Jimi Michiel

hey guys,

The gig went well, I think. We had a nice turn out (we totally pwned the wussy Emo bands that usually take the Sunday night slot). I'll right more later, but it was a late night and I had to get up at 5am to take our hired-gun conductor to the airport so he could catch a flight back to NY.

More to come.

-Jimi

MJ

Congrats! Post the video if you get the chance.

Jimi Michiel

Ed (et al),

I'm sorry it's taken a while to post a follow up, as always things have been busy. I'm happy to say that the weather is beautiful in Minnesota today. I'm out on the porch, beer (and laptop) in hand, watching my dog play in the yard. So here are a few thoughts on the concert...

First, the turnout. The bar that we played at has a capacity of probably about 200. There's an outside area that could hold a few more. The show started a little after eight. I would say we started out with about 30 people at the bar total, a little less than half of which were performing in at least one piece. I was incredibly happy to see that, by the end of the night, the crowd had nearly doubled--I wouldn't be surprised it, at the peak, we had about 60 people. Many were "our" people, folks who knew one of the performers, or was brought there by someone who knew someone.

One of the problems I originally envisioned when putting this thing together was an audience that wouldn't know how to "behave" themselves. For better or worse, that wasn't the case. Because of the way we marketed the show (emails, Facebook, word of mouth, no flyers or print media), the crowd was used to classical music concerts. Very few people clapped between movements, and from on stage I couldn't here anyone talking loudly while performing. The only big interruption was the bartender very loudly mixing a martini (for the harpsichordist)

I spoke with the bartender after and he complimented me on the turn out--for that bar it wass very rare to get as many people as we did to show up on a Sunday night. The down side to that was that, amazingly, they didn't sell a whole lot of drinks. In the bartenders words, "yeah, they were way to interested in the music to get hammered." Oh well, better luck next time I guess. We ended up scrapping the cover charge, but I think in the future we will probably have a moderate one. My understanding of the financial situation is that we're never going to get money out of the venue if they don't sell a ton of drinks, so the only way for us to make a profit is to make it at the door, probably with a cover somewhere around $10. So we didn't make any cash at this one, although we were given as many PBR tall boys as we could drink (I stuck with the Smart Water until the show was over...)

One thing I learned very quickly during the process of preparing for and putting on this concert is how much is normally taken care of for performers. Organizationally, I was pretty much in charge of everything. I knew scheduling would be tough, but there are a few things that I just didn't count on--the stage we played on was meant for a rock band. Fitting a small chamber orchestra on it was a challenge, although it ended up not being a huge problem. A bigger problem was lighting. For some reason, even with the house lights on, it was nearly impossible for some people to see. Not good, and something I should have thought of and prepared for. We also were a little short on stands. Because we didn't need any more than three stands at one time until the very last piece, we waited to see if more would show up (everyone was supposed to bring one and some people who only played later in the show didn't come until intermission). Towards the end of the first half, it became apparent that we wouldn't have enough, so I had to go running (driving) around to scrounge up a few more. Fortunately the University of Minnesota was a short drive away. Parking killed me on the way back, and I was leading off the second half with Stravinsky's Fanfare for a New Theatre, so it was a mad dash back to the bar...

Musically, a few things surprised me. I mentioned before that crowd noise was a concern before, but ended up not being a huge factor. I honestly thing that the most effective piece on the program was Abyss of the Birds from Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. It's a solo clarinet piece and features some incredibly soft playing. The clarinetist, who went on the stand run with me and literally sprinted back to the bar (she immediatly followed the Stravinsky to begin the second half) just played the heck out of it. She had the entire bar in her hand! I think even the bartender was afraid to do anything while she was playing.

The Brandenburg itself went ok. The lighting and small stage were a problem, and I perhaps a few people had taken too much advantage of the free PBR, but overall I was happy. Some of the nuance that we had worked on in rehearsal was lost, for the above mentioned reasons and maybe a few others, but I think overall it was a great success.

Pictures and video to come later. (Does anyone know a good open-source videa editor for Mac? I have the whole thing on my camera...) If anyone is in Madison, WI, we're going to try to do a very short regional tour. PM me for details.

-Jimi

ecarroll

Jimi,

Self producing is one of the largest challanges you will face as a musician. You want every detail to be right out of respect to the music, the venue and. most importantly, your colleagues. Ask me about directing/producing Chosen Vale sometime.

A few tidbits if you plan to get into this seriously:

Here's a link to a Minnesota based company that sells portable stands. Contact them and try to get a price for 8 of them (I like the red myself) http://www.portastand.com/online/

Buy 8 battery operated clip-on lights. The patrons might not always see you so well but you will see the music. You will eventually be interrupted by some lout who is used to talking over the music. Ignore him/her... the problem will go away eventually.

If you feel like getting fancy, create a powerpoint presentation of the music that you're playing and project it somewhere. You can't tell the players without a scorecard and a few might enjoy reading a short paragraph about who you are and what you're playing.

Always tip the bartender,
EC