By MITCHELL CRAWFORD

When Murry Sidlin conducts the Juilliard Orchestra in a program of American music on December 14, the audience may get a glimpse of the future of classical music. The reason is that Sidlin—who conducted the Oregon Symphony for eight seasons before becoming dean of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at Washington D.C.'s Catholic University of America in August 2002—is positioned to play a major role in changing the way our society views classical music. For Sidlin, the only way to overcome the problems that currently plague the classical music industry (namely, an ever diminishing display of public interest and support) is to confront the situation head on. And Sidlin has a remarkable track record of doing just that. Indeed, his success stories stand in stark contrast to the more ubiquitous "doom and gloom" reports that paint classical music's future as bleak.

Murry Sidlin

Part of what has made his efforts so successful is his honest appraisal of the present trend in concert attendance. "The empty seats are screaming at us," Sidlin says, with a truth that is both refreshing and unsettling for its directness. But what sets him apart from those who merely proclaim the downfall of classical music is that he has devoted himself to reforming the conditions that have allowed such a decline. He understands that for classical music to thrive in the 21st century, the music must once again become relevant. Much of the challenge is in finding ways to make the live concert experience "more immediate, vibrant, and magnetic," as he explained in a recent interview.

Toward that end, while in Oregon, Sidlin began developing a series of performances he titled Illuminations, which serve to put programs of classical music in a context by "spending time within the concert to bring people to a level of greater understanding of how this music got there, what it means, why it exists, and what's the inside story behind it." By any measure, the concerts in Oregon were a hit with public and critics alike, and succeeded in bringing in hundreds of new subscribers each season. Sidlin is confident that successes like his in Oregon can be replicated in cities across the country. The key, he says, is "putting heads together to figure out how to get people in the concert hall. You can't go around forever with the management blaming the P.R., the P.R. blaming the conductor, and the conductor blaming everyone. Eventually, you have to solve the problem."

Sidlin cites our reluctance to tamper with the many outmoded conventions that can make the concert hall so unappealing or intimidating to first-time attendees. "Can we use video; can we use actors?" he asks. "Can we try different kinds of concert formats? We play concerts in halves—what about in thirds? What about doing a chamber work [in the first third], followed by a chamber orchestra piece in the second, and then a major work last, with a connection between the three?" He is thinking aloud, considering just some of the ways the modern concert might be spruced up. "I would redesign the concert hall and put a screen on the back of each seat and give people a choice between close-ups, or the score, or added program notes to enhance the listening." Sidlin is careful to add, however, that his embellishments would be used only "up until the point when we're ready to play the piece straight through—then, I think I've brought people to the point of listening, and now I have to leave them with their own chemical reaction and connection to the music. I think it's crucial that we bring people to the point where they can hear better."

Such a drastic re-envisioning of what has become the standard practice in many concert halls across the country has not won Maestro Sidlin a following among purists—but it is from these very purists that he is trying to save classical music. Only by invigorating the way in which it is presented to the public, he believes, can we hope to sustain the tradition into the future. Thus another major effort on Sidlin's part is educating young musicians to advocate more effectively for their art. A born teacher, he has spent the past 28 years training young conductors at the Aspen Music Festival and, more recently, has used his role as dean of the school of music at the Catholic University to shape the way young artists are being educated. Sidlin believes that Juilliard—a conservatory with a particularly strong emphasis on arts advocacy, reflecting the insightful efforts of President Joseph Polisi—has a unique ability to impact the art world. "It is not only possible, but necessary," he says, for young musicians to promote classical music. "The real world is clamoring for information, personality, and an atmosphere in the concert hall that brings people closer to the music." Collaboration between different artistic disciplines, he says, is key to fostering this attitude: "The important thing is giving students guidance and the opportunity to work with one another, so that they become aware of what their own art has to offer."

Juilliard Orchestra Murry Sidlin, conductor Alice Tully Hall Thursday, Dec. 14, 8 p.m. Free tickets available in the Juilliard Box Office. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

For his December concert at Juilliard, the maestro will present the works of three Americans who have had an incalculable impact on American music. The program—which will feature Ned Rorem's Lions (A Dream), Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, and Aaron Copland's Third Symphony—will celebrate the unique voices that emerged from America during the middle of the 20th century. Sidlin is one of the most qualified of today's conductors to lead such a program. Throughout his long career, he has held positions all across the United States, and has consistently championed the works of American composers. Sidlin, who considers it "a responsibility as an American conductor to explore the music of my culture," is also excited that the Juilliard concert will allow him to "share with the forthcoming generation of young musicians the diverse languages of American music."

Surprisingly, Sidlin pointed out, Copland's Third Symphony has been performed only once at Juilliard—and James DePreist, Juilliard's director of conducting and orchestral studies, specifically requested that Sidlin conduct it. "It's a piece that I adore," Sidlin says, "and it's an important piece written during an important time in American history [1944-46]." Copland's music has held a prominent place in Sidlin's repertory from the time when, while on the conducting staff of the National Symphony, he and Copland had a "standing arrangement" to meet and discuss the composer's works over dinner. "Copland used to come to Washington about twice a year to conduct the orchestra," Sidlin recalls. "I once said to him, 'Mr. Copland, if I offer to take you to dinner at any restaurant in Washington, could I bring along a stack of your scores?' To which he responded, 'Now let me get this straight: You mean I get the free dinner and I get to talk about my music to a conductor?'" The insight Sidlin gleaned from those conversations inevitably made him a pre-eminent interpreter of Copland's music, and one of his most talked-about successes involved his rescoring of Copland's opera The Tender Land for the same instrumentation as the original chamber version of Appalachian Spring, and taking the production on tour to farms and homesteads across Minnesota.

The works of Rorem and Barber that make up the first half of the Juilliard program are more likely to be unfamiliar to those in attendance, despite the fact that Sidlin considers Barber's Violin Concerto "the best damn violin concerto of the 20th century." In Ned Rorem's Lions, Sidlin finds a "beautiful example of Ned's lyrical orchestral writing and his harmonic dreams," and observes that the work "utilizes jazz elements; it has a little 'smoky night club' jazz quartet playing in the background a lot. It's like he dreamt four notes and harmonized them in different ways over 13 minutes." Sidlin, who conservatively estimates that he has conducted Lions "at least 20 times," is hoping to entice Mr. Rorem, a friend of his and a longtime resident of Manhattan, to the concert.

Beyond the satisfaction of hearing one of America's outstanding conductors lead some of America's finest young musicians in a program of American works, those who attend the performance at Juilliard will have the added benefit of observing firsthand an example of the kind of collaboration Sidlin engages in to promote audience understanding. Between the third and fourth movements of the Copland Third Symphony, two Juilliard actors will speak a text drawn from an historic exchange between Aaron Copland and Joseph McCarthy. "That's the kind of thing that just makes critics salivate to write negatively," Sidlin says unapologetically. But it's also the kind of thing that makes an audience respond, he says, that draws them in and makes them feel like part of the music. Besides, Sidlin has never worried about critics before. It is highly unlikely he will start any time soon.

Mitchell Crawford is a third-year organ student.