The National Symphony Orchestra’s artistic advisor embodies everything mediocre about the Kennedy Center.
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When I saw President Donald Trump’s announcement on Friday that he is cleaning house at the Kennedy Center and naming himself chairman of the board of trustees, I couldn’t help but smile. The thought of a man whose temper can only be soothed by the Cats soundtrack imposing a “Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture” on the capital’s largest fine arts center, an “American Jewel,” is highly amusing. And the move puts Trump on a collision course with one of his more impish critics. Oh wow, I thought to myself—he’s going to fire Ben Folds.
Nothing has happened yet, and as of this weekend the Kennedy Center maintains that Trump’s overhaul is all in his head. But if the president’s war on other government projects is any indicator, it’s only a matter of time before the cuts begin. And when they do come, Trump would be better served if he left aside his stated goal—“the Drag Shows targeting our youth”—and instead focused on that which lies under the lapses in taste at the Kennedy Center. The root of the problem is not vulgarity, which can be ignored. It is mediocrity, which cannot.
In this sense Ben Folds represents the worst of the Kennedy Center. The National Symphony Orchestra hired the pop singer in 2017 to be its “artistic advisor,” or, to be more accurate, its resident poptimist. Under the terms of the agreement, Folds periodically directs a concert series dubbed “Declassified,” in which he hijacks the orchestra for a night of selections from Beethoven, Sibelius, and, yes, Ben Folds himself. The idea is that those who came for orchestral arrangements of “Rockin’ the Suburbs” might find that they also like the more traditional music on offer. And—who knows?—maybe they will get comfortable with the idea of liking serious music, maybe they will come back next week for a full performance of the “Eroica.”
“I want to make this an absolute safe haven for anyone who’s not an expert on ‘classical’ music,” Folds explained shortly after he got the gig. “Context is everything, and we’re creating an environment that I think will give you a great ‘way in.’”
In theory, this approach sounds a little demeaning. In practice, it’s outright insulting. Most people who aspire to the highbrow do not need a scruffy, pencil-necked North Carolinian to guide them up Parnassus; for better or worse, that climb is undertaken alone. In any case, a few years ago I attended one of these “Declassified” concerts, just to see how Folds handled his audience. He seems to have come to the same conclusion that I did—that anyone who turns out to see him dabble in classical music can’t be too serious about the genre. Otherwise, why would he have devoted much of the evening to delivering half-baked political statements, finishing the show with a panegyric to Rod Rosenstein, a minor player in the now largely forgotten Russia investigation? I walked away thinking that the series is not about aspiring for the higher things. It is just another way of justifying laziness.
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I have been told that many of those who play with the orchestra feel the same way. It’s not that they dislike Folds or his music, it’s just that there’s something unseemly about presenting his program as the “way in” to enjoying classical music. Better to just drop the needle on the record. Besides, it’s not like the writer of the Over the Hedge soundtrack is bringing in younger audiences these days. Folds is over the hill—at 58 his always whiny voice is totally cracked—and most of his music is not suited to orchestral arrangement. If he were at the top of his game, making him the popular face of the National Symphony Orchestra might make sense, at least in a cynical way. But as it stands, it’s a pathetic joke.
And that sad joke typifies everything shoddy about the arts in Washington, D.C., a city whose cultural life can’t even claim to be downstream of New York. The capital is a backwater unto itself, and the Kennedy Center is a kiddie pool for philistine political interest and the antics of washed-up has-beens. It has always been this way, and maybe that’s all it can be. I could easily see Trump, finding the task of canceling drag shows too arduous, claiming the easy victory of swapping Ben Folds for the equally burnt-out Kid Rock. It wouldn’t be a win for high art, and it certainly wouldn’t make the Kennedy Center an “American Jewel.” But at least we’d get an orchestral arrangement of “Bawitdaba” out of the deal.
Sourse: theamericanconservative.com
