What happens at the intersection of music and art? Composer Jim Beckel has a pretty good idea.  A few months ago, we decided to join forces with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra to create a short video.

Behind the scenes shot of Dan filming the horn section's rehearsal

And we couldn’t have asked for better subject matter. ISO Principal Trombone (and composer) Jim Beckel’s, In the Mind’s Eye, Images for Horns and Orchestra features the five members of the ISO Horn Section and is inspired by paintings from the collections of the IMA.

The video speaks for itself, I think (watch it below)…an extraordinary partnership between two Indianapolis cultural institutions. You can see the performance in person May 14-15 at the Hilbert Circle Theater.

Filed under: Art, Current Events, New Media

I’ve got audio, not video on my mind, which is an oddity. We have a whopping one audio guide online but over 50 videos available. Recent events however, suddenly presented several audio experiences, highlighted emerging projects, revealed new music and provoked thought on this forgotten subject. This might surprise you, because we have don’t typically dabble with audio content and we are such a video-centric new media department. That’s about to change though. Charge your iPods.

(struggling for an image, I decided to show my favorite Pioneer HDJ-1000 headphones…courtesy of pioneerelectronics.com) Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: New Media

Last night I was invited to speak to a group of students at IUPUI about young audience development. The main focus of my presentation was the Arts Council of Indianapolis’ 2006 report on “Developing Next Generation Arts Audiences.” As I prepared for the class yesterday, I realized just how far the Indianapolis arts community has come in such a short time.

Above: “20 -40 Somethings” play X-Box at an IMA opening.

In a nutshell the “Next Generation” report was a study of the “20-40 something” arts participation in Indianapolis. With the help of Next Generation Consulting, the Arts Council prepared a report on how young audiences find out about arts events and their motivations for attending arts events. This study was done in order to build a more robust participation in the arts among young professionals in order to build (and in some cases, replace) the current aging audience.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Marketing, New Media