Get started then start learning

Last week I did a sort of lecture at City University London for the students on their Masters in Innovation, Creativity and Leadership degree course. I was founding director there of the Centre for Creativity – and the MICL (as in “Taking the MICL”) was and is the best fruit from that time.

In reality the “lecture” took the form of a conversation between Marshall Marcus and myself (and the students), and Marshall talked about El Sistema, the project in Venezuela where kids from all backgrounds get involved in playing music in orchestras.

In Venezuela there are now 400,000 children participating, and there are El Sistema-style projects flowering around the world.

“Usually, kids who start to play instruments first spend several years learning before they think about joining an orchestra,” said Marshall. “But in El Sistema they join an orchestra at the beginning and, through that involvement, start the journey of learning how to play.”

How many other areas could that thinking be applied to?

Transforming concerts with The Night Shift

Even in today’s fast-changing world, there are sectors that seem to innovate slowly and rather reluctantly. One of these is the classical concert.

It may be the fear of “dumbing down” that gets in the way of change, but, in its essentials the experience of going to a regular concert now seems very little different from the way it was half a century ago.

So it’s exciting when something new is tried – and when it works.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, probably the best-regarded band of its kind in the world, started thinking about exploring new formats for new audiences some ten years ago. I was asked to facilitate a visioning day for them – and what emerged was a very clear sense of direction, sufficient for the desire to go into their strategic plan.

In the event, it took a further five years for a clear insight to emerge, coupled with a definite idea for how to tackle the opportunity.

A small team of like-minded people in the orchestra management – CEO Marshall Marcus (now head of music at London’s South Bank Centre), orchestra manager Steve Thomas and marketing manager William Norris – came to the conclusion that there was a potential new audience in young professionals and students, but that they were put off by the notion that concerts were stuffy and formulaic, long and boring. In short, not for us.

So The Night Shift was born. Starting later (usually at 9pm), and going on till late, it’s a full “evening out”, with an open bar, presenter, DJ, an atmosphere of youthful informality - people can come and go as they please (and, shock-horror, they can take drinks into the auditorium) - and for students the first drink is free. The concert at the heart of it is a shorter version of the regular, more formal gig.

It has been a tremendous success for the orchestra, regularly selling-out and genuinely attracting a new audience with a quite different profile. And importantly the players have grown to love it too.

Is it the way of the future for live classical music? I wouldn’t be surprised.