Recital Venues

This weekend my quartet (Phil, Mike Wall, Michael Ozment, and myself) had the opportunity of playing two recitals.  One in a church in Spencer, Iowa and one the next evening in Harper.  Originally we were treating the recital in Spencer as a dress rehearsal for the concert on Saturday, but when we got there we realized that it was the more important concert.  We played for about 120 people in a church (mostly older people) and were received very warmly.  Although they were not the most well-trained audience (they clapped not only between movements, but also in the middle of them), but the energy they gave us made our performance even better.  It was the most fun I have ever had performing.

 

On Saturday we played the same concert at UI.  The audience was much less enthusiastic and interested in our playing, and although we didn't necessarily play any better or worse than the previous evening, the concert felt like a failure and was one of the worst experiences I have had as a performer.  The audience was very well behaved, but the negative vibe sucked all the energy out of the room.  Most of the audience was only interested in receiving recital attendance and figuring out how to stay awake.  I was tempted to collect their cards at intermission and not play the second half of the concert.  

Don't get me wrong: I think that rectal attendance is important, but I never realized how a well behaved audience can have a negative effect on performance.   The question is how to combat this negative vibe.  I think that increased support from colleges could help.  There were only 3 music major in a crowd of 38, and those were also there for recital attendance. (I am not trying to call anyone out for not coming, I know people are busy).  Some simple publicity could have gone a long way.  We put posters up and told our friends, but this seemed ineffective.  We didn't make a facebook event just out of spite for having to make facebook crap for everything.  The University does have an events calendar but it I think the department could take a more active role in advertising both student and faculty recitals.  I am definitely guilty on not attending recitals I probably should have, but some of that is just out of ignorance. A weekly email of events (I know we already get too many emails) and a little more dedication to each other could go a long way into making performing a lot better at the University.