<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: [CAUT] lack of support</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> On 10/19/05 2:08 PM, "Wimblees@aol.com" <= Wimblees@aol.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>As most of you know, I= play handbells. Last year I was given a shop/office that is big enough to s= et up 3 octave set of handbells. For those of you that are not familiar with= this, my shop is so big, that this requires and area of about 20' by 8', an= d I still have enough room left over for my desk, work benches and cabinets,= and to set up a grand piano. But never mind about that.   With the handbells set up all the time, I had the opportunity to practice a= lot, and so I decided to put on a recital at the music school. On the progr= am I played 8 solos, my wife and I played 6 duets, with a friend from church= a trio, and I had the Crimson Ringers, the student handbell ensemble which = I direct, play 2 pieces.   The recital was last Thursday, and it went very well. We had a very appreci= ative audience of about 70 people show up. But the audience was made up of p= eople from my church, the community chorus my wife and I sing in, and other = people from the community. But as far as I know, there were no School of Mus= ic faculty in the audience. I had sent out an invitation to all the faculty = and staff, and there were posters all around the building announcing the rec= ital, but not one of them showed up.   I can understand that handbells are not for everyone, and I know there were= some faculty members that were out of town or had other obligations. But yo= u would think that out of 40 people, one or two of them would have the time = to come and hear the recital. On the one hand I am grateful for the people t= hat did show up, but on the other hand, I am somewhat disappointed with the = lack of support from the faculty.   Have any of you had a similar experience?   Wim </BLOCKQUOTE>Hi Wim,     Don’t take it personally. Yes, I have had sim= ilar experiences many times. I perform solo piano recitals on a regular basi= s. One or two faculty (generally personal friends) may show up. I don’= t find it surprising. They attend all their student’s recitals, most o= f the student recitals in their area (eg, woodwind, brass, voice), many are = in the symphony and performing or rehearsing most nights, yadda, yadda. Bott= om line: it’s tough to attract an audience to live music performances.= Music faculty go to a lot of performances as a matter of necessity, and a l= ot of them want to “Have a life” (an occasional evening at home = with family).     Looking beyond the university community, the same t= hing is true: if everyone who said they planned to attend, said they wished = they had attended, asked me repeatedly to be sure to tell them about my next= concert – if all those people showed up, well, I’d need a consi= derably larger hall, and maybe I’d change professions ;-).     Of course, if everyone hates you maybe you should t= ake it personally <g>. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico </BODY> </HTML>