2020-2021 Contemporary Orchestral Programming

While i imagined that the data this year would be interesting, like everyone else, I did not anticipate performing arts would be completely upended by a global pandemic. I did not go back and adjust any of my data from last year, despite the cancellation of most concerts last spring. This is because my interest in these programming reports lies in the programming more so than whether the actual artistic events take place. This is an odd distinction to make, but one that means much more this year than it even did last year. In presenting this year’s data, what I report is in many cases what orchestras planned or are planning to play, regardless of whether the event will be canceled or go ahead.

This post will be a sort of introduction to 2020-2021 programming. The reason being that nearly half the orchestras I study have so far released only part of their programming for this season. In Finland, the Helsinki Philharmonic and Finnish Radio have released programming for September and October 2020 only, with very different approaches. The Finnish Radio, because most of their concerts are live streamed on the Finnish national service Yle, continue their normal concert scheduling. This means one program, performed once or twice in a week, typically on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday evening. The repertoire planned has been smaller orchestrations, for safety, but the standard concert practice is the same. The Helsinki Philharmonic, on the other hand, has opted for a completely different concert schedule. For the months of September and October they will present four unique programs, and each program will be performed three or four times on various days and at different times of day. The goal, I infer, is to reach the maximum audience live, without streaming. Programming from November on will come in a later post.

In Sweden, the Swedish Radio has canceled all concerts, and therefore there is no programming data for this first ‘installment’ of this year’s report. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic has complete programming listed for September through January, and that is the data I have used. September concerts have been reduced to a live-stream and that has been accounted for (i.e., if a program was supposed to be performed three times, but is now only being played once as a live-stream, it was only counted once in my concert totals), but any cancellations or reductions from October onward have not been reflected in my data (yet).

The Danish Radio Symphony and Oslo Philharmonic are the only two orchestras in Europe that have presented their entire yearly programming online, and therefore their data sets are ‘complete’ at this time.

In the United States, concerts in all six orchestras chronicled in these reports have been canceled through December 31, 2020. However, because programs are announced much earlier than in Europe, I was able to collect planned concert programming for all orchestras (save any touring plans). The only orchestra in the United States that had completely re-oriented and re-planned their fall programming by the time fall seasons opened was the Philadelphia Orchestra, which went all digital in fall 2020 with a series of thirteen orchestral concert programs. The Philadelphia Orchestra was the only US orchestra, of the ones I study, to make such an ambitious and innovative change to their concertizing, much like the Helsinki Philharmonic did. The data presented below is, in a sense, “complete” for Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Cleveland (the data from Cleveland is the “Severance Season”, which does not account for any planned residencies or tours). The data from the Philadelphia Orchestra is only of fall 2020. What remains to be seen is if any of the other US orchestras will switch to orchestral digital content. The Chicago Symphony has started a digital program for fall 2020 (see more here), but live streamed performances are chamber music only. Video-streaming and radio-broadcasting will be of orchestral performances from previous seasons.

2020-2021 DATA, so far

The table below, as in previous years, are the numbers as of September 2020. Total concert totals were based on, either, the limited programming available as of last month (for the Philadelphia Orchestra [PHIL], the Finnish Radio Symphony [FRSO], the Helsinki Philharmonic [HKO]), or what was announced/released online in the spring and summer 2020 for each orchestra. In the case of all US orchestras, as mentioned, fall concerts have all been canceled. However, since the programming data was available online for these canceled concerts and the aim of these reports is contemporary music programming, everything that was available was counted. Intention over actualization, unfortunately. (With the exception of the Swedish Radio, which has yet to announce any programming.)

Table 1: Contemporary Music programming announced for the 2020-2021 season, as of September 2020.

There are obviously still holes in the data, but I would like to draw attention to a couple points. First, that the New York Philharmonic had planned to play far less contemporary music this season than last season. NYP also planned to offer fewer additional new music concerts (nine this season compared to fifteen last season). It is impossible to know how much this change has to do with COVID, and its particular affect on New York City, or if contemporary programming will increase again next season. But it is worth noting that the New York Philharmonic is the only orchestra that had a significant (15%) decrease in contemporary programming this season. On the other side, of the globe and the trend, the September and October 2020 programming for the Helsinki Philharmonic featured contemporary repertoire in 100% of concerts. As mentioned, HKO only presented four programs in September and October, but each program was presented three of four times. Which, by the way, is the standard program presentation in the United States (each program is played three to five times in a given week), albeit with many, many more programs. But the difference in approach between NYP and HKO could not be starker.

2020-2021 Season Compared to Previous Seasons

I will save the graphs and any ‘large’ concluding for later this year, as there are still too many unknowns in programming. But I want to compare 2020-2021 to previous orchestra seasons studied, at least in what we know so far. I had anticipated that contemporary programming would decrease, especially in the United States, on account of the pandemic, but for most orchestras in this study, that has not been the case.

Table 2: Percentage of Symphony Concerts featuring Contemporary repertoire, 2017-2021. (As of September 2020)

Using the data we have so far this season, the average amount of contemporary repertoire programmed in symphony orchestra concerts increased this season in both the United States and Northern Europe. In addition to the NYP, as mentioned, the CSO was the only American orchestra in this study to decrease its planned contemporary music programming this season, by around 3%. But the CSO has increased its contemporary music program nearly 10% from 2017 when these reports began. Over the four seasons reported, the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston, Philadelphia and LA Phil have steadily increased their contemporary programming every season since 2017-2018. Philadelphia decreased contemporary programming in the second year of these reports, but has since increased their new music programming to the point that they are programming the most contemporary music in the US, at least as of September 2020.

Programming trends in Northern Europe have followed less of a steady pattern. I am beginning to infer that while the amount of contemporary programming might change in these Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian orchestras year-to-year, the average across many years remains roughly the same. Year-to-year, the percentages might rise or fall, sometimes as much as 10-15%, but the numbers have tended to rebound the following season. As far as I can see, there are no multi-year trends to speak of, at least right now. One can see that the average in these Northern European orchestras for the first three seasons was around 35%. The jump to nearly 40% this year was solely due to the increased contemporary programming in the Helsinki Philharmonic. But we only have HKO data for September and October, and thus will have to recalculate these figures in a couple months.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I will only conclude here to stay, ‘to be continued’. While I have compiled data on repertoire (composers, world premieres, etc.), I think it would be more useful to have discussions of that data once more seasonal information is available. Quite frankly I was very surprised to find the amount of data that I did - a full season’s worth - for the American orchestras, as well as Oslo Phil and Danish Radio. However, with seasonal data still needed for the RSPO, Swedish Radio, Finnish Radio, HKO and Philadelphia Orchestra, I will pause my analysis until more data becomes available. Until then, I hope anyone reading this is staying safe and healthy.