Always the Music: How a lifelong passion framed a future for orchestras

Description

Over the course of 34 years, Thomas W. Morris worked at the top levels of the symphony orchestra world, running two of the biggest and most famous, the Boston Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra. He commissioned music from the world’s most important composers, interacted with the greatest musical artists and produced thousands of concerts. He worked closely with Arthur Fiedler, famed conductor of the Boston Pops, bringing him into America’s living rooms through the creation of PBS’s Evening at Pops. He camped out at film composer John Williams’ London apartment to persuade him to succeed Fiedler at the Pops. He presented multi-media concerts with Pierre Boulez and schemed with Oliver Knussen on programming and contemporary music. He collaborated with Christoph von Dohnányi at The Cleveland Orchestra to produce what has been called one of its “golden periods”. In all of it he became obsessed with the art of musical programming and creative partnerships.

But throughout, he had the growing realization that American orchestras had become ingrown on themselves, with rigid structures and cultures that conspired to perpetuate those structures rather than the music they were built to create and feed the audiences hungry for inspiration. Stepping back from running orchestras, he became a consultant, expanding his exposure to the inner workings of many arts organizations across the US and Europe. It confirmed his sense of institutional malaise.

Looking to experiment with his evolving insights, he became artistic director of California’s tiny yet mighty Ojai Music Festival. Its size, its setting, its unique structure and a history stretching back through a long line of some of the world’s most innovative and influential musicians and composers made for a vehicle that could be both wildly creative and endlessly flexible. Over 16 seasons, Morris collaborated with an ever-widening cast of artists and thinkers such as George Benjamin, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mark Morris, Steven Schick, Peter Sellars, Vijay Iyer, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Barbara Hannigan – each one forging fiercely independent and differing artistic paths but united in commitment to high artistry and innovation. Morris reimagined musical experiences by challenging all aspects of making music and producing concerts. As The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross wrote of the 2015 festival: “To attend Ojai is to enter a happily topsy-turvy world where longtime patrons are as avid for new music as they are for classic repertory.”

Always The Music is the fascinating story of Morris’ personal metamorphosis through the highest levels of the world of classical music, his learning and insights into how storied musical institutions function, great artists create, and audiences engage. The final chapter synthesizes Morris’ career lessons into an unequivocal but thoughtful prescription for the American orchestra. Mostly, though, this is the entertaining story of one man’s lifelong love affair with great music and the people who make it.

Rubato Books