True community engagement, on the other hand, is a considerable time investment, requiring deep listening, relationship-building, and often a realignment of aesthetic values. CutTime advises week-long residencies to show up across the city and establish common ground. Our symphonic teasers, crossover and dance covers, and satisfying answers to burning questions reward curiosity and build trust. We reset classical music with historically-outsider communities, young adults, students, and even with some of your patrons. By the end of that week we will be drawing some of our new friends to your venue for a community event.

Many ensembles deliver excellent concerts & workshops. CutTime® finds additional ways to be excellent:

  • Blending famous symphonic works with fun and key listening information for newcomers
  • Whether hosting off-the-cuff or scripted, we explain the sport or games of classical music to a sports-oriented public
  • Making sense of tonality, structure, and phrasing using exaggeration, hand signals, and body language
  • Playing new works by Rick Robinson with dance grooves woven with cool counterpoint
  • Offering unique special and holiday programs (MLK, Valentines, Halloween, Christmas, Sandy Hook, Interesting Times, Draylen Mason)
  • Creating curiosity by answering unspoken questions (Why tails? Why so long? Why the same composers? Why so soft?)
  • Preparing newcomers for the mysterious traditions of the concert hall that maximizes potential impact
  • Sharing effective analogies for newcomers to relate to written instrumental music (cooking, eating, reading, sailing, driving)
  • Balancing refined and raw aesthetic values strategically in performance, depending on the emotional needs of the audience
  • Inserting symphonic music amplified into bars, restaurants, clubs, parties, and outdoors
  • Bringing our own amplification system good up to 5,000 sq. ft. indoors
  • Audiences can participate on toy percussion, bringing them into the center of music-making
  • Offering spot interviews with questions aimed at articulating hidden values (Why classical?)
  • Identifying three key ideas, events, and technology that defined the overall classical music tradition
  • Identifying new audience perspectives (audience-centrism) and most effective music for musicians to create their own bold programs

Many in our veteran audiences are also excited to see classical loosened up and explained— further proof that casual classical is long overdue. Getting beyond dumbing down is the warming up new audiences have been waiting for. Now is the time to extend your mission outside of your sanctuary, to connect with your traditional events in relevant ways.

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