Programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by the College of Saint Benedict Partners in Liberal Arts education with St. John's University. Good afternoon, and welcome back to mid-day on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten other effort is underway in Washington to eliminate Federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts course. The Nea has been facing persistent criticism from some conservatives in Congress who charged the agency with ignoring even if vending Main Street America, but the new chairman of the Nea says the agency will not only survive this latest assault but Prosper as well William IV, the former director of the country music foundation in Nashville was officially sworn in as the new head of the Nea last Wednesday, then on Thursday one day later. He was here in the Twin Cities to deliver his first official dress address as the NBA's new chairman. He spoke at the annual Convention of the American Symphony Orchestra League meeting in St. Paul. They were going to hear from William IV on the future of the Nea later this hour. We're also going to hear from Garrison Keillor who had some funny and insightful things to say about the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, but first nth Sherman William IV opportunity to to talk with this group. very important To the Arts endowment over the years and I'm only 2 weeks into the job. But this is a great place to to to begin a dialogue with one of the most important communities in the Arts back in 1989. That was one of the principal writers working on the Grammy Awards that year the show was live that year from Radio City Music Hall, which of course is one of the biggest and most complicated stages in all of entertainment. But as you also those of you who know the hall know it has dressing rooms that are remote and very cramped and for that live telecast the production company build a couple of little huts on the stage one stage left and Stage right just wooden frames covered in cloth a holding a few folding chairs and portable lights one stage right one stage left. Stage left was Michael Jackson and his Entourage waiting to go on stage right held Billy Crystal who is the host of the show executive producer Pierre Cossette co-writer Robert wall and me. And when you wasn't on stage Crystal huddled in this Hut with us hearing is straight lines from me, so he would know what was coming up on the teleprompter when he went out on stage and soaking up one liners from wall who just spit them out at a mile a minute pace wonderful comic mind suddenly our little tender the right in the middle of the show was being invaded. It was mr. Jackson and his entire Entourage just substantial, and they had been evicted from stage left by vitamin Horowitz who had her Hive also with Entourage to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the recording Academy. So Michael Jackson moved and we moved and I was left with what I guess so sense of delight that the great Horowitz had arranged my introduction to Michael Jackson. And with a sense of the continuing power of classical music to to move people. No. you you in another way feel that power everyday not necessarily pushing the Rolling Stones off of stage, but you are certainly on the front lines. And I think you feel a real and a growing strength like so many of you for the past 25 years. I've been on those lines I've served on the Arts Commission in Nashville, like work with our mayor Phil bredesen with Civic leaders to increase our City's Arts budget and I've run a not-for-profit Arts organization like so many of you as well. I've also dealt with the Nea as an applicant a grantee a panelist and a participant in the work of the agency. Now from those Vantage points particularly recently. I very much admire the work of my predecessor Jane Alexander when she's left one stage for another now, but just a few weeks ago. She was nominated for a Tony Award as best actress for her performance in the drama honor. Let me tell you if it were up to me. I would give her a Tony for best performance by an Arts leader in a difficult and challenging role. I think she did a wonderful job for all of us. Tell my journey began in the middle of America back in the middle of what has been called. The American Century. I was born in Detroit reared a few hundred miles north. Just call Calumet in Michigan. We call that part of Michigan the Upper Peninsula the u p. There are those who say we even speak our own dialect a kind of upin. He's with influences from Canada and New England and Scandinavia back. I was asked by a reporter a few months ago about my lack of a Southern accent getting given amount of time. I spent in Nashville, and I said I had an accent but it was located exactly between Fargo and Gone with the Wind I grew up hearing my father talked about the copper miners in our community their stories their songs in the ways, they worked and they worship and as I learned about our neighbors, I also learned about our nation. We are after all truly a nation of Nations and in the 1960s, I was drawn into America's folks on Revival My Heroes were Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Peter Paul and Mary and through the magic of recording. I discovered that Behind These popular performers stood hundreds of authentic traditional artist who after studying history and folklore and ethnomusicology. I came to the capital of Country Music Nashville at first thinking only I'd stay a few months but I stayed stayed for 27 years and the library at the country music foundation and after a few months, I became that foundations director. Forgive me for bragging but come by mine. The foundation is a very valuable model for preserving and presenting an art form. It runs the Country Music Hall of Fame Nashville is first accredited Museum. It operates a huge research Library a publishing division