NACUSA Meeting Minutes Friday, May 9, 2003, 7:30 at the home of Sondra Clark Present: Owen Lee (President), Joanne Carey (Secretary), Anne Baldwin (Treasurer), John Beeman, Sondra Clark, Išlana Cotton, Herb Gellis, Lorie Griswold, Bob Hall and Nancy Bloomer Deussen. Treasureršs report: Anne Baldwin Anne reported that we are in good shape financially for our upcoming concert. Our chapter recently received $250 from the National Associationšs distribution, which brings our current total to $2,839.72. This just coveršs our June concert, which will cost $1600 for four Pacific Sticks performers and $1200 for other expenses. Silent Auction report: Herb Gellis Regarding our planned Silent Auction at the next concert, Herb said we have six items now and only need a few more. An auction table would be set up that would display physical items and include a sign-up sheet for all items offered, with listed minimums at 20% of the value. Among the six items are season tickets to the San Jose Chamber Society series offered by conductor Barbara Day-Turner. Herb offered to set up the table and to make an announcement before the concert. A suggestion was made by our performing colleague Diana Tucker to offer dessert and friendship for all winners/benefactors after the concert. Publicity: Lorie Griswold Lorie said the publicity was done and ready to be sent out. What she prepared included information about our Silent Auction. The only question was how to deal with the one submission to our NACUSA sponsored Young Composers Contest. Herb will send an e-mail poster announcement of our upcoming concert to all NACUSA members, thus making it easy for us to pass the information to our friends and acquaintances. Young Composers Concert Discussion: Owen asked for suggestions on how to attract more submissions to our Young Composers contest. He said that he sent out information about the contest to more high schools than last year as well as to the San Francisco Conservatory. After some discussion, the following tactics to increase participation were decided upon: + We will make this award available to both junior and senior high school students. + Send announcements to as many MTAC newsletters as possible by contacting branch newsletter editors. + In addition, contact the community School of Music and the Arts (CSMA) and the Gorin School of Music. (A post-meeting addition would be the Crowden School of Music in Berkeley). + Send announcements twice; once in January and again in October (for the spring concert). Sondra offered to coordinate the solicitation of music for the contest. June Concert duties: Anne and Lorie agreed to be in charge of the door. Herb will set up his laptop for attendees to sign up to be on our mailing list. It was suggested that we prepare a handout questionnaire and offer some reward (perhaps a truffle or other special treat) to all those who fill it out. Lorie said that she would bring 100 questionnaires to our concert and reiterated that we need to offer a reward for completing them. Nancy is coordinator of refreshments. She said we need more baked goods; last time we ran out. She will make punch. Gordon agreed to man the promo table where we will sell NACUSA CDšs and other CDšs and music from our members. Owen will be stage manager. Herb acquiesced to emcee this program since he is announcing the silent auction as well. Owen will announce the honorable mention award to our single submission to the contest Previous assessment by the programming committee and Owen concluded that the piece submitted did not rise to the standard of a Œfirst placeš award. We voted and approved, with one opposing vote, to include a performance of this piece in our program. Programming Committee: Owen announced that we need three new people for our programming committee. Two on the committee have already served their time and a third, Chris Enni, seems not to be available to participate. After a discussion among those present, three people were proposed - John Beeman to fill the veteran member slot, Joanne Carey (myself) as a new member and Chris Yenney, the cellist from our Composers Performing Ensemble (CPE) to fill the performer slot. A vote was taken with unanimous approval. Owen announced that while we are using a substitute pianist for this concert, we would continue to use our pianist from last year as the permanent member of CPE. Concert Dates and other general items: Owen suggested we use the same general dates and he will secure the hall for those dates. Due date for percussion works for our Fall Pacific Sticks concert was extended one day to Monday June 2nd. The programming committee was reminded that when we hire an outside performing group, they generally select the program after a preliminary review excluding any submissions that are inadequate, either compositionally or otherwise. Discussion of the Composers Can Play Too concert yielded a new, more appropriate name for this concert, Composers and Friends. This was approved by unanimous vote. There was a short discussion about adding another member to our CPE. Most present would like to add a violinist, but this issue will be decided at our next meeting. It is hoped that we can afford to add a violinist, or other new performer, for the June 2004 concert. John Beeman pointed out the need for more involvement