NEW YORK, Oct. 7 (US): The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming world premiere of a classical piece of music inspired by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg might have been impossible without a group of Chicago-area lawyers. , a Long Island fine arts institution and award-winning pianist and composer.
This is the art of financing new music business in the midst of a pandemic, the Associated Press reports.
Even in the best of economic times, finding funders for new orchestral works is usually difficult.
“You’re looking for support for something that doesn’t exist,” said Jeffrey Beagle, a Brooklyn College pianist and composer who has been able to bring donors and composers together to create more than a dozen musical works since 1999. “We have no idea what the first notes will look like until we have enough money to pay for them.”
In the course of commissioning previous music projects, Biegel estimates he has raised a total of $600,000. But with many arts and entertainment nonprofits now weakened by COVID-19 and donations declining alongside event proceeds, raising $25,000 to $100,000 to commission new work is becoming more difficult. The sector is still recovering from the loss of about 35% of its jobs as of last September, according to the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Beagle, 60, of Lynbrook, New York, realized that in order to “remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg” by Elaine Petty Zoelich, he needed to approach it differently.
“This piece represents a moment in time when a very important historical figure lived and left her legacy in many ways,” he said. “I thought a piece of music to honor and commemorate that legacy was a good thing, and the donors came to help with that.”
Kim Noltime, president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, said she took the opportunity to be part of the new Ginsburg Piece, which premieres Thursday in Dallas, with one of Justice’s favorite singers, mezzo-soprano Dennis Graves, to join the orchestra in her performance.
Ginsburg’s fondness for Graves’ work, and opera in general, is well known. She told interviewers that a night at the opera offered a rare break from contemplating the law.
“I feel the musical tribute to her is a great way to acknowledge her love for music and the arts,” Noltemy said.
“We had to find a way forward,” said Noltemy, who won praise for quickly restoring live performances to the orchestra, even though it made concerts unprofitable at lower capacities. “It is my job and the work of my team to find a safe way to do that. But we need to keep this music going.”
Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg, co-commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, has received support from the Forum of American Composers and the Norma and Don Stone Fund for New Music. However, the project still lacked sufficient funding to complete.
Biegel turned to the Long Island-based Billy Rose Foundation, with which he had previously worked.
“It was on the verge of collapse and struck me as something that should be there,” said John Wollstetter, president of the foundation, who said his organization had offered a “modest amount” to help keep the project afloat. “It’s the arts in general. We live in a time, frankly, when a lot of culture is in the sewers. I don’t think any of us are better off for that. It’s good to have some new recent work.”
In the end, however, Beagle said, a group of enthusiastic lawyers, fittingly enough, dragged the Ginsberg project across the finish line.
“It’s the greatest topic behind the greatest team,” said one of them, Todd Weiner, of Evanston, Illinois.
“I just want to help them get started,” Weiner said. “I would like to wrap the arms of a lot of people I know in the legal community to make donations to make sure everything is there for them.”
“Remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” wrote Zoelich, the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for musical composition. Greaves, who won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording in 2020 as a soloist on “Gershwin: Porgy and Bess,” performed during the Ginsburg memorial service. Beagle was the pianist for Kenneth Fox’s Grammy Award-winning piano concerto, “The Spiritual” in 2019.
Sunil Iyengar, director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts, noted that the complexities of dealing with COVID-19 can be overwhelming for some art groups and require innovative solutions.
“There is really a need to find other new means of revenue and some social transformation,” Iyengar said. “If there is no significant support for the restoration of the arts, we are talking about potentially depriving entire generations of artists, art workers, art audiences, and art learners—and thus impoverishing the cultural, emotional, and intellectual life of our nation.”
Biegel said the Ginsburg Project has benefited from a wide range of charitable support — not just financial assistance. Several artists contributed their Ginsburg-inspired art to help raise awareness of the piece. He asked Harrison Sheckler, one of his students from Brooklyn College, to curate the Ginsburg-inspired Beagle.
‘I told him, ‘I don’t have the money to give,’ but if you do, any rents or purchases from this arrangement will be divided with you. “”
Beagle, who will also perform his own piece “Reflection of Justice: An Ode to Ruth Bader Ginsburg” as part of the Dallas show, said he’s glad the world will soon hear “Remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
He said it represents not only the artists’ collaboration but also the donors.
“It’s a lot of work,” Beagle said. “I don’t get paid to do this. I tell everyone – and I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way, I mean it in a very positive and productive way – it’s not about you.”
“This piece may make it, maybe not,” he said. “Maybe 50 years from now. That’s what it is. This is about the future.”
RAE