Collaboration. This seems to be a buzz word that floats around business offices, social networking companies, arts non-profits and educational institutions .  Enabling groups and companies to innovate more quickly, teamwork and shared ideas are taking over the old command-and-control style leadership.

We were taught in Kindergarten that teamwork is valuable and that two people working on a task can get it done faster and better than one. Some of us have attended seminars put on by Music Paradigm, or Benjamin Zander, who use the symphony orchestra as a metaphor for an organization to demonstrate teamwork and personal responsibility within.

I'd be greatly remiss if I didn't applaud personal practice and growth, the essential hours a musician spends in a practice room, perfecting and refining scales, studies and masterpieces.  The time we as students spend in libraries poring over text and memorizing equations.

As a young child, I was put in piano lessons, which I abhorred to my core. The initial beginner classes, where several children were seated together in front of our Yamaha magnetic notation boards, were fun. I loved the sounds coming from all our keyboards and the teacher singing the notes we were to play.  But later, as I got better, I practiced alone and endured long private sessions with my piano teacher. 

Switching to clarinet by way of making a deal with the 'rents, I found that I loved the interaction I was able to have with other players, and that our individual notes produced a thing greater than what we could have done alone. It was a new way of thinking and making music.

In this age, and especially our current economic climate, as we try to stay afloat by restructuring our companies, we turn to this word again, collaboration, to see what it has to offer.  I think the art of collaboration has taken a new turn.  As the push for growth wanes and the push for quality deepens, we have all started to focus on the core values of our organizations: what our mission is, what we stand for, and the fact that success is measured by how well we align ourselves to these values.   Instead, we offer something to collaboration, we are creatively innovating upon it:  we are bartering services, we are sharing resources, we borrow equipment and exchange talent. 

We are developing the relationships that raise the value of our organizations, brokering the ties that raise us all up in the end.   Instead of competing against one another for audiences, funds or participation, working together could generate vastly greater community awareness and engagement. For example, it was noted that after Pittsburgh-area arts organizations shared their donor lists, the average collected contributions of all the participating organizations went up 20%!

As pointed out by Diane Ragsdale of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who spoke recently at the University of Cincinnati in an address entitled "Surviving the Culture Change", an aggregation of cultural arts products meant that the arts-conscious crowd could have many more options than before. If our arts organizations bundled artistic experiences in a horizontal fashion, people can choose from an array of events that they didn't even know existed, and thus increase cultural participation overall. 

It's counter-intuitive, why should we share our donor list with you? Our initial reaction is to defend our territory and our keep our subscribers for ourselves.  This attitude is changing, and the only fallout is a better-educated, more culturally aware community. 

Collaboration between artists of varying genre is similar.  Works of ballet and opera that have "built-in" musical-theatrical elements are wonderful, it's a miraculous world of physical and melodic precision and grandeur.  The music is written by a composer, the text by a librettist.  The music by a composer, the dance by a choreographer.    How can shining a light on a work from the perspective of a differing genre of art, science or school of thought inform the work?  Philosophy on Also Sprach Zarathrustra, painting on Mussorsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, industry on Adam's Short Ride in a Fast Machine… the list continues.

In my world of the symphony orchestra, our collaborations are a delicate nexus of individual players, conductor and often, a soloist.  Paavo Jarvi, our music director, continually exhorts the CSO,"Always play chamber music!!"  A fascinating challenge onstage with ninety-five colleagues.  I'm often caught wondering, what is the evolution of my particular brand of collaboration?

Recently we experimented.  The themes of hope and timelessness appear in masterworks by playwright Samuel Beckett and composer Olivier Messaien.  Although sharply contrasting in philosophy, the interplay of thematic elements and perspectives provided answers to fundamental questions of  human existence.  And we had to figure out how to engage two masterpieces in one room.  When does the actor speak during Abime des Oiseaux?  How do we time a segment of video to a live performance of music which will be a different length at each performance? We found ourselves engaged in the work in unexpectedly rich and rewarding ways.  Collaboration has many faces.

Pushing the boundaries of collaboration builds new bridges, forges new ideas and challenges conventional methods to keep our lives continually enriched by new thinking and exciting innovations.

I'm standing by, ready to introduce our guest artist for the evenings concert at Below Zero Lounge.  My palms are sweaty, I shift from foot to foot with anticipation, and my heart is pounding.  The first concert of the first "official" season, I'm nervous that people won't have a good time. Our guest is a double bassist, and the program surveys the music written for this instrument throughout musical history.  My thoughts collide with one another: Will the music communicate well in a bar?  Will people like the Baroque duet, next to a modern jazz influenced quartet, next to a classical sonata, next to a funky Herbie Hancock song?  Will it be too noisy? Will we break even? I hope it goes well….

Two years later, I'm in front of a standing-room only crowd, at a concert celebrating an often misunderstood composer of the 20th century, a man who had a huge influence on modern composition but whose music is hard to reach. Candles burn brightly on tables, and people are squeezed onto the basement floor of the Metaphor Building.  This time the anticipation is palpable among the audience, I worry about lighting, logistics and if the ice cream will be delivered.  I still hope it goes well…..

I don't think concert:nova could have happened elsewhere like it has here. My passion project has been to present thought-provoking, innovative multi-media, musical and visual collaborative concert.  It grew out of a series of simple, albeit risky, questions that sometimes gets one in trouble.  These questions are ones I've asked myself, and ones that I am most often asked.

