I was asked recently to share stories about my experiences commissioning new music in the hope that I might encourage others to join in. While it is always fun to share a personal story with others, I wasn’t sure that my tall tales about commissioning would provide much motivation to anyone. Then, I thought about which parts of the commissioning life brought me joy, and which did not. From there, I could see what might help the music world find new commissioners.
Every musical organization that wants to support the creation of new music needs to make cultivating commissioners as a special group of donors a key organizational mission. In my experience commissioning hundreds of new works over the past 12 years, I have only seen a small number of ensembles do this. Here is a modest proposal for building a sustainable pool of active commissioners.
Make Building a Community of Commissioners a Key Goal
No better way exists to ensure consist, effective recruitment of new commissioners than making it an explicit goal. It is also the best way to ensure that the entire organization acts in harmony while adopting this essential – if challenging – starting point. Facing a diminishing number of subscribers, rising costs, and increased competition from all kinds of entertainments, focusing on a tiny group of people who fulfill only one specific part of an ensemble’s mission can be an incredible stretch.
Once the first step is taken, here is a roadmap to creating a community of commissioners. As with my prior proposals, none of these items are earthshaking or new. Many ensembles and organizations are already doing some of these activities, but I have not seen an example of an ensemble doing all of them, and there is always room to improve.
Photo by Aaron Burden, courtesy of Unsplash
Identify Candidates for the Community of Commissioners
Paradoxically, candidates for a commissioning community are both easy and hard to identify. Finding them is easy because these people have specific, if unusual, attributes. Finding them is also hard because the number of people will be very small.
Lead commissioners usually have considerable disposable income or wealth. These individuals likely have a history of giving, along with enthusiastic support for musical organizations, including regular concert attendance.
So where do you find these candidates?
Search concert programs for those who may have already tried to commission a piece. Scour social media for individuals who engage with composers and musicians. Review composing club membership lists from organizations that have them. Regularly solicit support for new commissions via articles in concert programs, articles in the press, even direct email outreach. Create a highly visible invitation to new commissioners on your web page. Identify those audience members who buy tickets to new music events. If you can, put on new music concerts with the goal of finding possible candidates.
Lower the barriers to entry for new commissioners, if possible. Create a commissioning club with a very low minimum payment, but also provide ample opportunities for them to upgrade their support. The best people you find who also have significant funds can use a club as a springboard to larger, more costly, and ambitious commissioning projects.
The key difference from normal donor cultivation is to make looking for commissioner candidates – above and beyond donors in general – an explicit goal of the search. This requires that you build a knowledge-base of what commissioners can look like, and then make sure you have screened your donors for those attributes.
Photo by Aaron Burden, courtesy of Unsplash
Educate and Cultivate New Commissioners
Cultivating new commissioners requires intensive education, both for the donors and for the host organization. Ensembles should take time explaining the entire process for those people open to learning. Apart from making the administrative nuts and bolts transparent, every ensemble should offer (at least to commissioners, if not a wider audience) workshopping and rehearsal opportunities. Donors need to learn all aspects of commissioning. Ensembles need to learn what makes their commissioners tick. While the former can take time and effort, the latter requires focused attention.
Listen intently to your candidates to identify their desires and needs. For such a small group, the reasons why people commission music are remarkably diverse. For some, satisfaction may come from abstract notions of “paying it forward” or “building for the future.” For others, it may be the rush of excitement hearing a new piece. For many, public recognition may be the most important reward. For others still, a chance to meet and mingle with composers and musicians may provide the greatest satisfaction. Some commissioners may have all of these desires, but to wildly different degrees.
Nearly all commissioner candidates – or even people with some limited commissioning experience – need considerable education. The more an ensemble can teach these very special donors in the ways listed below, the happier everyone will be.
New commissioners need to understand that creating a new piece can take a long time. And building an audience for a new work can take even longer. Commissioners often need to have considerable patience to see positive responses to the work they have supported.
Commissioners should always be mindful of how challenging writing good music can be. Writing good music is incredibly labor intensive. It is also a solitary activity that demands considerable discipline and passion.
Commissioners should learn what to expect from the commissioning process, including everything from simple dos and don’ts to avoiding unrealistic expectations (e.g., the difference between commissioning and music for hire).
Photo by Weston M, courtesy of Unsplash
Commissioning is risky business. Commissioners need to understand that even having the finest composer and the best ensemble will not guarantee that they will get a piece that they like. Taste in music varies widely. Others may like or even adore the new piece, but it is not unusual to get a piece that does not thrill you.
Commissioning is a unique form of philanthropy. You can’t (although some try) to hang a score on the wall or put it on a pedestal. The cost of performances can be so high that repeat performances are hard to get. These works of art are spectacularly evanescent – vibrations in the air that vanish quickly leaving behind memories and emotions. Persistence is essential to ensuring these works long lives.
Commissioners should temper any expectation of immediate payback – Return On Investment (ROI), if you will – and embrace their belief in the value of each work. Commissioning is a peculiar type of investing. The ROI can take a very long time, years after the piece premieres. It may not even happen in our lifetime! A rare number of new works are popular right from the start, but most take time to build a reputation and an audience.
Nurture Active Commissioners
If recruitment and cultivation has gone well, you now will have at least a few brand new commissioners who are enthusiastic and well informed, and whose interests and desires you understand. Don’t stop! It’s important to keep recruiting and nurturing these relationships.
Good commissioners are an extraordinarily valuable asset, and they should be treated that way. The following checklist outlines activities that should be pursued religiously. Not every item will be equally important to every commissioner, but erring on the side of doing too much to reward commissioners is better than too little. Some of these items may sound simple and self-evident, but they are all worth doing and doing well.
Make participation in commissioning as welcoming an activity as you can. Ensure that all departments understand and support the mission in a consistent fashion.
Keep listening to your commissioners. Especially if they have a complaint or concerns. Keep in touch, especially if they have ‘gone quiet.’ People can change over time. Never hesitate to ask questions that can elicit a clear sense of how the commissioners are feeling.
Provide scores, complete with credits and signatures, in a timely manner.
Photo by Rob Simmons, courtesy of Unsplash
Provide archive recordings or videos promptly. If there are barriers (contractual limits, union rules, prior problems with unauthorized release, etc.), move heaven and earth to eliminate them. A commissioner should have the opportunity to hear “their” piece more than once.
Credit commissioners on scores, in programs, on schedules, in publicity, and on your website. Commissioners are forgotten fast enough even in the best of circumstances. Don’t needlessly accelerate that process.
Publicly thank and acknowledge your commissioners whenever you can. Make them your stars. Most ensembles are already overloaded with talent. Even star donors. Even so, include commissioners in these groups.
Provide ample opportunities for commissioners to meet with artists, composers, and artistic administrators. Make them part of the artistic family of the organization. Don’t offload all contact to the development staff. Development staff play a key role in this process, but they should not be the only face the donor sees.
Encourage commissioners to join in your recruitment efforts by inviting their friends, sharing their experiences, and helping to initiate new recruits.
Regularly review your commissioning activities to ensure that they are achieving the desired results.
Anatomy of a Commission is supported, in part, by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Augusta Gross and Leslie Samuels, Rob Mason, and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is an editorially-independent program of the American Composers Forum, and is made possible thanks to generous donor and institutional support. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author and may not represent the views of ICIYL or ACF.
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