July 2015 - Friends of Music

As part of a strong new effort to combat trafficking in African ivory, the Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a proposed rule for public comment. The rule would affect any musician who intends to travel internationally with musical instruments containing ivory.

If all the features of the proposed rule are made final, orchestras and musicians will be able to travel internationally with instruments containing ivory under certain conditions. Most importantly, the ivory in the instrument must have been legally acquired before February 26, 1976. So many antique instruments may qualify.

Also, to qualify for international travel the instrument cannot have been transferred from one person to another in pursuit of financial gain or profit after February 25, 2014. The instrument must also be accompanied by a valid CITES musical instrument certificate. A CITES certificate establishes that the ivory contained in the instrument was legally acquired before February 26, 1976.

The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on July 29, 2015 and will be open for public comment for 60 days.

Michael Kaiser has run the Kennedy Center, the Royal Opera House and The American Ballet Theatre. He knows arts management. His new book Curtains? The Future of the Arts in America paints a disturbing picture.

Kaiser recounts the flourishing of the arts in the period between 1950 and 2000 made possible by the burst of national pride and economic development after World War II. He then shows how and why arts organizations have hit a major speedbump in the 21^st Century. Many prominent arts organizations, such as the New York City Opera, simply went out of existence and others faced crippling strikes and programming cutbacks.

Kaiser blames the decline on several factors. Arts patrons are abandoning the subscription model, in which subscriptions to an entire season are purchased in advance. The subscription model offers convenience to the patron and improved cash flow to the organization. Now arts organizations are forced to spend more to market each performance but face resistance to ticket price increases.

Kaiser also blames recent economic instability and the rise of competing entertainment choice like streaming movies on the internet. But his special culprit for the decline of arts organizations is the aging of the arts consumer coupled with a lack of arts funding for the schools. He notes that as a nation we are failing to produce replacement generations of fine arts lovers.

Curtains? ends with Kaiser’s prescription for the survival of the arts. He recommends that arts groups build a family of supporters, not just ticket purchasers. He notes the success of minor league baseball in doing just this. He also recommends that arts organizations imagine exciting programming and then find the funding for it, rather than programming down to the decreasing budget, which does not satisfy or excite arts patrons.

Kaiser’s book is thought provoking. It is designed to create anxiety among arts organizations and patrons and to suggest a plan of action to reverse the trends. Here’s hoping it succeeds.