teaching programs non-profit nonprofit record label. M. The music music museum, I think conveys very well the critical subtext of Art in America that is its unique creative cross-cultural ferment. There are those who say that the Arts belong only to an elite and I'd like to show them around Nashville sometime. It's the home to Andrew Jackson home with Andrew Jackson. Grand Ole Opry America's leading religious Publishers, but also with the help of our local and state Arts commission's the business Community a great mayor and the Nea it's also home to classical music ballet Community Theater and arts education programs are also those who say that farts are good business. And in this case, I'm one of those people the Arts account for an estimated 6% of our gross national product and employ nearly 3% of our Workforce and you know better than anyone how the Arts can help to revitalize communities and help anchor downtown's Do you also understand that the real value of the Arts cannot be measured in money for even more than art and riches our national economy. It ennobles our national spirit and everything. I have seen studied experience and enjoyed convinces me that the Arts are woven into the very fabric of American life. We Americans gave the world film and Jazz modern dance music theater abstract expressionism country music too. And it's high time that we see ourselves as the rest of the world sees us as a questing Innovative expressive people. Just two weeks ago. I had the pleasure of talking with Robert rauschenberg about American art. He said and I quote it is above all audacious. You can find that audacity in the dance of Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey the songs of Frank Sinatra and Gloria Estefan the compositions of Aaron Copland and John Coltrane the movies of Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee or the novels of John Updike and Maxine Hong Kingston the rest of the world appreciates our audacity and it's essential American this and so should we What makes our Arts American first it is their universality Arts reflect in our music Echoes every culture in the world to that mixed we add what is intrinsic to the American Experience a willingness to experiment to share to accommodate and to borrow a true mingling of cultures. And an essential egalitarianism that tells us that no one has any right to look down on or any reason to look up to anyone else. Here in America. We look each other straight in the eye and that is the best angle of vision from which to understand each other and appreciate art. That is why the Arts are so important and how Americans explain ourselves to each other and how we present ourselves to the world. And that is why American art forms and the American art scene are so different from those of hierarchical society. I have the greatest respect for our European cultural heritage and the way it has been nurtured and extended on American soil. But here in America great art is not commissioned by sovereigns restate. It is the product of a creative firm it to which artist their audiences communities business people can all contribute no government can contribute as well. But as a partner not a patron and government must contribute because America American art is democracies calling card know this insight has already informed the National Endowment for the Arts. It is itself a uniquely American institution and has become overtime Evermore American at first as many of you know, any a served large institutions in big cities. Mostly those that preserve the classical forms of European art. It still does that and it must continue to do that. But through a typical American process of inclusion and Innovation, the Nea has drive to serve more communities and more art forms, and we should continue to draw a never Wider Circle around what constitutes artistic excellence. More than any part of the Arts Spectrum symphony orchestras have faced the challenge of fitting your creative work into the complicated fabric of a great democracy. It is ironic in a way that venerable musical institutions the very symbols of art with a capital A should find themselves. So engaged on The Cutting Edge of the most challenging and exciting issues affecting the Arts today educational Outreach live entertainment in an age of Technology the maintenance of artistic Excellence while building audience. These are complex issues facing all of the Arts. In fact all of our cultural sector But you have faced many of them first add to these issues of board to add to these the issues with board development succession planning governance labor recording and it's easy to see why the symphony orchestra is at the real and the metaphorical center of the Arts in America, but your orchestras will continue to take on the challenges of making art in a complex democracy and your National Endowment will too. And America is all the better for this it's better because the Nea has helped support the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is community initiatives project as well as the Saint Paul chamber orchestra is retrospective in celebration of its 40th anniversary season. Better because the Nea provided funds for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial better because it helped start Garrison keillor's Prairie Home Companion better because it's supported the development of Driving Miss Daisy and angels in America in the musical Rent better because it's sponsor chamber music groups in Jesup, Iowa and small towns in, Georgia main in Arkansas. And like the artists we encourage the Nea has taken risks and a x even offended some every art form has its foes as well as its fans. And for the past few years there has been a free and Furious debate about the Nea and its programs and policies that debate as difficult as it has been is generated light as well as heat because it's hot as more about when