Herb -- VERY salient points.
Now that you put it in this context, I can think of a couple of issues that could be problems. All in all, it's really no different than anything else in music, art or whatever. Each of us can think of great musicians who end up not getting great gigs, not getting great recording deals. It has to do with a lot more than simply aesthetic quality, but who knows how to play what game when. And that's not going to change any time soon.
This is especially disgusting when to stop to think that these foundations are supposed to be where to turn away from the posturing of pop music. This posturing is just as venal. Maybe moreso, because this purports to be different. But Patricia Barber -- a very well-positioned person with a pronouncedly intellectual socio-political adgenda and a deal with Blue Note -- wins out.
Grant programs for individual artists usually work quite differently than grant programs for organizations. Why Patricia Barber got a Guggenheim is very different from why the Arkestra doesn't get support. Why Marshall Allen doesn't get grants MAY be related to the distinction between how funders deal with individuals and organizations.
Agreed. Personally, I think a lot of this has to do with Marshall's age versus the Guggenheim thinking they have a better shot at that grant-funding something long-rangeif they give it to a younger person.
Guggenheim Fellowships are support to do a specific project in your field. Artists receive them to make new works, physical and social scientists get them to do research. Getting pissed off about Barber getting support really isn't worth the trouble. I have no idea what Barber's project was (though I guess it'd be listed in the press release at the Guggenheim site, but I don't really care enough to take the time to check), what the pool of other applications was like or what the panel dynamic was, but all of those things go into who gets funded. Panels look at hundreds of applications in a field and decide who has proposed a project that looks like it will further their current work AND that looks like the applicant can reasonably do the project for the budget they propose in the time they have planned for it.
... such as a tour and a decent budget for recording new work.
(The panel dynamic is probably the most important and most mysterious aspect of the process. Group decisions are NOT science. It's like deciding where to go to eat with a group of friends. If three people like Asian food better than Mexican and one person like burgers better than Thai food, the consensus may be to go to a rib joint because that's how the discussion unfolded.)
Given who is/are often on these panels, I won't touch this with a bargepole.
The Pew Fellowships is a program that supports individual creative artists working in a variety of media and genres from music to poetry to painting etc. with grants of $25,000/year for two years. The idea is that this money gives generative artists time to create new works in their field. Regardless of the merits of supporting the continuation of the Arkestra, this is NOT a program that's going to rank that kind of activity very highly. Maintaining a repertory ensemble isn't even on the radar for them. I could imagine Allen maybe getting support for creating music from this program, but applying to the Pew Fellowships program to support his work as leader of the Arkestra is probably a waste of time.
That would be very true if Marshall and other members of the Arkestra weren't developing new music of their own.
Without knowing much about the Philadelphia scene, or the guidelines for local funding, or how the Arkestra is organized (how their board of directors and staff operate, what their financial planning is like, etc.), I can only conjecture about why the Arkestra may not be supported by public grants in the area.
I doubt there's board of directors per se. The band has been together, recording and touring for half a century. I would venture that the organism is stable.
I can tell you that funders, both public and private, are increasingly looking for ... high levels of service to the community (programs for education, outreach, etc.) in addition to artistic quality. Artistic quality alone is not enough for funder from institutional donors, for that you've got to find rich fans who don't care about the business end of things (& there are fewer and fewer individual donors like that).
True. but I know that Marshall has gotten pissed when Berklee offers a course or a seminar in the music of Sun Ra but nobody fr the Arkestra is ever called upon to so much as lecture. I don't think educational outreach is a problem with these fellows.
If the Arkestra's only seeking, say, money to keep the band going between gigs, without having a financial and management structure together, without a long-range business plan, without a competitive outreach & education program, they're not going to get a lot of funding from public or private institutional funders.
I think you're very right, and I think if you looked at their proposals (just theory here), those specific issues weren;t addressed. Then again, I doubt that Sonny Rollins addressed them and HE got the Guggenheim.
I'm obviously assuming that the Arkestra doesn't have this kind of organizational structure in place. If they do, then we can start looking for conspiracies against creative music. If they don't, they're just not going to be competitive.
That may be cold, but it's the way things work. And like I wrote above, that's not going to change any time soon.
Well, we all know there's very little difference between this kind of thing and a Hollywood awards show. it's who lobbies best, who postures correctly, and how much flair goes into writing the proposal. Maybe we could see some honesty and have J-Lo present. sh