from our members and specifically, greater attendance at meetings. Owen reminded the programming committee that one of our criteria for programming is participation. He told us that the Goat Hill concerts that Mark Alburger puts together in San Francisco require composers to either play or pay to have their pieces performed. National Report: Išlana Cotton Išlana reported on activity at the National level of NACUSA. She said that the mission statement at the national level didnšt involve much community relations. She spoke about being urged to approve a funneling of money through NACUSA for a specific composer. Išlana said she responded by letter that in order to do this (accept money for a specific performance) we would need at least a juried selection process to make this fair, inviting the community at large to submit pieces. John and Nancy voiced the agreement of those present that this kind of contribution is not at all appropriate for NACUSA and that we, as a chapter, would not approve it. For those who wish to find out what belonging to a chapter of NACUSA means, Išlana suggested looking at the National NACUSA website. Fund Raising: Herb Gellis and Nancy Bloomer Deussen Both Herb and Nancy attended a recent seminar of the Arts Council Silicon Valley arranged at the behest of the Silicon Valley Arts Coalition (SVAC) of which we are members. They gained useful ideas for developing our status in terms of financial support, broadening our audience base and improving the quality of our performances. Many ideas were gleaned from this seminar. Chief among these was the importance of interacting with your community, making connections with your audience and establishing an identity in some way. A NACUSA identity and a means for connection could be established through a particular place where we set up some kind of community event. One group from SVAC started a school for young actors; we could offer, perhaps, a Saturday school for young composers. Very catchy artwork, maybe a more distinctive logo, might help people to remember who we are. Interfacing with Stanford, if possible, could also be useful for us. Nancy said we should have actual tickets, so we can offer freebies to reviewers and others. Lorie said she would alter the student freebie tickets and send some out with the publicity. The importance of getting to know the newspaper critics personally was also mentioned. This is not easy and requires determination and perhaps several calls before a meeting can be arranged. All agreed that we need more people to help with publicity; currently, Lorie is doing all of it. Nancy mentioned that theme concerts are also a useful hook. Discussion of our fundraising goals inevitably brought up discussion of what our goals are culturally. Herb challenged us to consider presenting more serious concerts with complete works rather than several single movements from longer works, He would like to attract an audience that comprises music lovers outside of our immediate circle of friends and family. Herb also suggested including a piece or pieces occasionally by a well-known non-member in order to attract attention and a larger audience. Nancy disagreed, saying she still favors showcasing as many composers as possible. She offered a compromise; if we collaborate with a group, they could perform a non-memberšs work if they helped to fund the concert. Išlana pointed out that to establish more prestige and substance, we would need to move up a notch in the quality of our performers and present complete works that are really polished in terms of their presentation. She suggested occasionally picking a concert and an ensemble to present this kind of concert. Herb admitted that this goal of having a larger community presence and more substantial concerts couldnšt be achieved quickly. Owen offered agreement, pointing out that while itšs a worthy goal, we have to move slowly and, for the time being, avoid showcasing just a few of our composers. Sondra summarized the two points of view with regard to our goals and function: 1) We are and may remain a small organization whose main goal is to get the music of our members performed. 2) To achieve greater prestige, we would have to grow out of the club stage. Owen concluded by saying that for the time being, we will keep the old way, using our CPE and showcasing many composers. He said that while NACUSA needs to grow to stay alive, we should grow slowly toward offering concerts of greater depth and substance. A worthy and possible goal would be to add a fourth concert of longer works. It was noted that our string quartet concert did well and that Barbara Day-Turner attended. Sondra said she and Brian would work on getting grant money. Nancy pointed out that granting agencies would fund only successes, not failures. So we may need to show greater success on our own, before extra money will be forthcoming. Announcement: Išlana is leaving Nancy relayed to us that Išlana would be moving soon and suggested we have a party for her before she leaves. An auspicious date, time and place were decided: Sunday June 1st at 5:00 pm. This will be a potluck party and Sondra will coordinate the food. Our next meeting will be in mid August. Meeting was adjourned at about 10:30. Respectfully submitted, Joanne D. Carey Secretary to NACUSAsf