Cleveland Orchestra Shocks with Re-Branding Efforts

When I received the 2009-2010 season brochure for the Cleveland Orchestra a couple of weeks ago, I was more than a little astonished to find that the Orchestra is doing a major overhaul of its image, billing itself as "The New. Cleveland Orchestra," including inviting patrons to its Tchaik 4 performance with a blurb to the effect of "Yeah, Tchaikovsky was gay." As a liberal arts patron myself, I was in no way shocked by the language or concept. Rather, as one of THE Big Five and a traditional one at that, it simply seems blasphemous that Cleveland apparently is forsaking its elder, generations-long, conservative subscribers for a younger, hipper crowd (though the brochure did list the number to call to receive a "traditional" mailing).  Other efforts to be lauded include a new, jazz-heavy Celebrity Series and memo-like graphics which paint Franz Welser-Möst as a real person and subtly invite patrons to email him.

I should probably clarify--though I was indeed shocked by the forwardness of the new marketing plan, it certainly makes sense to me; I applaud Cleveland's efforts. As we're all aware, too many arts organizations haven't yet found an effective way to market to younger crowds, with the resulting inconvenience that the audiences they are targeting keep dying on them.  With any luck (okay, probably more luck than we as arts managers like to admit), the Cleveland Orchestra will be able to achieve its new image--one that is considerably less "stuffy" but instead more open, welcoming--"cool," if you will--to recapture an audience that might just last a few years longer than its current one. Ultimately, I'm sure their goal isn't so much to recapture an audience, per se, as to create a new one--an audience that will not only frequent performances because it's the cool thing to do but also raise their children to feel the same. Oh, the noble goal of the arts. Will it work?

-- Chelsie