Leadership in the Arts

Good afternoon everyone. Late in the day I know; but a very important conversation. I am Deborah Cunningham, Executive Director of Marketing with The Atlantic monthly magazine, proud co-sponsor of this years and the past three year's Aspen Ideas Festival. And a very privileged a great privilege of mine to introduce today's session, a very important conversation on "Leadership in the Arts". 43 years ago in its February 1964 issue, The Atlantic monthly reprinted a speech given by President Kennedy just before his assassination. In his remarks honoring the late poet Robert Frost, he emphasized the importance of the poet in American society. As critic, commentator and champion of the individual mind and sensibility, he said "I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens" So how have we done in the past 43 years in meeting President Kennedy's vision and what of the next 43 years? This esteemed panel will help us to understand our current state and future challenges and moderating the discussion is Alan Fletcher; President and CEO at the Aspen Music Festival and School and respected composer and leader in the arts. Before I turn it over to Alan now I would like to invite you all on behalf of Altria to join us at a quick reception, just after the left here, immediately following the discussion to honor New York City Ballet principal dancer Damian Woetzel, Alan Thank you so much. And all of us who saw Damian in the past session previous session, will definitely want to join Altria in that reception I think. We have a panel of remarkable people here. I think they need no introduction to the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival; nevertheless I am going to say one thing about each. Michael Kahn of the American Shakespeare Company and also of the Juilliard School; and a welcome face here in Aspen. Dana Gioia; I hope you've had a chance in the past few days to see any of his remarkable presentations on reading and poetry and art and life and and really tremendously vital presentations, so we thank you Dana. Sidney Harman; one of the most remarkable people in the arts today, I think having fulfilled virtually every role that can be taken from philanthropy to leadership in all kinds, we are delighted to have you. And then someone who's work and whose company's work has truly been a major shaper of the arts and supporter of the arts from Altria Jennifer Goodale, thank you Jennifer. I want to start, and I would like to David Bradley's phrase "paving a runaway." So I would like to start paving the runaway of this conversation by asking each panelist remembering one or perhaps two of the most impressive arts leaders whose work they have known or admired, what attributes most animated those successes in the arts. And I think may be we'll start with Sidney. Without hesitation, sainted Beverly Sills, who you must know passed away just a few days ago. This was without question, one of the most stunning talents in American history and truly one of the great, great women ever. Her work as a performer, for decades, illuminated our lives and brought totally new insights to every operatic role which she played. It is a comment on America's views of the arts that Beverly Sills and so many others had to go to Europe to establish the fact that she was extraordinarily competent. Once back she blazed new trails as a performer and then as you undoubtedly know, turned into one of the great executives in the world of arts at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera. No question we have lost a remarkable talent and beyond anything, one of the most unimaginably courageous human beings ever I have encountered. In essence she suggested one or two Isaac Stern comes to mind, magnificent talent but in a sense he taught me so much about life and the world and leadership. A student once asked Isaac Stern, "How can it be there must be tens of thousands violinists who play every note perfectly and yet there it is a mere handful of maestros?" Stern replied, "My son, it is not how we play the notes, it's what we do in the intervals." Excellent, let's go to Michael. Well, there are two people I'd like to at least recognize who I think were really important leaders in the arts and of course I think also it touched me very deeply and that's John Houseman and Joseph Pap. A lot of you know John Houseman from his last part of his career where he did the Smith Barney commercials. But John was an immigrant; he came here from Argentina as a young man, not with an arts background of any kind, but with a huge enthusiasm for talent. I think he knew himself that he was not he knew he was extremely smart and actually a good businessman but I think what he had was a huge appetite and adoration and understanding of someone else's talent, and very early luckily for a lot of us, early in his career he met Orson Wells, a genius a difficult man and a genius and luckily that was the beginning of an affection that John continued for the rest of his life, as he continued to support young talent difficult, brilliant people. And during his life he led many organizations. So it wasn't just that he had helped create The Mercury Theatre, but he also created the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. It still exists. He created the Julliard School along with Michele Santini, which was probably when it started 37 years ago, the only school really devoted to creating American actors who could act both in classical and modern works. And I think it was a school that helped it came as a result of the burgeoning regional theater movement. But I think it has also helped create generations of actors who have been able