From Music in Cincinnati

According to J.R.

Posted in: 2006

By Mary Ellyn Hutton
Nov 5, 2006 - 11:13:28 AM

Music director James R. Cassidy conducts Puccini's "La Boheme" on the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra's 2006-07, 15th-anniversary season.

Fourteen years ago he was living it.

Cassidy, who founded the KSO -- originally the Northern Kentucky Symphony fresh out of the graduate conducting program at the University of Cincinnati College -- Conservatory of Music, spent the first two years of his KSO tenure living in a basement apartment in Newport.

"I wore a coat to bed because I didn't have enough money to heat it," he said, reminiscing at KSO offices on Linden Street in Newport (which is also the home he shares with his wife, KSO general manager Angela Williamson, and their three-year-old son Devlin).

The KSO, a 70 to 90-piece ensemble with a core membership of about 50, was launched on a paw and prayer, since Cassidy's first mailing went out to IAMS pet food buyers or rather to their pets, since the list (provided by a supporter) read that way.

The first concert, Nov. 21, 1992 in Greaves Hall at Northern Kentucky University, drew 300 people. From a start-up budget of $20,000 and four concerts, the organization has grown to over $600,000 and 38-40 concerts a year, including five subscription pairs at Greaves Hall, three outdoor concerts in Covington's Devou Park and numerous educational and run-out concerts in the Northern Kentucky region, plus miscellaneous and special events.

The KSO season opens at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Greaves with a signature Cassidy program, "Muscular Music," comprising Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, "Lex" and "Red Cape Tango" from American composer Michael Daugherty's "Metropolis Symphony," inspired by cartoon hero Superman, and selections from Aram Khachaturian's ballet suite "Spartacus" about the leader of the ancient Roman slave rebellion.

Also on the 06-07 season are "Solace for Survivors" (Brahms' Requiem), "Made in the U.S.A." with Philadelphia Orchestra principal clarinetist Ricardo Morales, and a "Wizard of Oz" concert with the KSO accompanying a digitally re-mastered print of the Judy Garland classic.

During his decade-and-a-half leading the KSO, Cassidy, 47, who is also KSO executive director and one of only three full-time staff members, has built an enviable reputation for savvy programming and marketing panache.

His aim in founding the KSO, he said, was to approach people where they are. "I looked at what orchestras were appealing to and to whom they were appealing and I thought, the largest section of the population they're not serving." The KSO's mantra is to make classical music "attractive, accessible and affordable." Concerts have been held in conjunction with 5-K runs in Devou Park, live aerobics classes and in collaboration with Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Ballet, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and other community organizations. KSO graphics are eye-catching, promo copy is lively, and ticket prices are kept low (a five-concert KSO subscription can be had for $50-$115).

"What's interesting is, if you lay the programs side by side, they're all really different," he said. The KSO has performed 214 works by 99 composers over the years, including numerous area premieres (Tan Dun's "Water Concerto" in May, for example).

On the eve of the KSO's 15th season, Cassidy, a high school music teacher in Florida before coming to CCM, agreed to share some of his thoughts on the orchestra business today.

"The business and artistic aspects are equally important to me," he said. "I'm not going to spend money I don't have, but at the same time, we have the constant need to raise the bar. When the artistic gets ahead of the business, you have disaster. When the business gets ahead of the artistic, what are you doing?"

[] It's about programming, stupid.

"People think that our product is the orchestra. The product is what we play. That's where I think 98 percent of orchestras on the planet miss it.

"Programming is the center of everything. It dictates the budget, the marketing, the balance within the season, the guest artists."

[] Programming "isn't rocket science."

"I've always thought, 'how do pieces come together? Why are they on the same program?' If you can't answer that, it's a dog, the orchestra isn't engaged, the audience isn't engaged.

"Is it just one from column A, one from column B and one from column C? You find this at the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and here (at the CSO)."
Cassidy begins with a "cornerstone piece," "the beef" and asks, "What does it say? What can I put with it that complements it?"

The KSO opener, "Muscular Music" is an example: "The Shostakovich Fifth could be NFL background music in some ways. It's kind of muscular, athletic. When you think that, you start thinking about these other things."

[] Classical music is not like soap.

"I don't think you can go to Procter and Gamble and say, 'You were successful at marketing Zest, we think you'd make a good marketing director for a symphony.' The reason I can do what I do is because of the passion I have for it."

