David Rohde

I very rarely weigh in like this, but I join the many concerned alumni of my beloved @NorthwesternU in calling on President Michael Schill to speak out clearly on Israel, if only because of the school's recent tendency to blab about everything else

"Weinberg senior Lily Cohen, who helped organize the event along with other students, thanked non-Jewish attendees for showing their solidarity with the Jewish community." Good report from @thedailynu, one of my old stomping grounds dailynorthwestern.com/?p=279564

@AubreyBergauer Yes. I see people throwing darts at the problem from afar. "But I put such-and-such on the program." No, you have to engage, consistently, persistently, creatively. If you're not the type, find someone who is (sorry-not-sorry if that's harsh)

Well… 1. Too many ppl/orgs try to use programming as a singular solution to growing audiences. It’s not. 2. Too many ppl/orgs oversimplify the problems and want a silver bullet. There’s not one. It takes multiple strategies.

Two of my cultural affinities clash at the World Baseball Classic! My homies with Team Israel lose big to Puerto Rico. ¡Qué lástima! Tonight they have to play powerhouse República Dominicana apnews.com/article/wbc-pe…

Always love when the World Baseball Classic comes around so I can find out which of my tribe members are now in the Major Leagues nyti.ms/3JrwpMY

Weird headline in an email from a local opera company: "Celebrate La Traviata's 170th Birthday with a special, limited time offer!" (The offer is 17% off the ticket price ... get it?) Come on, this is not the kind of cute hyperspecific that puts any new fannies in the seats

@AnnaBonitatibus Actually in America tickets to pretty much anything, including sports & pop concerts, now rival events like opera. See the recent controversies over tickets to Taylor Swift & Bruce Springsteen. Still, complaining about "elitist" can itself seem elitist - positive messages needed

For the next time Opera will be "accused" of being elitist. #Opera #Music #Football #Calcio

@ViolinMulcahy I will say this, though, about applause IN GENERAL that gives me caution. Over the last 10-20 years in America, a strong element of cheap virtue signaling has crept into applause and esp. standing ovations. I have had to decline to participate in both when perfs didn't deserve it

@ViolinMulcahy Perceptive and well stated. I personally think only 20% of the coughing is out of actual need. My fear is always that to a newcomer, the weird sudden unnatural enforced silence after an obvious conclusion followed by a tsunami of infirmary noises makes them feel way out of place

@ViolinMulcahy Holly & followers: What percentage of coughing would you say is out of biological need and what percentage is a learned behavior of traditional audiences?

@kevinddaly @MetOpera Fascinating, Kevin. Opera people need to understand this isn't just about The Hours. It's equally about the shocking decline of movie theaters which ruined themselves by presenting only endless sequels/prequels of existing franchises. Huge opportunity for ALL live serious culture

The @MetOpera live broadcast of The Hours made the box office top ten this weekend, which is wild.

Original dramas are dead at movie theaters, which only show sequels & prequels & upchucks of existing "properties." Producers of serious culture, you know, operas/plays/symphony/ballet: Understand this amazing change in going-out culture & take advantage! nytimes.com/2022/12/09/bus…

@TimFlannery13 God thank you. There are too many numbers in baseball. I read entire stories that are just one statistic proving another statistic and I have no idea how the players EXECUTED their baseball skills to win. Rooting hard for Dusty Baker to finally win it all.

@hankschulman @MLB Hank I don't mean to be sacrilegious but I don't care about Aaron Judge's 61st home run & I have few friends who care about that stuff. Next year's changes have a CHANCE of restoring the basic 2.5 hour game & finally give young adults/families a chance to go multiple times/season

@DavidBachToRock @MLB …. Are still charging full price for Extra Innings and regional sports fees. They’re going up, not down, while fewer games are available because so many are moved to streaming. Then, you have a huge potential moment like Judge-61, and @mlb won’t even allow its own TV network…

.@mlb doesn’t care whether older people watch their games anymore. They’re not the target audience/advertising/gambling demographic.

I laughed as soon as I saw the headline. Hollywood's inability to come up with original stories should be a boon to live theater and other live performing arts, if they understand what has changed for the worse in pop culture, especially at the multiplex nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opi…

@emilyjashinsky @esaagar @krystalball @ryangrim This is fantastic news for all four of you and I hope the marketing can break through to millions more to crush the horrible effects of Confirmation Bias & Deflection Television that afflicts so many people's brains

Love our friends @esaagar and @krystalball and love what they’ve built over at Breaking Points together with their amazing audience. Excited to be a part of it. Who knows where @ryangrim’s hair will go next. The possibilities are endless. youtu.be/W6Ij-7W9-x8

@mdaviescomposer @jkmbassoon Maurice my point is that if you are going to perform you have to solve the problem in advance. Yes that includes low-tech solutions as photocopying everything 2-sided and getting it in a looseleaf notebook. I understand problems w singers if it's an audition but not a performance

@mdaviescomposer @jkmbassoon I love your comment and yet that's another thing I don't understand given experience in pop and musical theater. Why do classical pianists EVER bring on stage a book where the binding won't lay flat? Is it a reverence thing where they're afraid to break the sainted holy book?

Gratified by the big reaction to my comment here asking why page-turners even exist in classical music. It's very distracting to watch an anxious non-performer repeatedly hovering over a pianist when there are so many other solutions like practicing your own confounded page turns