to fill the roles in the theaters that are in many of your communities. And he continued to do this with huge enthusiasm until the day he died. I used to say and Sidney Harman is the other person who I admire; with the kind of energy, the ability to keep going all the time, with the enthusiasm, energy, clarity and in a way he has been a huge role model to me, but a huge role model to I'd say hundreds of young artists whose career he started. Joseph Pap Joseph Pap, who I guess owe in a way, part of my career to was a real visionary. Again an immigrant, not a rich man as a matter of fact, absolutely not a rich man, who taught that theater belonged and classical theater and Shakespeare particularly belong to the people, because he wrote for the people, about the people and it was not an elite art. It was an American and it needed to be done in American way with American actors, American artists, for a large and completely diverse American audience. And I think that Joe introduced diversity on stage in terms of casting, diversity off stage in terms of who he hired as directors and scene designers, who he hired as administrators, and of course he instituted free Shakespeare free Shakespeare in this case in Central Park. And because of that I think so many of you have free Shakespeare festivals in your communities, and I think its probably single handedly due to Joe Pap that Shakespeare is still alive and well in the United States of America. And again he was a man who while he himself and he would probably be very angry if I would say this. But he kind of told the truth all the time and it wasn't always pleasant, so I am going to say this too. It was that he wasn't a great director. He was a kind of a kind of - I'd suppose frustrated director, because he kept wanting to direct and he wasn't quite as good as everybody else. But in spite of that usually there are a lot of people who are directors, they are not very good and they run theaters, they tend to hire people less good than themselves all over the place, so they will look better. And one of the things I can say for Joe is that every good American director working today probably got their first or second start with Joe. I did, he hired me, he didn't know who I was. And he hired me. There were times I thought he hired me because he thought may be I wouldn't be very good. But it's into and I worried about that sometime. But the truth is that I would not be sitting here today if he hadn't taken the chance on somebody who he saw a 20 minute play by a young [0:11:06] ____ playwright, Adrian Kennedy and gave a major production safer to because he thought may be I might have something to say. So these two people, I salute completely for their first of all their ability to create institutions, but also for their ability to actually recognize and sustain talent. And I think that's of course what arts leaders should do today. Dana -. My wife and I came to New York in 1977. We were married then, but we you know, we were going out were there for 20 years. And during that time I had a kind of unappeasable hunger for art. We went to museum, symphonies, operas, ballet, modern dance, all kinds of theatre and there were two institutions during that time who struck me as operating at the absolute upper end of execution just genius. One of them we've talked about a lot today; which is the New York City Ballet. There has probably never been a dance company as good as the New York City Ballet was you know, during that period. And we you know, but I don't think it's by sheer happenstance that the greatest choreographer who ever lived, may be the greatest American choreographer who ever lived, the greatest dancers on the planet had a well funded theatre in the middle of Lincoln Center, he was a guy named Lincoln Kirstein. And he seems to me the as an arts administrator, you know, I am a poet but I at the moment I am an arts administrator, he strikes me as the absolute gold standard of arts administrators. And the reason is this is a guy who you probably could not have a more opinionated guy Lincoln Kirstein was. Yeah, but he was he had opinion on every thing and forcefully you know, and forcefully, you know annunciated. But he understood that his role was not to put with Lincoln Kirstein wanted on stage, but to take genius and clear the way. And he Balanchine you know, I think could never have accomplished you know, a fraction of what he did without this fellow. And I when I came to the endowment, I took a kind of doctor's oath. It seemed to me the first thing I had to remember was "First do no harm." And I think it is you see a lot of arts administrators, a lot of foundations, that I think trying to impose their agenda on arts groups and what happens is you get a kind of a mix you know, and you don't get the best you know, the best of the arts or the best of whatever that agenda is. And you know our job is arts administrators is to clear the way for artist. I think Kirstein is a remarkable guy in this way. The other best institution better than I think at that era The Metropolitan Opera and god knows everything else, was a company you have never heard of and it doesn't really exist in the same way, right now called the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. It performed in the shabbiest, smelliest basement in New York in Sheridan Square. The scenery and the costumes were not even at the level, you know, of the church you know, pilgrim's pageant. It was the run by a fellow named Charles Ludlam, who wrote, directed, produced and starred in the plays. These are plays whose very names, to me - "Reek of greatness", "Eunuchs of the Forbidden City", "When Queens Collide", "Irma