Try to make it "relevant," said Cassidy. "If I said 'Shostakovich, that's only going to appeal to someone who knows something about Shostakovich.' The idea "Muscular Music" is to turn a head. If you can do that, you have a better chance."

[] Be involved in the community.

"The KSO tries to be wherever something big is happening, whether it's the renovation of the Basilica (Covington's Cathedral Basilica), playing at the anniversaries of Dayton, Ky. and Ft. Wright or trying to help out whenever there's a new building or corporate headquarters. We send musicians or produce something. That's why we do our subsidiary groups."

KSO subsidiary groups include the KSO Boogie Band, Newport Ragtime Band, Floodwall Jazz Quintet, Men in Black Brass Quintet and KSO Chorale.

[] Take risks.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Cassidy considers himself a 7 as an experimenter.

"I've tried a lot of things (artists painting to Mahler, complete operas and musicals, Spike Jones recreations, silent films).

Some have worked and some haven't, he said. "The light show we did last May (with Scriabin's 'Poem of Ecstasy' and Debussy's 'Nocturnes' brought something to those pieces, I think. But I forgot that robotic lights make a lot of noise. I probably wouldn't do that again unless the technology moved to a place where I could control exactly what everybody was hearing."

On the other hand, the KSO's 2005 "Miraculous Mandarin" (Bartok) with simultaneous video feed of the original pantomime from another room in Greaves Hall "worked."

The experiment even saved money, he said, because to do a staged pantomime with a large orchestra in a pit would be cost prohibitive.

[] Northern Kentucky needs a performing arts center.

"Northern Kentucky, with a population of three counties, over 300,000 people, where do we go to be entertained, where do we go for culture? For years, the assumption was that Cincinnati took care of that. The reality is that Cincinnati hasn't taken care of it.

"Northern Kentucky citizenry do not cross the river. I'm talking about the guy who picks up my trash, the people I find to be very important."

Cassidy has a Power Point presentation "to show to whoever will listen" laying out the case for a performing arts center in Northern Kentucky.

[] On the CSO.

"They're the pro team. They should get the press, the juice and all that. But you know? They could make the playoffs. Just going to Europe and Japan and making a few CDs is nice, but it's what you do here that will translate to everybody around the world."

The CSO, noted Cassidy, gets one-third of the annual Fine Arts Fund campaign ($3,275,662 out of $10,689,615 allocated in 2006). It also has a capital campaign in the works and a proposal to reduce Music Hall.

"It's about expectations and accountability. Do I think they're wonderful? Absolutely. That's not the issue. The issue is what are you doing for the community."

[] On "shrinking" Music Hall.

"There's not a symphony orchestra in the world that can fill 3,500 seats. But since acoustics is not an exact science, any time you change the depth and surface features of a room you are going to alter its acoustics. So you could go to a pretty hefty expense (perhaps approaching as much as the cost of a new hall) and not know until after the fact what you are getting acoustically. As for new bathrooms, box office and Symphony offices, if they can show need and raise the money, I say knock yourself out."

[] What Cassidy is proud of.

"I'm proud of being able to keep the programming fresh and engaging and that artistically, the orchestra continues to grow. Also, being fiscally responsible.
"If you're a successful business person, you're part missionary and part coach. You have to have the zeal and willingness to get out there and share everything that you're doing. Then you have to have a coach's eye for not settling for less. I tell kids in concerts that the difference between me and a football coach is I can't scream during a game."

[] Cassidy's concerns.

"Attrition rates with us are huge (many KSO players are CCM students, for example). The luxury the CSO has is the same guys are there. With us, between programs and across seasons, it could fluctuate everywhere from a 5-25 percent change in personnel. If Marvin Lewis had to deal with that for every game, how many would they win?"

Another concern is the audience. "We haven't reached the numbers we'd hoped for. It's part the industry. I mean the big guys are having trouble, too."

The KSO is "stuck in a phase where we're just continuing," he said. "We're due for a level shift. We need something that tickles and creates the opportunity for that to happen. There's no fireworks, no big news (venue, leadership, a big donation) that says the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra is about to do wonderful things."

For that, Cassidy keeps his Power Point presentation handy.

(first published in The Cincinnati Post Oct. 12, 2006)