many of our fellow citizens appreciate or have horror for those of us with the endowment. The debate should inform us not intimidate us and we should encourage us to include more communities in our cultural life the culturally conservative as well as the avant-garde. We face this fundamental question. Does America want an Arts agency that sees and serves America as it is and if we are to be that kind of agency as most Americans want us to be then how can we reflect and respect every element of a diverse and dynamic democracy? We have had the negative debate about what the endowment should not do now. It is time to have the positive debate about what our endowment should do. And here is what I believe. Thanks. Here's what I believe. I believe that the endowment should be a catalyst and a convener for the entire Arts community and I believe that with our grant we must continue to leverage larger contributions from the entire Society because every dollar we spend triggers many more in private contributions and even more in economic activity. But we can and must be something more a national advocate for the Arts. Our purpose must not be just to exhibit the arts for to explain their significance and expand Their audience. That's my vision for the Nea. Let me tell you a little about my agenda first we must continue to do what we do best Foster Excellence diversity and vitality in the Arts. That means preserving America's unique cultural heritage for future generations. And it also means encouraging creativity and artistic and inspiration by recognizing and supporting America's developing artists. We just have to get back in the business of supporting individual artists again, and we will And it also means keeping all of our Arts organization strong. Now these goals reinforce one another because today's Creator is tomorrow's classic. We have seen how a small amount of support encourage artists to persevere at crucial moments in their careers. And we've also seen how excellent can take many forms. It's worthless today in this Society to debate which is worth more classical music or the blues. It is worthwhile to encourage the best classical musicians and the finest Blues musicians. How second after excellence and diversity and vitality we should broaden public access to the arts for all Americans it matters when people in our inner cities and Rural communities can enjoy a symphony and Opera and art gallery or a poetry reading it also matters that those who can afford the finest are exposed to experiences beyond their everyday life. That's why our through the indominus pilot effort to nurture Community cultural planning must be continued and expanded and we encourage your organization's located in those 20 targeted states to apply for in participating Arts reach funding. Third we should demonstrate the value of Arts education from kindergarten to grade 12 in through a lifetime of learning as well. We recently learned what many have always suspected that exposure to sophisticated musical forms can enhance every aspect of a child intellectual growth. I believe the same is true for other art forms as well from painting to poetry 4th. We must healthy Arts Advance the concerns of our communities from Healthcare and social issues to youth at risk from design from City design to city celebration. V we should develop lasting Partnerships with business Partnerships that multiply the value of public dollars allocated to the Arts and business can contribute more than money many corporations own important parts of America's cultural heritage and many entertainment companies develop new talent and new works of art. We must identify those areas where every segment of the cultural Community can work together for instance many record companies have treasure troves the early Jazz folk and classical recordings on metal Parts. Can I be preserved forever using digital technology and compact discs. I want to use the bully pulpit of the endowment to sound a call for preservation and I work a lot of work to develop a real partnership with the record industry to preserve these time was works. Such a preservation partnership is very much in the spirit of our president and first lady Zone Millennium Council created to honor the past imagine the future. In fact just today the endowment is announcing two major Millennium initiatives both based in St. Paul. But designed to have National impact the American composers Forum will receive $500,000 to conduct community-based composer residencies and at least 30 and potentially all 50 states and Twin Cities public television will receive $200,000 to produce for National broadcast a three-part series exploring 20th century American photography. We're very very proud that the endowment support both of these important projects. now in all of these endeavors I need your help over the past few years when the endowment has come under attack. We learned how deep and how determined are public support is in your communities through all of your boards and your volunteers. You have helped make our case and I want to give special thanks to the leadership of the American Symphony Orchestra league for your tireless efforts on behalf of the endowment and on behalf of the role of federal funding for all of the Arts in America. You've been just terrific in this fight. But still there are those in Washington one is zero, but I'm tempted answer them in the words of a president who who himself hail from the Performing Arts. But their opposition their opposition to us is really our opportunity every time they come after any of us. They come after all of us and they give us one more occasion to explain the importance of the Arts in America and the essential role of Our National Endowment. And we remain committed to the well-being of our major institutions even in a time of diminished and Diamond resources. For that and for other reasons, it's