Vep", "Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde". And then he would do productions of classic plays like Camille in which he played Camille in drag and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now these things were about as deep into gay humor as you could possibly be. But I could and in fact did bring my mother, who was more catholic than the Pope, to them and they were so incredibly tasteful you know it has to be something out of Molière or you know lets take you know, Noel Coward or something like this, everything was perfect and it showed me that an a real artist with no resources, with no support could in a sense create something of perfection by just the charisma of genius. You would all know who Charles Ludlam you know was today, because just as he was being discovered just as he wanted do his first movie, just as the Santa Fe Opera brought him out, he died suddenly of aids. But you know Ludlam is an inspiration to me too, because it shows that you could take the most unlikely material you know how to create in his case, perfect farce. When he died the company continued, it didn't seem to me that it ever operated at the same level it begun, to be cruder and more broad. But you know it's an inspiration because it's just not wealth, social position or anything else that creates art, it's the genius. Just for a second, I also think he had a huge influence on theatrical styles for so many other artists and theaters of how he saw how art be produced. I think it's very important. It's amazing that you brought them, that's really cool. Well he is again he is also by the way I never realized till 10-15 years after his death, he was a superb writer He did a book on theater which seems to be one of the best books ever I've read on theater. And two people come to mind and actually one of them was Joseph Pap, and for all the reasons you say, but also the idea of the access for the arts for all, which I think is such an important issue today and something that is forgotten about and it's something that we must fight for. And second of all the second person that came to mind was Harvey Lichtenstein. And what this man has done in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, his vision, his ability to take risks with artists from all over the world, who had never performed in this country, dance companies like Pina Bausch, Peter Sellers, the Mahabharata, he did things that no one had done before, no one was that enthusiastic about, mind you. He has also been able to take use the arts and it's such a great example of how the arts can be a catalyst for community revitalization. And if you look at that area in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, its transformed, what's happening there. And it's because I think due to Harvey and a great partner he had in Karen BrooksHopkins, but I do think they took risks. It's very interesting to me that that we've heard a list mostly of practitioners and practitioners who've risen into leadership positions by virtue of what I might call a talent for enjoyment, people who embodied the pleasure of making art and who loved finding that in others. So who listened, who admired, who mentored, that's certainly the way we all remember Beverly Sills and Stern and Houseman Joseph Pap; and then the great impresarios, we have a pair of them, the people who stand in the wings, but also typically with intense opinion and yet generosity. I thought we will do a quick round for any of our panelists who had something prepared or something in advance with respect to our question about the arts today, who shapes them, who leads them, who will rescue them if they are in need of rescue and we are going to look at Sidney because Sidney always has something to say. Can you imagine that any one of us didn't have something to say? In our introduction reference was made to John Kennedy's reference reverence for the work of and the poet himself Robert Frost. Robert Frost once famously observed that the human mind is an astonishing instrument. It turns on automatically when we get up at bed in the morning and it does not turn off until we get to the office. I am absolutely committed to undoing that mindless view of the arts held by most of industry. There is an exception here and there and I am committed to doing it, not simply because I love the arts and not simply because they have enriched my life, but because I am absolutely committed then that when the arts are integral to a well lived life or a well conducted business, each of them will flourish, because of that conviction and that commitment, I here sponsored with the support of Michael Eisner, the relatively new artists or arts program at the institute that has two co-ordinates, but I'll speak only of the first our artists in residence. The idea there was to first go back to the roots of the institute. This place was founded over a half a century ago by the Pepky family of Chicago, an enormously powerful industrial family, the Container Corporation of America, that largely inspired and gave life to that that I regard as the unique American visual art form Poster Art. They came here to essentially abandoned old mining town, to set up a commemorative for Goerthe, the colossal polymath. And much of his work Faustus and others were resided, was resided and much of the music that engaged his life. This combination was really the birth of the Aspen Institute and over the years this institute has done all manner of wonderful stuff. Somehow the arts kind of got lost and the purpose of introducing this artistin-residence program is to bring that quiet remarkable mind that characterizes every artist in every expression of the