Me, to myself (in 2006): Is this it?  Is this all I want to do?
Myself: It can't be. I want to do something that really gets people in the gut, that isn't just an escape but stirs something deeper. Is it fun? Yes.  Meaningful? Definitely.  Inspiring? That's the goal. Music belongs to everyone, there's a connection that isn't as strong as it used to be with audiences and classical music, it's the story within that carries the essential, and the artistry of delivery that gives it power. What if there is something that can be done to re

Q: It's an idea will break some molds, will it be an uphill battle?
A: It's my responsibility to give back, to break molds, to challenge and renew.  Programming and performing really good music can happen anywhere, not only on stages (an idea that is centuries old). What if we give this music a new context? It's like adding commentary to a good story, the story is still fantastic, but the expression of a unique individual response creates a relevant point of interest, a dialogue.   I love it.  I think Cincinnati is hungry and ready for something that pushes the envelope a bit.

Me: You've never produced anything before, well … except parties…but parties are different. A production, with lighting and actors and cues and music and media?  
What if I let the ideas lead the way?  The ideas are compelling, people are excited about them, and most of all, I am excited. Just do it and give up the idea that it's going to be perfect, let it grow on its own and happen.

Me: Ok, what ideas have you got?
I love chamber music and I love going out, – how about a chamber music party? Let's start with the classics, great music old and new, layer on a bit of a visual twist and put the audience at ease with a party-like atmosphere. Modernize it with a spin, add a flavor of the unexpected.   Chamber music is intense and there's so much great energy in live music, I want to break down the barriers and add a new dimension.  There's so much to explore: besides the classics like Beethoven, Schubert, Bach and Mozart, there are larger chamber theater, chamber ballet and opera pieces waiting to be discovered.  

Me: What's the spin?
I like to take a sideways look at a piece of music and see how we can approach it with a certain perspective, a point of entry, so to speak.  What if we took two masterpieces, one a chamber music masterpiece and the other a theatrical gem, and mashed together their ideologies? They might have two very different answers to the same question, but the interest is in where they intersect!  What if we took a photographer's eye, hooked her camera up with wifi, and were able to show the audience, up close, magnified, and in real time, what she is seeing and responding to during a live concert?  What if we took concerts to places people don't expect to hear live classical music?   What if we could make the difficult esoteric music of a 20th century composer more understandable by bringing the composer himself alive with a theatrical interpretation?  

Me: (2009) How's it all going?
Sometimes it's hard, there's always a to-do list ten pages long and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night asking myself "What have I got myself into? Are you crazy?"  You go through uncertainty, insecurity and sometimes want to strangle your partners.  But in the end, when it works, you get excited. There's a standing room only crowd whooping for Schoenberg, someone is inspired to pick up a Stravinsky recording, a child becomes curious about a violin and the sounds it can make, you get one member of the audience to really laugh or cry; you get excited.  I'm so grateful for all the people who help, support, work, believe in and make their own this group that will continue to explore, experiment and have fun.

Me: How has the economic downturn affected this project?
We're going to keep playing and creating. The passion for this soul work is true and can't be taken away by the possibility that we won't get paid what we hope to be paid, if very much at all.  The recession has only created a desire for quality, a product that is real and undeniable. You learn to take risks for quality, and realize that most people find art and music essential in hard uncertain times. People are seeking a shared experience, a social network, and ideas that affirm yet challenge.  I think there are many people who understand that investing in a strong and smart project will not only help the community connect but be an investment in overall quality of life.  It has given us the opportunity to collaborate, share resources and come up with creative solutions.

SoapBox 1 - Base Camp
Ixi Chen

I'll admit it, I didn't think I could ever call Cincinnati my home.  My friends in California have stopped saying, "Hey how's Cleveland?" when we talk on the phone and I don't have to say, "Um, I live in Cincinnati" and then respond inevitably to, "How do you spell that?".   I know, it's confusing and hard to keep straight, all these Ohio cities that are all the same, right? In my mind, my sense of home has been the incredible feeling I always have as the plane dips down over San Francisco Bay.  As the years have passed, I haven't lost the excitement the feeling landing back in California over the Pacific Ocean, but now there's a irreplaceable sense of peace and belonging when I come down over the hill on I-71 from the airport and the view of Cincinnati drops in front of me, a city gleaming and vibrant on the river.  Home.

For me, Cincinnati is where I have made a life, where lifelong friendships and the seeds of truly deep meaningful work have been sowed. It's where I have grown into my own skin, discovered my voice and realized my passion. As an artist, it's a place where one can easily reach out and create something tangible out of dreams and full of people who are not only supportive of new ideas, but nurture them: they say "yes" that can be done!, "yes" I love that!, "yes" let's do it!  Ok sometimes it doesn't know it, sometimes it may be slow to respond, but Cincinnati is a rich and fertile community who takes itself seriously but knows how to have a good time.

The River, the Stadiums, the New Downtown, the Neighborhoods, that’s all great but let's face it, Cincinnati is about the people, people.  The imagination, creativity, spunk, risk-taking, community-building, and hands-on attitude of so many of the folks I’ve met since landing here is amazing. These last 8 years have netted me friends young and old, from all walks of life, work and background.  As the late Susan Sontag famously said, “Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present and future”. If this is true, the relevance of existence here is based on our valuing quality relationships, taking the time to stop and listen to one another’s ideas, and having the desire to explore together our creative expression. Be it in business, education, urban planning, fine arts, this is what makes this city special in my eyes, that there lives so much possibility and kinetic energy in our nexus of interpersonal relationships.  And this is the aspect of living in Cincinnati that will transcend the passage of time.

It’s good to be home.