time for us to set our sights higher to raise the bar 98 million dollars just isn't enough. we enjoy we enjoy the strong support of our president first lady and vice president. The president has asked Congress for a bunch of 136 million dollars for the NBA next year that yes, that would just begin to build a federal commitment commensurate with the crucial role of the Arts in our great nation know I asked for your help to make this case to your leadership to your communities to your Congress and to your country. Make no mistake about my commitment as chairman of the Nea while some may seek to defame the endowment. I will defend it while some may try to eliminate our budget. I will work to increase it and while some may see America's living in fear of what is new and different. I see a brave people ready to embrace the future. We will do throughout this country what you have done in your institutions, whatever the challenge we will persevere and we will prevail So as we begin our journey together, let's keep it joyous. Keep it creative. Even though the great Horowitz is no longer with us the Arts he nurtured. the art that moved us I move Michael Jackson. Is still here the strength of America's Rich cultural heritage will carry us forward. We've said our Compass by the creative Spirit of America, and we will continue as we conclude this American Century and cross the border to a New Millennium. Thank you very much. The new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts William IV speaking last week at the annual Convention of the American Symphony Orchestra League meeting in St. Paul the next year. And midday. We're going to hear from the convention. Luncheon speaker Garrison Keillor Garrison, of course is the host of the national public radio program A Prairie Home Companion, but it's probably worth noting hear that he began his career. Minnesota Public Radio is a classical music announcer cell was not all that unusual that the Garrison should be asked by the asol the discuss the future of the symphony orchestra. Garrison Keillor. And that's why I accepted the the invitation. It was a challenge. I came not knowing that I get to meet my friend Bill Ivy once again launched on a distinguished a 10-year. I know I has as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. It's good to have someone in that position who has a background in country music and who knows firsthand what it's like to suffer and suffer treachery and Proceed and abuse Leslie Sansone the blues now. Now Bills going to have a chance to live the blows lyrics. That's all good to be out of convention and to be with people who are having a good time under the thin guys of doing business. I quit going to public radio conventions because it was so hard to come back to the real world after you've been there. Because one does you get tired of self-congratulation after awhile, and it's like too much dessert, but I'm glad to be a I'm glad to be here at yours and it's a particular pleasure to speak to an organization. That declines to change its name. even even though and how its initials are pronounced by every musician in America. This is an organization with a great sense of humor and the and you have to have that to be in this in this business. I have been attending Orchestra concerts Minnesota Orchestra in the Saint Paul chamber orchestra, since I was in college in and every time I sit in a seat on the lights go down, I return to that person. I was when I first began going to concerts a person who was romantic who is more eager for new experience who is not as tired. And I find that Orchestra concerts as do all of the people around me in the dark. I find a religious experience. This is why I go with we don't talk about this because we're minnesotans, but it's the truth. And you often times find a more religious experience than you would find in the Lutheran Church. Because at no point does the conductor turn around and talk to you about your obligation to appreciate this music and and and we are and we are very grateful for this. I started out my My concert-going Life as a great snob which is common for people who are beyond their debts. cool, cool To assert their taste as a weapon against other people I sneered at things aren't that were that were beloved in that other people loved and gradually over over the years. I've come to deeply appreciate things such as Handel's Messiah, which is performed Everywhere by every Choir in Minnesota in some form or other at the Christmas season and to admire it for the great work that it is and it is just lie loved the last concert I attended Wasn't going to get home to see seiji Ozawa conductor Boston Symphony and Chorale in the Box st. Matthew passion and it was a magnificent magnificent evening during the second half of the concert looking down on the main floor at Carnegie. You could see New Yorkers sneaking out even as Christ was led lacrosse and with storage during the choruses not during the rest of the teams, but during the choruses you could see little clumps of people hunched over scurrying of the Isles who who I guess had not realized it would take that long to killing and up. And who had other places to go? It was a magnificent evening and at the end of it. I stood up as did everyone around me and gave him a standing ovation for as long as they wanted to keep coming back to the stage and I heard a man behind me and turned and he was not standing. He was sitting and he said this is outrageous. This is absolutely outrageous. I heard Curt moser do this with with the Philharmonic. That was a religious experience Ozawa conducted this like it was like it was Rossini. You people don't know what you're doing shame on you boo on you. This would not happen in Minnesota. panda it was a great night. It was a great night. I went home in a cab and I just I hated myself all the way home for the fact that I had not