arts, and I think of poets in this respect is our original systems thinkers a systems thinker sits to my right. These people look at their universe and they interpret it to us in a fashion that no business person really ever understood. And this in fact that kind of thinking can be introduced to the way in which we do business. I have no doubt it will be more creative, it will be more human centered and in the end it's a consequence of that more prosperous. Damian Woetzel may not know this, but the next year he is going to be our artist-in-residence. I'll respond to that a little bit because I have I couldn't agree with you more and I one of our company's missions is to try and encourage other companies to support the arts. And it's very frustrating that, because I think the reality is and when you ask the question are the arts in crisis, I think in this country the arts are always in crisis. I think and it's frustrating because I read reports saying that everything is doing well and the arts are doing well. But the groups that we work with and I see visual performing dance, theater, they are always struggling and they are always competing against the social service issues and the environmental issues, not to say that those are not important because of course they are, and we've been hearing about it at this festival for this whole week. But how do we educate, not only businesses but the people of this America, that the arts are integral to their lives and you have to pay for them in some ways and even Reverend Buds was here I don't know if you heard him speak and he was talking about what he has done up in Harlem and he himself and it was so exciting he said, you can have this business and not but without the arts it's nothing. And that's we got to change, we have got to make that happen. Well, you asked how we can do it and I quickly suggest that for good or bad, industries are tremendously powerful factor in our society. I'll be very happy to join you in affecting that in industry and you know; just take care of the rest of our society. It's probably not not exactly, but you know I've been here for three days now or four days and and I listened to a huge amount of really extra ordinary panels, really and I I've gone to know arts panels, I've gone to environment, I've gone to Iraq, I've gone to new media and I have gone to I have gone to panel after panel that has simply described sort of disastrous situations in the world that require huge solutions. But what I understood and I and President Clinton said that today when he talked about interconnectedness, that I kept getting struck that somehow even though this is simplistic, it actually comes down to the will of the single person to actually want to change something and actually want and want to change something for something that is larger than themselves, in some way that while you have your own self interest of whatever it is, that to make a difference you have to have a care and and a knowledge of and an understanding first of all how it connects to you, but it's something larger than your own narrow self interest. And what can help you learn about that more than the arts and where can you learn about it better as a young person? And while we talk hugely about the need to support all of the existing performing arts institutions, I feel that it is and I say this is something that needs funding every minute of the time that we have to spent a lot of energy in discussing how can arts be presented and provided for young people. And there are all the surveys you know about how it makes them think better, how it makes to read better, how it makes them understand better, how it makes them be better socialized human beings. And where are the leaders of tomorrow going to come from? They are going to from people who have an experience of how art and somehow made some difference to them as a child. I think everybody here could talk about some early experience in their life which changed them in some indelible way and that experience is going to come from having listen to a piece of music, heard your mother read you something from the text, having gone to a film that moved you, having whatever and it's going to be one of the things that moved you more than anything else. And those experiences are being taken away more and more and more. And I would like to say, you too also see what what you know I know Dana we talk about we all talk about it all the time, which is how can we reintroduce art into young peoples lives, where in many cases it is simply not there. And may I just quickly add, how can we encourage the creation of new works of art in each of the media, because in absence of that bankruptcy is inevitable. I want to build on what Michael was saying. It you know economic terms, the problem with American arts culture right now is not supply, its demand. If we doubled the budget of the every performing arts group in the United States, a few years later we would be in the same situation that we are in right now. The why is the demand not there to the degree that it should be? It's because it's being crowded out by lots of other things. Marcus Aurelius was quoted earlier today I think I think Damian quoted him, one thing Marcus Aurelius said is that the path of wisdom is taking your baser appetites and training them constantly on something nobler and nobler, to go from very simple crude pleasures to very sophisticated and deeper pleasures. You do that through education. We have an educational system which is lop sided; we are trying educate kid's minds. But you have to educate their emotions. You have to educate the completeness of the humanity, and you don't do that as