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It was hardly a surprise to me when I got assigned Palau de la M\u00fasica Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) for this blog post. I got my B.A. in music from the Glenn Korff School of Music, I work as a professional classical\/film music composer, I gave a TedxTalk on conservatory culture\u2026 classical music is my shtick. It\u2019s probably 95% of my public personality. Another 4% is my passion for \u201coverthrowing the aristocracy\u201d of classical music in favor of making it more accessible to everybody, diversifying the audiences, the performers, and the programming.<\/p>\n
That 4% was bubbling as we waited outside the Palau from the outside. While most around me were enraptured by the beautiful architecture or the Instagram-ability of their selfies taken in the early Barcelona sun, I was having a stare-down with the giant bust of Ludwig von Beethoven erected on the Palau\u2019s roof. You again? You have got to be kidding me. As a student and an advocate, I have gone weary of the romanticization of the man, having played and studied him more times than I can count. In my past experiences, any organization that holds Beethoven to the highest standard tends to lack any real motivation to present music beyond old-dead-white-men. My past experiences would prove to be poor relations to Palau de la M\u00fasica.<\/p>\n
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No modern arts administrator is a stranger to The Almighty Strategic Plan. On one hand it is the pdf document most likely to be viewed by the optics of your peers regarding whatever supposed mission or vision statement may likely be being ignored, or by government entities figuring out what can be taxed from your gift shop or not. On the other hand, when used correctly, a well used strategic plan allows an organization of any kind to hone-in on their values and ensure the work that they are doing is objectively and subjectively meaningful for the current era. Currently Palau de la M\u00fasica is writing a new strategic plan, their old one having ended in 2022. As we learned from our guest speaker Dario Fernandez (director of the audience department), he and his associates have recently been called to define what \u201cInnovation\u201d means to the Palau. One of the definitions was, \u201c Innovation is our relationship with our past.\u201d As we toured the beautiful building, I couldn\u2019t find anything to be more true.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll allow you the chance to visit the Palau (or their website) for a true summary of what every rose and every figurehead in the building represents, so I\u2019ll try to keep this summary brief. Yes, the likes of Beethoven and Wagner were prominent in the symbolism of the building\u2026 but as a deliberate representation of the organization\u2019s relationship with the old guard. Meeting Beethoven and Wagner are also symbols for the new guard: a special emphasis on modern Catalan music with acknowledgements towards as many as 9 different countries, deliberate feminism and collaboration with the working class. This is the 7th country I have had the honor of touring a music hall in, and I have never seen architecture or reviewed programming so deliberately focused on creating a bridge between The Big Classical and new works. The organization\u2019s view of innovation is everywhere.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s not confined to the architecture or the musical programming through. This innovation can be seen in the organization\u2019s involvement in cultural diplomacy – trying to make music a core value of Catalan culture again and educate people on how Barcelona truly is a classical music city. In the gift shop where they have, as simply one example, a book of famous living tenors\u2026 the cover adorned with men of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Innovation is even seen in the coffee shop that used to serve as offices, but now serves as a place for the community to gather even if there isn\u2019t a concert taking place or they aren\u2019t touring the facility. American and Anglo-Saxon countries could learn a lot from Palau de la M\u00fasica about how creative vision can be centered on innovation, even through classical music. How can we better bridge the new and old music? How can we engage in our community in a way that allows us to be a creative motor in society? How can our economic structure be self-sustaining rather than tied to an over-controlling board? How can we take the time to sit down and recognize our shortcomings and actively make the effort to be better? Palau de la M\u00fasica is not the end-all-be-all-of-solutions, but if more organizations took even just one page out of their handbook I think we would see waves of progress.<\/p>\n
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Author: Sapphire Toth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was hardly a surprise to me when I got assigned Palau de la M\u00fasica Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) for this blog post. I got my B.A. in music from the Glenn Korff School of Music, I work as a professional classical\/film music composer, I gave a TedxTalk on conservatory culture\u2026 classical music is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21348,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/artsinbarcelona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}