turned around and popped in one it was probably my only chance to hit somebody at a concert to wait so many years for and then to and then not to do it. I've grown even more fun to work has been since I've had a chance to perform occasionally with them and get to see them as social organizations and to meet musicians clothes stop turn to and to see the pecking order within orchestras and see what is social beehive. It is backstage it been so gracious to me almost without exception even though I'm not a musician I will say in my own defense that I have never performed the Lincoln portrait, and I've never done Peter in the wall. Which are words works for for football players and retired politicians and an elderly actors? And I had a great great time, even though I was way out of my depth with every Orchestra. I was with I loved hanging out with them and watching them watching the wind play working incessantly on their reads that this lifelong sisyphean task. Protecting leaves that I never quite good enough in the good ones Never Last quite long enough playing instruments that are always on the verge of collapse. When it's humid the keys sticking when it's hot to go sharp, and once dry the reads don't work. So it's like doctors in an emergency room constantly working back there in the wind section. And the oboist this tragic figure and every hearts. That's tragic figure with with with his electronic tuner getting a perfect 440a. That's right in the middle of 440. Not a bit to either side knowing that it doesn't make any difference. The violins are always going to tune sharp cuz they cuz they have for centuries. and then you have the face players which are us a separate platoon onto unto themselves who have unique problems that nobody else understands playing the bass is like playing a sofa in many ways and transportation and storage is never far from from these people's minds. I like to go backstage and and try and pick out the violist and I'm always amazed at how well I can even even when they're not caring their instruments. There is a dosist enduring nerd factor in the VR attachment, but nobody nobody can explain that they they look like the cleanup committee at the junior senior prom. The work that I do with orchestras has actually has a solo section in it for the for the viola section and it just is amazing to watch the rest of the orchestra react to it in rehearsal to see these people actually play. I never knew that I could love you. Like watching blind people shoot free throws that just a smile. I always go to. Orchestra send in during the first break in the in the rehearsal inevitably someone comes up to me out of the violin section and says I'm alone and I'm Norwegian. And we both smile at each other at the at the improbability of this. A Lutheran playing the violinist. It's this is is it is is like Jews in professional hockey. I mean, it's just they're real. I just really rare. This is a Jewish instrument. That's also played by by Asian people and I don't know where the lutherans are narcs to the back of the brass section. Usually I guess trombonist maybe have more. Lot of the men in the brass section look as if they probably worked in construction trades at one time and that got into this because the hours were better. Set for the trumpets the trumpets are such serious people there like Eagle Scouts within the within the orchestra. It is such a formidable instrument the trumpet and it's and it's bad for your health. You can you play a big passage in a high register hand and afterward you cannot remember your social security number. I use that these people tend not to know the names of the other people in the in the orchestra. And the percussionists this wonderful section my heroes and the orchestra is people who sit patiently and Counting the bars for 15-20 minutes waiting for those few beats to come along and of course you make a mistake and percussion and it's not easy to cover so it's right out there. I love orchestras, and I know that they will survive. Because they're real because they're capable of creating moments of such pure beauty and and passion and these are tangible goods in a country that honors so much that is false. And that is ugly that has so much architecture. That is absolutely the same as Every other place you've ever seen. In a world of the malls and the median to bring Mozart and Chopin and Puccini out and put some before people is to do good in the world and this will survive. We don't know that orchestras Will Survive because of you and then I survived despite you. I'm gradually forgiving. Some of you for the grant applications that you sent in that I had to read as a member of a National Endowment panel. couple of years ago Absolutely the most toxic writing I've ever read. Applications that when you Stripped Away all the jargon there just was nothing underneath it. I hated them and if I was still angry at you, I would take my time up here and simply read them out loud to you. I have almost forgiven you for that. Arts management is something of an oxymoron I think. add the need for Smart's in the Arts is is as desperate as as it ever was great money managers, simply create large bureaucracies their money managers who allow bitter relations to develop with musicians, which is and of course, there are do all sorts of ominous signs that one could make much of or or not as depending on what mood you might be in in Public Radio classical music stations are somewhat languishing compared to news and information stations. Which is astonishing to think that people prefer that kind of Pitbull and Balderdash and gibberish that is that is endemic and talk radio public or commercial prefer that tune to Mozart and Beethoven. The is is astonishing but it is true are public schools run by flabby balding men with master's degrees in education the single most overrated degree in Academia. Have been busily