The Dead Guys Won’t Write More Symphonies

wagner-with-light-saber

David Byrne writes one of the most interesting musician’s blogs around, and his latest post is a keeper.

In the post, he talks about The LA Opera production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, above, is budgeted at $32 million, and at how $14 million of that is coming from the City:

It’s time to rethink all this museum, opera and symphony funding — and I refer mainly to state funding. A bunch of LA museums just got a bailout from LA real estate king Eli Broad, and that’s great, but I suspect there will be county money involved there somewhere too. I think maybe it’s time to stop, or more reasonably, curtail somewhat, state investment in the past — in a bunch of dead guys (and they are mostly guys, and mostly dead, when we look at opera halls) — and invest in our future. Take that money, that $14 million from the city, for example, let some of those palaces, ring cycles and temples close — forgo some of those $32M operas — and fund music and art in our schools.

Funding future creativity is a real investment — there’s a chance these kids will build, write, draw or play something that will fill theaters, clubs, stadiums, web pages, whatever. The dead guys won’t write more symphonies.

Ideally, we wouldn’t have to choose between supporting performances of the classic and supporting future classics.

But if we do have to choose, Byrne’s right. The dead guys won’t write more symphonies.

21 thoughts on “The Dead Guys Won’t Write More Symphonies

  1. sweet jesus – i am a huge byrne / heads fan, saw him in ljubljana slovenia this summer, and giving a lecture on bicycles in portland a few months ago – but i had NO idea he had a blog.

    also, i agree with him here. give eno the millions instead.

    CY

  2. We've had state funding of the arts for years in Canada. How much of these subsidised creations have taken on a life independent of state support? Someone please let me know.

    How many non-subsidized musical works have found an audience and fill our days. We all know the answer; we listen to the stuff all day long, in a million places.

    Cheers,

    D

  3. We've had state funding of the arts for years in Canada. How much of these subsidised creations have taken on a life independent of state support? Someone please let me know.

    How many non-subsidized musical works have found an audience and fill our days. We all know the answer; we listen to the stuff all day long, in a million places.

    Cheers,

    D

  4. I agree, we need to be funding future composers and musicians. And not spend so much time funding music and theatre that has already been played again and again for a couple hundred years. If this money had been given to fund school music programs. Most of the schools could afford nice DAW's and musical instruments. And maybe even some field trips to go experience people's music that is recent and still experimental. And not fund for more Pop music.

  5. He is totally right, of course there should be funding to preserve these artforms, but that amount of money is ridiculous.
    Many cities in Europe has gotten new operahouses, the trend is to build landmarks such as the operahouse in Sydney, architechts compete with their contributions and to become famous, It is remarkeble to witness how this "dead culture" engages the people in charge.

    we(synthopians)need to take over these facilities for the contemporary music.

  6. Let the individual fund the arts. If you want to dress up and watch Wagner operas, pay $500+ for your ticket to support a $32 million production. I'm sure it will be spectacular. Or pay £60 to see a great stadium show at the O2, as I did with my son recently. Or pay £20 to see a good rhythm 'n' blues band at a local club. Or show your appreciation of the local pub covers band by buying them each a beer.

    Meanwhile, put the state millions into funding education in general, and educate the high-flyers who will sponsor opera, the middle classes who will pay the bands a living wage, and all the potential artists who will design, compose and perform the entertainment of the future. The latter includes all the scientists, engineers, accountants and caterers who will earn a living wage at their profession, and use that money to sponsor their hobbies of painting, sculpture, music and drama to share with the world.

    (BTW, cracking toons by The Mirlitrons can be downloaded from an iTunes near you. We have received no state funding whatsoever.)

  7. I disagree. Or, sure, the millions seem excessive, but to label humanity's past as 'dead' culture is to be tremendously short-sighted. Human beings are, apparently, unique in being able to learn, consciously, from our collective past other than by evolution alone. The whole point of high art is that it still has plenty to say. It endures. OK, so perhaps Wagner isn't so prescient about right here, right now, right this minute as, say, Beyonce but… perhaps he is.

  8. I disagree. Or, sure, the millions seem excessive, but to label humanity's past as 'dead' culture is to be tremendously short-sighted. Human beings are, apparently, unique in being able to learn, consciously, from our collective past other than by evolution alone. The whole point of high art is that it still has plenty to say. It endures. OK, so perhaps Wagner isn't so prescient about right here, right now, right this minute as, say, Beyonce but… perhaps he is.

  9. Considering Byrne hasn't done anything worth listening to in 20 years, I'd say he qualifies as a dead guy.

    I have a better idea: instead of giving the opera money away to living artists, how about not taking the money from taxpayers to begin with? Surely the people who actually did the work to earn the money to begin with can find the best uses for it.

  10. Considering Byrne hasn't done anything worth listening to in 20 years, I'd say he qualifies as a dead guy.

    I have a better idea: instead of giving the opera money away to living artists, how about not taking the money from taxpayers to begin with? Surely the people who actually did the work to earn the money to begin with can find the best uses for it.

