CIAO DATE: 04/2009
November 2008
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Those of you who know your revolutionary history will realize that I have not just produced a futurist utopian fantasy of artistic collaboration, but rather described an actual 1920s experiment with the “conductorless orchestra” in pre-Stalinist Soviet Russia, the most famous of which was the Moscow-based “Persimfans.” Contemporary music lovers among you, however, might—equally correctly—have assumed that I was describing the actually existing New York-based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which, although they do not advertise this fact, is organized along the same lines as their 20s Soviet precursors. What does it mean that Orpheus has re-written Persimfans, like a musical Pierre Menard, in a very different context, inhabiting the pores of capitalism with ease? What, if anything, distinguishes the two orchestras when accounts of how they are organized, as well as how they rehearse, and even perform, are often so similar that they could easily be substituted for each other and no one would be likely to suspect the switch?
Resource link: Organizing the (Un)Common [PDF] - 421K