gutting our schools of arts programs left and right and music programs and that is all true and there are fewer. Jewish philanthropists than there used to be who has children to please mama and then to please Papa went into the car business. And when they turn 60 have 10 or 12 million dollars to turn over to the Minnesota Orchestra the supply of these philanthropists who will give you money in Mom's memory is is very limited. Orchestras in smaller cities struggle perpetually to stay respectable to pay their musicians salaries that are not an outright insult and orchestras in order to earn a little money or now and then forced to hire people like me to come and perform with him, which is which is unfortunate. It is true as people constantly point out that the symphony orchestra is living off the 19th century. And thank goodness. It was a great country and and produce things you can live off this morning, but the orchestra Will Survive. It will survive because it is needed because it has the power to move anyone who comes within hearing of it and because it has a soul and because it puts his audience in mind of their own Humanity. I tell you this because I think it's true. I'm realizing now that I do have the ability to lie convincingly to other people as all of us do who are in the show business. We have the ability to go backstage and say hello to a friend who has just given a very shaky disastrous performance. We have the ability to look that friend in the eye and say that was really something You brought happiness to so many people out there. There was a kind of emotional Vitality a kind of resonance to that that that that that you don't necessarily find in in in in in in in near technical facility. You say to this person who has gone out on stage and done something. He had no business doing and you hope you'll never do it again and never force you to talk about emotional resonance to him ever again because it was lousy. We're all able to do that until I to each other with some. with some assurance and there should be some I think soul-searching at any at any convention there never was at public radio conventions around and I think there should be much to find in our consciences those of us who are in the non prophets and those of us who are in the Arts and our great sin is arrogance, which is a terrible sin and is perhaps the the most destructive quality for public life in America Americans are poor arrogance and we need to constantly examine ourselves for people in the Arts by and large have had absolutely no political Savvy whatsoever less than you'd expect of cloistered nuns. If we had political Savvy the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts would be somewhere between 2 and 3 billion dollars a year and the country would be proud of it. And we would have succeeded in making an indelible association between the Arts and love of country. There are many reasons to love one's country. And one of them is that it produce Duke Ellington and It produced Leonard Bernstein and It produced Jasper Johns and Martha Bryan and it offered Refuge to George balanchine's and Mikhail Baryshnikov and Isaac. Bashevis Singer. This is a reason to be proud to be an American and we need to associate the Arts and patriotism if we're going to survive in this country. The big reason that the NBA has run into such desperate problems in the congress with all of these righteous Republicans is that they dislike us it is it is it is it is not mapplethorpe. It's not Karen Finley. They're just like they dislike us because they consider us to be arrogant and they're right. They look at us with our cool ways and our cool Heron are cool shoes and they load us they detest us and we've never found a way to communicate with the people that we need to communicate with in order to in order to win their support or at least temper their dislike. They consider all of us to be phonies. I think that we all grew up just as I did and one day when we were sick Seven-years-old we mispronounced the name of Bach and we're laughed at and we swore that day that we'd always be one up on everybody else and we always know how to pronounce things correctly and we always have an air of sophistication about us and they dislike us for this to most Americans. The Arts are for the rich and a symphony orchestra concert is not an aesthetic experience good as an experience of class. This is how most people feel and for that reason they're not interested in it until they hear it and then of course it is different when people have a chance to hear the orchestra. It's like giving them water and they respond well, I'm glad I don't need to solve your problems. I would be here all day. These problems are not new however, and they have been around for centuries and have been solved by other people and I want to close by talking about that. I mentioned Handel's Messiah. George frideric Handel was a composer who had problems as great as Any of yours, he was German. He had no future in Germany. He came to London. He was an entrepreneur. He made his way and dazzled people with his water music and music for the Royal fireworks. They wrote for George II and he was well on his way and then he settled into composing operas, which was his real love and they did not go over that big with the London public. They consider his options to be to Florida to artificial to Italian which they were he was not only the composer of these operas. He was also a major investor in them. And he lost a good deal of money on them. The composer's life in London and 1741 was a good deal different from composers life today. You wrote an opera and you mortgage the house to help pay for the production and here was handle looking for some other way to make his Mark and to please the public. He was sure was out there. He was 55 years old. In 1741 the same age. I am today a sensitive age when a person is not