If You Build It

by Peter Burwasser

Last month I wrote to Lisa Miller, executive director of Network for New Music, to request an extra ticket for their Trade Winds from Tibet concert. Her reply was a minor bombshell: "Peter, if you had told me five years ago that these words would be coming out of my mouth, I would have found it hard to believe — but there is not a single ticket left."

A wait list for new music! And this was not an anomaly. Network has been filling more and more seats in recent years. Last season's closer, a brilliant update of the Beethoven Diabelli Variations with contributions by 25 local composers, was acclaimed by an on-its-feet, hooting and hollering crowd.

The momentum is not just in the specialty groups. The mainstream is opening up, too. The Opera Company of Philadelphia recently announced a new commission for the 2012 season. To their credit, OCP has presented new operas before, but they have been stylistically conservative, to an extent that the effort seemed counterproductive. For this new project, they have engaged Nico Muhly, a young NYC-based composer who, while not exactly edgy, brings a compellingly eclectic cultural sensibility to his work. Worth checking him out on YouTube.

Even the "gray hair" organizations are along for the ride. There is always plenty of good, strong new stuff cluttered among the Mozart and Brahms at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. It can't hurt that PCMS executive director Philip Maneval is himself a very fine composer.

And what of our classical flagship? It may be hard to imagine now, but the Philadelphia Orchestra was once one of the cutting-edge ensembles in the country, especially in the Stokowski era, but even well into the long Ormandy tenure. Since then, new music has been delivered joylessly, spinach to be tolerated because it is good for us.

I had the chance to sit down with music director-designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin when he was here in October. He spoke with impressive specificity about programming, workshops, context and bringing new music out of its ghetto. Which is what you should expect from a 35-year-old artist. We can only hope his heart is true.

(p_burwasser@citypaper.net)