effectively any ways through art. I am interested in very basic concepts, which I don't think are well understood, we have ways of communicating. The way that the Aspen festival communicates is a conceptual language. We sit and we talk about things in an abstract way, which and we were well trained in that. Occasionally you guess somebody who is actually going into scientific language and there is a very small group of people that are going to understand that. But there is another language, another way of seeing the world, understanding the world, and communicating the world, which for lack of that we would call poverty, which is to say we don't understand it conceptually, scientifically, mathematically the understand in tactilely, physically, imaginatively, emotionally. We understand with the fullness of our humanity and we communicate in that way, we communicate it through movement, through image, through story, through song. And I would say two things, first of all this language is as irreplaceable, and profound is the language of science or the language of philosophy conceptual thought, and there are some irreplaceable truths about human existence that can only be communicated, preserved through this type of poacys. There are some truths about our existence that we can all tell each other as stories, in fact there are some that are so embarrassing and so ridiculous, we can only tell each other as jokes. That you can really communicate that anyway. Images, the same way, there is something that movement immediately communicate and in a way that's interesting, they have communicated across the languages is across cultures. If we educate our kids, if we develop ourselves as adults and you know, without developing and recognizing that, we are really in one corner of our human potential. And I don't think that we educate people with into the largest and most powerful part of the humanity without doing this. There is a lot of other things I could say, but let me just cut it off here because otherwise it becomes very garrulous. I just I wanted to say something that struck me just you know, what Reverend Bud's said it and by the way Reverend Bud's entire performance was a theoretical performance, based based really on the Church and story telling, and and that performance was as basic as the first theater ever said in this whole community, I mean and he was trying on a very rich edition of theater, he also said that you know you learn to get along with your wife by dancing and just think about one if I get to nations could dance together, but the other day I was at the environment one of the environmental things and Karl Brown said that the picture of the polar bear all by itself floating on the iceberg that was turned away in water, was more more more vivid, and make more people understand global warming than even Al Gore's film, now that is an artistic image, you that it is a chosen image iron artist a photographer cropped in such a way and we look at it as statically but it moves us, and That's because we respond that was not as an idea but its it's as a reality. but it is and and I think when whether Reverend Bud's went to that very long thing about the birth of his baby, you know its long it was a way to get through the idea of birthing a new idea, pushing and birthing a new idea, and he couldn't have if he hadn't done that story and just said you know, we all have to push to birth a new world, we wouldn't have gotten it, he have to use language, he have to use inventory, he had to use jokes to get us to come to some understanding of a much larger thing, that's art. That is the use of art, that's the use of poerty, that's the use of language, and I am sorry again, I will leave it that too. Let's return to Sidney and Jennifer's thoughts linking them to who is shaping the arts today. And I just like to throw a question about Philanthropy, we have distinguished representatives of corporate of personal and of government support here, one idea and I've encountered this in many, many artists and companies is someone should write a check and then go away. But it occurs to me especially with the stories that we often risks that that maybe the arts are best served by an intensely engaged and a very personally committed philanthropy people with real and particular taste, certainly the Pepkys were that way, certainly Lincoln Kristine was that way, much as he gave free reign to Balanchine, he was also a person who you know, of constant opinion. Lincoln Kirstein raised a lot of money beside beside himself to keep and so did Harvey I mean Harvey put emotional and physical resources and then went on raise a lot of money for them. So just what are your thoughts about who is shaping the direction of the arts and especially through the support? Well I don't think I will respond in terms of who is beyond commenting on something that Michael and I were engaged in in Washington. They are not on October first the new centers for performing arts will open it will incorporate that now famed and properly famed Shakespeare theater, it will have two theaters Jain Harman and I have indulged this project, but it really is something that we have done to give life to these mans vision, and that vision says Shakespeare is glorious Maria is irreplaceable. But they are literally hundreds in that small community, a wonderful aspiring and inadequately fuelled arts programs we need to open this theater and its resources too. So the point of the new center is not simply to give currency to the established classics but to encourage new odd expressions in dance, in music, in recitation and of course in classic theater. And speaking from a cooperate perspective