidence; I think I need some new airtight plastic bowls! Bravo to Chico’s Angels.

I have hundreds more stories I could tell, but they’d all make the same point: Live entertainment is irreplaceable. It’s a big hunking part of my pie. Sure, I can poke people a lot faster on Facebook, but that’s only satisfying if it’s accompanied by the occasional wink from a Broadway superstar.

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Where Would I Be Today without Live Entertainment? by David Elzer

“Empty. Devoid of art, inspiration and the brilliance of endless unrealized creativity. What a sad world to not gather together to collectively experience all that is amazing about us…I’d have a lot more time to cook though…”

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