Naomoto Okayama:
Asian Management
This address was delivered at ISPA's Beyond Borders International Congress, Sydney Opera House, 14 June 2001
As Ms. Barbash introduced, I worked for a Japanese television network as a director and producer of music programs for many years, but I am not a professional musician nor an expert on orchestra management. But since I began working for the Association of Japanese Symphony Orchestras, I have been observing all the activities of symphony orchestras and Japan's classical music scene. Therefore I decided to accept ISPA's offer here. Before I start reporting some changes in art management in Japan, let me give a brief history of Japan's classical music scene to deepen your understanding of our situation.
It started when the Japanese military took a lesson in marching band music from a British military band which happened to be stationed in Japan in 1888. It was the dawn of Japan's modernization.
The Japan Imperial Household then hired several Japanese musicians in order to entertain their foreign guests at banquets. The musicians had to play Japanese court music with Japanese traditional instruments and also play western music with violins or violincellos. This was about 100 years ago. In 1918, the first performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in Japan took place in the auditorium of the Tokyo College of Music under the baton of a German professor.
As ruled by the Japanese government, all Japanese boys and girls in primary school learned music in their classrooms once a week. Their tunes were all western. There was no longer Japanese traditional music in schools.
After World War II, Japan's classical music scene totally changed. Today most school children can read music and play at least one kind of western musical instrument, such as block flute or xylophone.
During Japan's economic bubble, many local governments spent a great amount of money for building new concert halls. Now we have 2,000 halls in Japan, which have brought a lot of artistic activities into local cities, but please don't ask about the quality. The total number of classical music concerts last year was more than 11,000. The 23 full-time professional orchestras which belong to our association had more than 3,000 concerts last year. It means that on average each orchestra performed 125 concerts.
We also have many concerts by visiting orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Wien Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra - 587 concerts last year. The total number of opera performances was 530, though 200 of those were by visiting European opera companies such as La Scala, Milan, Wien, Kirov, Prague, and Monte Carlo. The average single ticket cost for best seats was US$500 for opera and US$200 for orchestra. Isn't it crazy? Japan is a very good market, but there are two sides to the coin. I found a good phenomenon in our audience: as they have been listening to the highest quality music by top-class orchestras and opera singers, their standards of evaluation for performing arts has developed. And furthermore, to satisfy this audience, Japanese orchestras have to make a great effort to deliver excellent performances. I think this is a good side for us.
The biggest concern for orchestra management is the tight budget all the time. Most of the money must go to the artists first. Therefore they work as volunteers and the number of staff is kept to a minimum. In Japan, the number is between 10 and 25. It is very difficult to recruit young and talented staff because of the low salary. In connection with this matter, I would like to mention another concern. I know it's a very delicate one to discuss. As all of you are aware, some artists get more than double the orchestra fee for one performance. It causes the orchestra to lose the balance of stable management. Orchestras need big name artists to draw audiences, but more than double is too much. It can't be helped?
Let me speak about Asian traditional music next. Please allow me to share my personal experience. When I was young, I didn't pay any attention to Asian traditional music, particularly Japanese. But when I got older, in my 40's, I realized that Asian traditional music is also very attractive and sounds very fresh to me. Then I tried to find a certain type of this music that appeals to more people in Japan and held concerts in Tokyo. Of course it was very difficult for me to find enough audience members, but people who came to the concert were very pleased with the music. And I recognized that I was not the only person who was interested in that kind of music among those who loved western classical music.
Now I observe that the number of concerts with Asian traditional music is increasing in Japan. The only problem is that the sound seems weak, small, and fragile for audiences who like orchestra concerts. We should continue these kinds of trials for a while. Then we will find a solution.
Once Korean conductor Chung-Mung-Hung told a reporter in an interview for a Japanese music magazine that we usually refer to orchestra music as Western music, but soon we will call it just music, taking out the word "Western" because the music not only belongs to the West, it is also ours. Thus everything is going to develop beyond borders and be internationalized.
Surrounded by these big changes, we orchestra managers should change. To stabilize the management, we need more support from the public, directly and indirectly, than before. Most Japanese orchestras have already started adding more family concerts, school concerts, and workshops besides their subscription concerts. More live concerts are needed. We know that intimate contact by professional artists with children is an effective way to ease tension, which is a big issue in Japan. For that purpose, we have to reconstruct our staff balance in the office; more staff are needed to manage school concerts and workshops. Mass production, mass consumption, and mass communication systems brought us economic prosperity during the second half of the last century, but we shouldn't expect the same thing to happen again. We have to seek a new way to go and find a good point of balance for classical music to survive.
Before I finish my speech, I report two things that recently happened in Tokyo. The first: one of the leading art managements went bankrupt. The second: two full-size professional orchestras in Tokyo merged into one. Fortunately, no musicians were fired.
We will never give up and we will be enjoying not only Western classical music as precious human heritage but also contemporary orchestra music as evidence of our own lives today.
Am I too optimistic?
Thank you for your kind attention.
BIOGRAPHY
Since 1994, Okayamasan has been the Chief Executive
Officer of the Association of Japanese Symphony Orchestras.
Prior to this, he was a producer for Sankei Living Newspaper Company; Vice President of FujiSankei Communications International Inc. in Paris; Senior Executive Director of TV Shizuoka; Representative of Fuji Television Network Co. in New York; and Producer and Director of many music programs for Fuji Television Network Company.
These programs covered
all types of music from symphony music to pop, folk, and traditional.
In his very early career, Okayamasan was an audio engineer for the Nippon
Broadcasting Company.
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