what we are saying now is companies coming in for short term commitments, they want the one that two year splash for a particular program and then they go away and that's the problem I think I think I take give you an example of City Center created all the issues they created a program called Fall for Dance Fall for Dance, which was a ten a ten day program with a five or six dance companies on the roster each night. And the great thing about it was that it was a $10 tickets, took a huge risk got some great funding from some great companies including the company I worked for. And it and it took off, it got new audiences in it turned it got the small companies, new patrons, people came to Midtown the audiences what they say it was so successful. She had a vision and she followed it and it was great programming. Now after two years we are ultra is changing, we are going away, we may not be around next year. She can't get funding for it companies are changing their strategy we got to do something new. Well, are all these programs is two years old and is not new anymore. So sorry, you can come back to us, and this is so unfair and so frustrating, so it's a challenge you can get it doubt, and yet this was this wonderful program that I was bringing arts to everyone. So I think that we need to get companies just get back to mantra to understand the value of arts to make that long term commitment, and to be collaborative. And that's the other thing I think foundations, individuals and companies all have to say, lets do this together. We heard that mantra here on every aspect, that we can do it alone, and one bank cant just take ownership of we all got to do this together so - I don't think we are in a period right now that generally the founders are shaping the arts. You back to the 50s and 60s and you look at what the Ford Foundation did or what National Endowment for the Arts did, I mean they essentially changed the American culture by their interventions. Probably the NEA is the you know, maybe you know, one place it's doing it in a very few areas because by national initiatives jazz or Shakespeare or reading. That by enlarge I don't see that is the decisive force right now. I do see in certain communities an individual coming in and just saying you know, I have done very well in my life and I am going to give a substantial you know, portion of my state to create something that seems to be individually driven and arts would always revive that individual patrons. But you know, with the most interesting thing I see is occasionally a municipality. Usually meeting the mayor, will understand that they want the arts in their city, sometimes for purely selfish reasons. That happened to like this or they just think it's a good economic program. The most interesting one is Joe Riley, who is the mayor of Charleston, South Carolina. And have anybody been to Spoleto Festival in South Carolina or you have seen it. If you went to Charleston 30 years ago, it was a brighten community with a great architectural sure legacy. Now it is probably the most interesting city in the American south. And that's been done largely because of this Spoleto Festival the little Spoleto Festival and Joe Riley who has been mayor during all these decades. And that's the kind of thing where somebody understands that this is part of the civic life that they want to create, that it creates employment, it creates all kinds of investment, I mean you could eat better in Charleston, South Carolina. You know, today within about a five block area. Then you probably could have a tri-state area you know, 30 years ago. And it's been all driven by arts. I want to say one other thing. The single most interesting arts project I see anywhere in United States right now is this thing that Michael Tilson Thomas has done with the New World Symphony, outside of Miami. First the whole idea of the new world symphony is brilliant idea to take young musicians, give them a few year fellowships in an orchestra. They are building a symphony hall that is actually not much bigger than this auditorium here. Maybe you have about two and a half times as big. Doesn't seat that many people, it's - see what those guys are standing back with the cameras, they have got an incredible video and audio system. It's in the middle of a park that's new within the hall. And they have one enormous flat wall on one side of the building that goes into the park. Every performance in this hall will be under ideal conditions for the audience. That will then be broadcast simultaneously outside with superb sound and sight and free to the community. This park will be I think the most widely visited place in Miami. And that will in a sense they have done something that presented that has been trying to do it for ages, to present things to the world to make them open without in the least compromising the artistic quality of the performance and the experience. Dan did you happen to know the source of that superb sound? I should have guessed. You know, but it's largely been paid for by you know, by one individual in terms of but I think that this is something we are going to see all over the country. It's something that's truly innovative, because the question is what is the idea with the endowment? How do you bring the best artistic experience possible to the most people possible and be true both to art and democracy? Well, --- and his team at New World have been pioneers in internet too and distance learning applications. They have solved problems that people that could not be solved. But let me say this. This will not take anything away. I don't worry about the internet. I really don't. It's going to do real well. What