willing to fold up his tent and fade away. And that was when he got a letter from A wealthy dabbler in the Arts named mr. Jenner. Who urged him to compose an oratorio and included a text drawn mostly from the book of Isaiah and the Gospel of Luke and little bits of Psalms and the Book of Revelations. Handle, sat down to his work table and his house in London and he wrote messiah in a white heat of inspiration. He finished it in about 24 days. He took two days to orchestrated arrested for a week and then you wrote another one Solomon. He was a very practical man George Handel. He decided Well, if the public doesn't care for Italian opera, then I'll give them something religious and I'll give it to them in English a language. They can understand and all used Isaiah. Who was a great librettist. and he took many of his many of the same tunes that he'd used in in Opera theme song in Italian. No, I won't trust you. Blindly. I became For unto us a child is born and he gave German Lutheran oratorio touches of Italian and French. He took the manuscript to Dublin. He did not want to Premier it in front of London critics or or or or complete it in in in the capital in this in this in this overheated gossip written atmosphere of London this backstabbing atmosphere. He promoted in April of 1742 in Dublin, and it was a huge success at the very beginning as it deserved to be it was a benefit concert and as a result of the concert and its success 142 debtors were released from prison their debts were paid. He spent a few more weeks in Dublin walking around on the streets enjoying being recognized by people would seem Messiah. And 250 years later a quarter Millennium. This remains one of the most durable and successful works that we have in the repertoire a perennial box office draw that competes very well against A Christmas Carol and the Nutcracker as it should because it's better than either one of them. Nutcracker is like a four-course dinner made up of creme-filled cherish. Candle would be very happy that this work has done well at the box office and the people were willing to pay money to come and see it. He was a very astute businessman and it was his intention to please people and to please them with his very best work. This work has come an amazing distance in 250 years. It has come to be almost a work of Folk Music who is Melody's people know at least the first few bars of it's one of the musical work after people go and hear it in concert. You can hear them up through different levels of the parking garage humming humming the Hallelujah Chorus and humming and he shall feed his flock Like a Shepherd. It is a work that is a staple of musicians of all varieties and all abilities a very useful useful malleable piece of using a word that is worthy of the best efforts of the greatest artists and yet you hear it sung by very amateur choirs a very wavery Sopranos and whimpering Tenors and a Tempo impaired choir director and a pathetic little scratchy Orchestra and some poor pale perspiring base who has to go has to do that horrible. Why do the Nations so furiously raised together, Sophia? Fiction for is a prescription for disaster in any in any Lutheran Church. We cannot do this. Our throats are not made for it and yet no matter how shaky it is. It still is Handel's Messiah. It is still good people still love it. It's still speaks to their so but it had problems at the beginning because there was no appropriate place in the middle of the 18th century in London for this work to be performed. The musical world was was clearly divided into concerts for the aristocracy dining music for for for rich people the theater and then there was the church and Messiah didn't fit in either of these three categories. It was not liturgical music. It did not belong in the Anglican church and wasn't performed. Their people were scandalized that it was performed in a theater that at a theater that also did Opera you would hear people singing about the savior's life and his passion and death and so a new setting had to be created for this work. And that was the concert call a place that is not the church but is not the theater that is not given to frivolity but it does not a part of an organized religion a spiritual place and it was work such as Messiah that led into this business of putting on concerts for people. What was the future of the orchestra a quart of Millennium ago and it is the future of the orchestra still today as a spiritual place? Where everyone is welcome. And where everyone? Everyone's best nature is appeal to through music virtuosity is not the main selling point of the orchestra or if any music or Congeniality being with other people or or or famous names music is spiritual and an orchestra concert is a place where people go and find their soul having worked so hard to lose their souls and to violate their souls they come and they sit in the dark under the spell of music and are reminded of their own Humanity for this reason it will survive. The music will survive the orchestra Will Survive. As they sing in the fight song at Juilliard when they fighting Juilliard Blue Jays. Take the field against Peabody Curtis or the New England Conservatory. They sing We Are musicians and we play in the orchestra. We're Gypsy artists and we're laughing at life. Hahaha. We got to sleep late and we don't work in offices. Where in the music Biz and you wish you were too we like to hang out and make fun of management cuz they're so ridiculous when they get champion and wasters because we are musicians go and we are very cool Garrison Keillor speaking last week at the annual Convention of the American Symphony Orchestra League meeting in St. Paul. Well that does it for our mid-day program today. Hope you enjoy the program now if you missed either Volume IV who we heard from first the shower or as part of Garrison's talk or what's up. We like to hear both.