How many of these names are familiar to you?  

A.)    Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell 

B.)     Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Midori, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell

C.)    Matt Haimovitz, Leila Josefowicz, Tzimon Barto

Most reasonably aware and educated Americans – whether or not they have an interest in classical music – recognize the names on Line A.   If you’re looking for living classical music soloists whose names are widely known outside the industry, those three are pretty much it.

If your knowledge extends to the names in Line B, you’re probably a subscriber to a major orchestra or a fairly dedicated audiophile.  If you know everyone’s name in all three lines, you’re either a professional musician or a real classical diehard.

OK, the levels here are somewhat arbitrary, the list of names is not exhaustive and you can argue with me about who belongs where.  The point I’m making is that the number of solo artists whose name alone will provide significant box office draw is very small.  So why do so many classical music organizations across the country invest so much in putting these artists – the Classical 1%  – before the public?

The usual answer is because their artistic quality is so much higher than anybody else’s.  Although many might say the folks on the A line are at the highest level, the letter designations in my illustration are intended to denote public profile, not necessarily artistic quality.  The B and C level artists may not be as familiar to the average person on the street, but their artistry is of a very high caliber indeed.  Regardless of what line they’re on, they have all earned their place on a relatively short list of top level classical artists.  It is important both for the orchestra to collaborate with them, and for the audience to hear them – so the thinking goes.

Still, their fees are princely.  I can tell you that the fee for one top level concerto soloist is twice the TSO’s entire annual guest artist budget.  Most of the others would put a serious dent in it.

So are they really worth it?

The answer really comes down to four things:  available financial resources, the size of your community, the relative proximity of other large urban centers – and above all, your organizational vision.

At the TSO, our booking practices are based on all four of these criteria, and they have led us to make decisions about who we bring in that might be different from other orchestras in other circumstances.  But our practices are not strictly pragmatic either:  I like to think they’re based on an organizational philosophy about what is most important, and where our resources and energy should flow.

At best, bringing in Classical 1% artists to perform with the TSO would clearly require financial resources we haven’t currently identified.  Even if we assumed that the artist’s draw would result in one or even two sold-out houses, the capacity of the hall in which we perform limits the potential ticket revenue. 

But beyond that, I would argue that celebrity artists, even if we could afford them, would be tangential to our Strategic Plan, which is about nurturing and growing our internal community of interest  (orchestra and audience), as well as increasing our relevance to and engagement with the broader external community of locus.

To me, what makes the TSO special and compelling is our focus on the 99%:  the musicians who are always onstage, and the mission of building an ensemble with a personality unique to Tacoma.  Part of the concert experience is bringing in high quality guest artists as collaborators, and we will continue to do so.  But the majority of our resources, emotional and financial, should be put behind building the orchestra that is here all the time, not behind importing celebrity guests who are here today, gone tomorrow.

In any case, my feeling is that bringing in these classical stars often has more to do with organizational ego than the artistic considerations advanced to justify it.  Moreover, its box office effect is temporary.  It does nothing to build your orchestra’s relationship with its audience; to the contrary, it reinforces the sense that the orchestra itself lacks appeal.  Nor does it do anything to build your organization’s engagement with the larger community.

And I have a hard time justifying paying the Classical 1% more for one night’s work than most of the 99% of gigging musicians make in a year.