I worry about is American civic life. That's what's, the notion of citizenship of a shared public space of belonging to a community, and not the vision of the commonwealth, that's in danger in our country, and that's what I love about this program. It really invests in the commonwealth of Miami. Could I just because I totally agree bringing the best of our team and there is people possible, but there is also that other side and I know you agree with this. These artists who are experimenting and exploring and doing things that are that popular and that's got to be room for this artist to do that. And I think that's also a challenge for them to have artists to need to develop, worked of the time and space, the resources just as the institute does for --- Smith. What a gift that is? But that is a huge problem that that's way under funded and needs to be addressed. Well, and that is that follows on what Damian Woetzel was saying in the previous session I think. In creating a pathway to high art is our goal to have the largest audience possible or is there a competing goal of of refining the art itself and and revitalizing that -. Well I think the large audience is possible talking about the you know, that if you think that full audience for the full range of offerings. I do believe that the bigger the tent, the more room there is for experimentation and diversity in that tent you know, if you can if you bring in 100 million theater goers you know, I think idea you create a a more interesting and varied experience thing will if you bring in a hundred thousand. And I just quarreled the premise of the question and I don't think they were at competition at all I think that they are mutually reflexive. I think I mean that there is a danger now need also of I think I mean that there is a danger now need also of of artistic organizations pricing themselves out of their audience. And that's a real that's a really serious problem for a lot of us, and and it's the one that we struggle with all the time, because it it and I don't think we are here to talk about all these particular stories but I do know that that I I have total evidence of a huge audience for the kind of work we do which we are not doing other than the best work we know how to do, if we can make it affordable enough. And of course you know, when four thousand people that might come to this a difficult play by Shakespeare, because it's free and respond the same way as people who would pay $65 during the week at a smaller house you know, the work is the work, it is the access to it. That is the difficult and we all struggle, we all struggle with how can we make the work both better but also more accessible. And I think what you are talking about what Michael's doing is as greater to do with access, and access is a large issue and the leaders in the arts of tomorrow should think that access is a serious serious thing. That they should be providing so that the audience of tomorrow is actually there. How many of was gone to a spectacular play, concert, exhibition, you know, a dance performance, in a place which is half empty? I mean if you know, that's that's the universal experiment that we are trying to talk about, but you know, this is country thank god has a consensus that education should be free and universally accessible. I think all we have to do is broaden that consensus and saying that the arts must play a role in that in that education. If we do that I think it will you know, develop better citizens first of all - but also the next generation of artists, of audiences and patrons, and the funny thing is that, nobody really disagrees with that until they get on a school board, until they become a mayor, until they you know, got elected to be an educational commissioner, and then it's treated as a luxury. And you know, we have got an educational system in this country which now is focused on producing entry level workers you know, for a low level jobs and this is not the way this country is going to prosper in this century. And you know, I don't advocate the arts in education because I want to produce more Painters, more Poets and Writers and all have that is my product you know, I advocate don't see any other way in which we are going to realize the potential of the next generation, if nothing else to keep the 30 percent of them from dropping out. So let me say that I think that that everybody in this room and all of us have a very large responsibility. I think every art we consider on a complaint much longer about the educational system in many of our cities. There are lots of things that are needed to fix the educational system in our cities. I live in one in which the educational system is pretty much broken I am in Washington DC, and this is shame because it's the most powerful city on earth with one of the worst educational system, or with the educational system but it's our responsibility now it's all to find the way to make up the deficiencies in that system and I think it is the responsibility of every single artistic institution in an urban area or a rural area to make part of it's mission and it's time to work with the young people. And not to work with them on a oncoming on like a star and talking to you when you will be very excited you can you know, -- you know, autograph with you don't do that how I am, but actually you go into there and devote a certain amount of time, a thoughtful program to actually introduce art into the schools, and I think all of you have an equal responsibility which is to take kids to arts program. And there are lots of parents who don't do that, if you are a parent take your child and take four other kids whose parents