Arts Activities Support
ACHF Arts Access
To shatter the idea that a chamber music ensemble can, and should, only play “classical” music, thus keeping performances of live instrumental music relevant through programming classical, jazz, and pop music that appeals and connects to diverse audiences. To develop our artistry and proficiency of these diverse musical styles. To educate children of all ages - newborns and up - about music through engagement, entertainment, and interaction. To keep chamber music alive as a performance genre, and help it thrive by bringing in new, younger audiences who become educated about music through our spoken commentary from stage. Performing these concerts well for large, happy audiences is the best way for a musician to know if he or she has been successful in achieving the above goals. We will constantly evaluate with video and audio self-evaluation, and attendance data.
Over 1,000 people attended the concerts listed in this proposal. This resulted in well over our projected ticket sale income line from our two ticketed concert programs and shows a large reach for our free concerts. Our artistic goals for this project were 1) To shatter the idea that a chamber music ensemble can, and should, only play “classical” music, thus keeping performances of live instrumental music relevant through programming classical, jazz, and pop music that appeals and connects to diverse audiences. 2) To develop our artistry and proficiency of these diverse musical styles. 3) To educate children of all ages - newborns and up - about music through engagement, entertainment, and interaction. 4) To keep chamber music alive as a performance genre, and help it thrive by bringing in new, younger audiences who become educated about music through our spoken commentary from stage. Through the production and presentation of the concerts described in our proposal we were able to meet the above goals. Specific examples of how we met the goals are: At all of our concerts we performed a mix of music and genres (goal 1), for example at our “Christmas” we performed selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite (classical music) alongside an arrangement of music from the Disney movie “Frozen” (pop music). We deliberately don’t separate music by genre but program tunes from widely different styles and time periods in succession to show that all music can be fun and accessible - not just modern pop music. To prepare for the concerts we devoted a maximum of 10 hours of rehearsal time each week leading up to the concerts, ensuring our artists were prepared for the artistic challenges of presenting four completely different concert programs (goal 2). Our “Hands on Brass” program at the Science Museum attracted around 250 people from babies to seniors who heard our music and learned about the basics of sounds from our spoken commentary and visual aids (goal 3 and 4). Overall we were very happy with these concerts. Our season as a whole exceeded our audience goals and nearly doubled our ticket sale revenue over our 2014-2015 Twin Cities Season. We will continue to present our “Christmas on Copper Street” concert many times each season, as that program has become very popular. Artistically we feel like that concert is solid, and we will only make small changes to the repertoire. In addition, our “Grammy” concert program was very well received by both our artists and audiences and we’re planning to bring a similar program back on our Twin Cities Concert Series in the next 5 years. There aren’t any major changes we would make. We are presenting our 2016-2017 Twin Cities Series this season (outside of Metropolitan Regional Arts Council’s grant programs) and will carry out this season in a similar way. We have added more “Christmas” concerts in new communities around the metro to meet demand and are presenting “Hands on Brass” and “Inside the Brass Quintet” (formerly called “Open House”) together as our “Free Family Series.” We’re also devoting more resources this season to promoting our series to hopefully continue the audience growth we experience last season. The community served with this proposal looked like the community we described. We attracted the target communities we identified in our proposal - for example we had several large groups of senior citizens from local assisted living facilities who bussed to our “Christmas” matinee concert. We didn’t conduct in-depth surveys to determine the ages and income level of our attendees, but our staff and volunteers reported that our audiences were similar to past audiences, only larger. This season we are expanding our marketing reach to more print and radio ads to continue to grow our audience. While these ads aren’t intended specifically to diversify our audience, we expect that will be a welcome side-effect of audience growth. We were able to accommodate all requests for accessibility. All of our venues are ADA compliant, so making accommodations for our guests with disabilities was relatively easy. Examples of accommodations made were: We staffed extra volunteers for our “Christmas” matinee shows at all entrances to the venue and at the elevator lift to be sure that all patrons could easily find their way and operate the elevator lift. We reserved sections of seating at our “Christmas” and “Grammy” concerts for patrons with wheelchairs and their families. Our two free concerts, “Hands on Brass” and “Open House” addressed economic barriers or child-care concerns people may have had when considering attending our other shows. Both shows were open to families with children of all ages and were offered free of admission.
Other, local or private