  11. I've always wondered why orchestras spend so much time and money on music that's hundreds of years old. I understand the historical value of the music and the role of the orchestra as the educator, but there are plenty of works that go unperformed for years or don't get the notoriety they deserve because of this "in with the old, out with the new" attitude. How are composers today supposed to establish themselves?

    Maybe they can take a hint from the DJ community — give the crowd something new every time and they will always follow you.

  12. I've always wondered why orchestras spend so much time and money on music that's hundreds of years old. I understand the historical value of the music and the role of the orchestra as the educator, but there are plenty of works that go unperformed for years or don't get the notoriety they deserve because of this "in with the old, out with the new" attitude. How are composers today supposed to establish themselves?

    Maybe they can take a hint from the DJ community — give the crowd something new every time and they will always follow you.

  13. I agree, we need to be funding future composers and musicians. And not spend so much time funding music and theatre that has already been played again and again for a couple hundred years. If this money had been given to fund school music programs. Most of the schools could afford nice DAW's and musical instruments. And maybe even some field trips to go experience people's music that is recent and still experimental. And not fund for more Pop music.

  14. I agree, we need to be funding future composers and musicians. And not spend so much time funding music and theatre that has already been played again and again for a couple hundred years. If this money had been given to fund school music programs. Most of the schools could afford nice DAW's and musical instruments. And maybe even some field trips to go experience people's music that is recent and still experimental. And not fund for more Pop music.

  15. Let the individual fund the arts. If you want to dress up and watch Wagner operas, pay $500+ for your ticket to support a $32 million production. I'm sure it will be spectacular. Or pay £60 to see a great stadium show at the O2, as I did with my son recently. Or pay £20 to see a good rhythm 'n' blues band at a local club. Or show your appreciation of the local pub covers band by buying them each a beer.

    Meanwhile, put the state millions into funding education in general, and educate the high-flyers who will sponsor opera, the middle classes who will pay the bands a living wage, and all the potential artists who will design, compose and perform the entertainment of the future. The latter includes all the scientists, engineers, accountants and caterers who will earn a living wage at their profession, and use that money to sponsor their hobbies of painting, sculpture, music and drama to share with the world.

    (BTW, cracking toons by The Mirlitrons can be downloaded from an iTunes near you. We have received no state funding whatsoever.)

  16. Let the individual fund the arts. If you want to dress up and watch Wagner operas, pay $500+ for your ticket to support a $32 million production. I'm sure it will be spectacular. Or pay £60 to see a great stadium show at the O2, as I did with my son recently. Or pay £20 to see a good rhythm 'n' blues band at a local club. Or show your appreciation of the local pub covers band by buying them each a beer.

    Meanwhile, put the state millions into funding education in general, and educate the high-flyers who will sponsor opera, the middle classes who will pay the bands a living wage, and all the potential artists who will design, compose and perform the entertainment of the future. The latter includes all the scientists, engineers, accountants and caterers who will earn a living wage at their profession, and use that money to sponsor their hobbies of painting, sculpture, music and drama to share with the world.

    (BTW, cracking toons by The Mirlitrons can be downloaded from an iTunes near you. We have received no state funding whatsoever.)

  17. …Wagner is not that bad, and the fact is: he once was the vitalizer of his time regarding his contemporary culture, maybe he did not have the resources from the state funding then, but I'm sure he'd agree of giving school-children the opportunity to develop themselves if he had to choose between the operahouse or them.
    I don't dislike opera but I'm not sure if I'm prepared to call it high culture, but it is the consensus among the nomenklatura to sponsor opera and wild operahouses, opera reflects their time in charge and their lack of proper cultural education nevertheless it works as a descent entertainment, and of course the white middleclass is willing to support their leaders, that is why opera survived several hundred years without ever "go out of style"…so, writing "dead culture" was in that way incorrect.

  18. …Wagner is not that bad, and the fact is: he once was the vitalizer of his time regarding his contemporary culture, maybe he did not have the resources from the state funding then, but I'm sure he'd agree of giving school-children the opportunity to develop themselves if he had to choose between the operahouse or them.
    I don't dislike opera but I'm not sure if I'm prepared to call it high culture, but it is the consensus among the nomenklatura to sponsor opera and wild operahouses, opera reflects their time in charge and their lack of proper cultural education nevertheless it works as a descent entertainment, and of course the white middleclass is willing to support their leaders, that is why opera survived several hundred years without ever "go out of style"…so, writing "dead culture" was in that way incorrect.

  19. Framing funding as a choice is counterproductive. The dead guys should be heard, because they are the most tested, a standard and an inspiration. However, the biggest problem with funding new art or music is the administrators. With modern technology it is possible to post art or music to the web, and have the public vote on which current artist or musician should get a grant or commission. The career administrators who pick pure garbage on a regular basis (thereby making the public hate public art), and whose salaries often top six figures, siphoning the majority of the funding away from the artists, should be fired. Also, building museums and performance halls should be a govt function and should not use arts money. Some people could receive administration contracts also by popular vote, and they could be let go as well for picking trash.
    There could also be a mandate that administration not exceed 20% of arts funding. When you see admins pulling 100k for years on end while arts grants to artists are the same 1k-10k for a handful of artists in a year, you know something is seriously wrong.

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