don't have the time and if you are grand parent and you have a lot of time, take from a lot. I went to a matinee at the mid of Julie Taymor's Magic Flute on Saturday matinee. Every seat was sold, there were properly were not more than 40 kids in the audience. I mean I can't see you know, why you know forget grandpa bringing the kid you know, hopefully that there should be I mean I don't see why those people where taking their children and their grand their grand children there. I mean it just struck me these were people of enormous efforts I mean this wasn't a matter of economics; it was a matter you know, I think a failure of imagination. Well I think we have to have a I think we have to have a we are so good at marketing, we are so good at marketing things that we don't need and why it doesn't some fantastic corporation decide to market that need to attend the arts. It has happened sometimes. It - it's very interesting that I think that And let the parents be the leaders, the artistic leaders of today as they introduce young people to the arts. It's the parents who who are really doing I mean they are not advocating for the arts with their politicians, with their you know it's some that's it let me go back here. First of all I think that the arts there is so much competition for what kids can be doing now, and people are have such a short attention span. The idea of taking kids to sit for two and a half three hours in the mid is a challenge for parents. Correct. But that's the problem, it's the parents who has have got to start changing and its sometimes if you say I support the arts, I don't think that's necessarily you are you are not looked at with great "Oh, good for you" if you stand up and you say well I am agreeing and I have got all these red light up, all right I mean there is this this this competition or this that that is about the value of the arts in our society and and I am not saying that we shouldn't do that and in fact we read a list of ten things you can do to help support the arts. One of them is that one of them is talk to your congress men, one of them is tell your neighbor how much you love the arts, lets talk about it, lets you know live it. And Michael I would say that however we market it lets make damn sure that we don't market it and therefore trivialize it as decoration, and lets make certain that it is understood that this is in mothers milk that the foundation. But I think your point of view is is very central is it, we live in a society that isn't driven by ideas, it really isn't, it's driven by personalities. And I think that's part of the electronic realty that we were in and of the thousands of personalities that we see in the media there is virtually no artists, in the sense that we are talking about present and there is you know Beverly Sills death reminds us that we don't have an American opera singer who is famous now in the way that that you know we should Richard Tucker was famous, Beverly Sills was famous, Anna Moffo was famous, Jean Perisson was famous, Caruso, or Marian Anderson was famous and what we need and this is this is some thing that we need to in order to change behavior we need to change the conversation that our country has about itself which is what we call the media. And when you don't have artists who are capable in the sense of talking abroad mixed audience about why these things are important it can do it comparing or musically or with attitude or what ever part of the eco system this personality is in, they become marginal they become inaudible and invisible on our culture. All artists are wonderfully expert talking to one another. They have lost for the most part the ability to sit there and and charm and they used to charm the root sense of the word cast the magic spell or an audience to make them feel the importance of what they are doing and the truth that we have little left in the Yo-Yo ma are enormously important but we should have hundreds. But we do have more than Yo-Yo ma and we have Winton Marsalis and here in Aspen we have Jessy Norman who does that superbly and did here just the other day left the group visiting with her nothing less than transported. But I I have wanted to say that what were the things we were thinking of when we came here. I think it's the responsibility of art schools now. The drama schools, the music schools, painting schools to actually institute in their curriculum, the idea that of artist to citizen not just artist as artist, but artist who is actually purpose part of your purpose is to make a better society, to actually affect your society in some way and one of them is to go out in to the society and to learn how to be able to conclude communicate what Dana said what what what Dana is saying people are doing, that's some times easy, its easy for us up here, we got to maybe good at it, there are people who need to have the opportunity to see one is important and two learn how to do it. And I think it should be the part of every artist training nowadays. And I want to mention that Jessy Norman when she came to the music festival and spoke to voice students and Jazz that there will be only voice students, and no public. They thought they were going to get excellent career advice and find out about their and what roles they should be singing and how much proposition extra, is that she spoke about volunteering in their communities. And she said it is so crucial, that as musicians you will be citizens and then at the right moment when you are delivering meals on wheels you say, I am a singer, but so that the the public understands artists as the members of the public. With that shall we open up to thoughts, comments, questions.