Sunday August 7, 2011
Good morning, and welcome to the concluding Sunday assembly and high school awards program on this final day of the 84th season of Interlochen Arts Camp.
Six weeks ago today we gathered for our opening ceremony to welcome you to Interlochen. What has happened in that space of time has been a remarkable achievement in creative energy, achievement, and the building of a community that will lead to lasting friendships.
This morning we gather for a second to the last time as a community. The last time will be this evening at Les Preludes. We can use this time and this environment for a moment of reflection to think about who we are and our time together as an arts community. We have come together in remarkable ways—from so many places, with so many experiences, for this fleeting summer moment in our lifetimes. We are pleased to have you here—and a special welcome to your parents, families, friends, our alumni, faculty and staff who may have gathered here today with you.
In preparing these remarks each year, I pull from different experiences, quotes and events that have happened throughout the summer and try to weave them into a special thoughts that you can take with you as you leave tomorrow.
The genesis for my remarks today comes from you. Earlier this summer you elected representatives from your cabins and sent questions that we then answered during a lunch conversation. It was a great way for me to hear your thoughts and I do listen carefully.
Something struck me about this year’s questions. There were few questions about food, uniforms, air conditioning and eurhythmics. Your questions this year focused on the future of the arts, how we develop new leaders to take the arts forward, how leaders find inspiration and what role media and technology will play in the future of the arts. These were the questions that were top of mind for you. The questions were profound in their implications, full of thought, hope and concern. In short, they were exactly the quality that I would expect from Interlochen student and they deserve our thought today because the future of the arts is indeed in your minds and spirits as you depart. Thus, my remarks today are intended to answer a few of these questions. They have everything to do with your role in the arts after you leave here this weekend.
The first question. What is the best advice you can give to a young artist? There is only one answer to this question. Pursue your passion. You are at a period of time in your life when you can seek and absorb every experience that you can as an artist ... and you need to do so. We spend so much time thinking that your education must fit into a series of time slots: four years of high school, four years of college, graduate and immediately get a job that lets you work your way quickly up the career chain.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news to your parents, but a life in the arts is not a linear experience at all. It can’t be, because with your commitment to the arts, you are learning to use your creativity in an ever-changing world. The amazing world of media and technology that you have at your fingertips, will give you opportunities to create and explore in ways that we cannot yet imagine.
Some of you might actually restrict your learning process because the world of the unknown makes you uncomfortable and you don’t want to fail. Your life is yet so young, in spite of what you have accomplished, that you must realize that you can’t be afraid to make mistakes or fail. British physicist Freeman Dyson has a phrase he uses about 21st century experience, a philosophy called “fail fast,” in which he says that in the learning and creative process you will experience pathways that explode in success and other avenues that lead to failure. His belief is that you must learn from your failure more than you learn from your success, analyze the why and how of each failure, and move on to new things quickly, because you can. You have so many more opportunities to take those failures and make them into future successes, more than any other generation before you. That passion for the arts, for creating, for trying something new to define that which you already know, those are the things that will help you succeed even if you think you might fail.
How do you feel about your role in preserving the arts? I take my roll as president of this international beacon in learning and experience in the arts very seriously. I have worked in arts education for 37 years, as teacher, conductor and administrator in K-12 arts education and higher education, in business and non-profit organizations, and in private philanthropy.
Before I go on, I want to address the question itself. I am frequently asked about “preserving” the arts, but we can’t focus our energies on “preserving” the arts; we must be about strengthening them, and you do that by helping them change over time so they remain relevant and a part of our culture, even if that means they won’t look the same as they did in the past. I’ve been very fortunate in my life to bump into innovators and visionaries, and to be given opportunities to take something that was and turn it into something that should be. None of us should be dedicated to preserving Interlochen. We must take this year’s experiences and help it grow and change to make next year even better. It is about focusing on what we can become - and not what we have been in the past.
Here at Interlochen, we have continued to redefine curriculum and program, adding motion picture arts, animation, and expanding the singer-songwriter program, rock camp and recording arts camp. We have added more institutes, chamber music, and strengthened the composition, and documentary film-making programs. In short, we can preserve the role of the arts in our society, but we must change HOW we learn in the arts for the future to match the options that are available to us. It is not an either/or proposition. It is a both/and proposition. That is a far more difficult and challenging task. It is the role that Interlochen played in the past, and must play in the future.
How do you plan to balance tradition with societal change in the near future? I’ve been working in the arts since I was 21, and was raised in a family of artists, teachers, and leaders in the arts, so for me it has been a lifetime of observation. I take that vantage point and look at you, our future leaders in the arts this morning, and know that your success as leaders will be dependent on how you learn to negotiate the balance between tradition and change. If you choose to hold on to tradition too long, it becomes a straight jacket, and atrophy is the quickest way to die for an arts organization today. Change just for the sake of change is not good; change for the sake of relevancy and institutional vitality is essential. The arts have always changed as our society, media, technology and information have changed; the arts are a reflective social phenomenon. The great movements in the arts have been in response to the times in which we live. Those leaders in the arts who are deliberate about watching the world, understanding trends, and who are careful about the balance between the new and the known will be fine. Those arts organizations that only preserve a heritage based on the arts of the past will be increasingly fragile in the 21st century. We have a very different perspective of relevancy between your generation and mine!
The entire relationship between individuals and institutions and the delivery systems they present is being changed. The way you might prepare yourself today might be very different than how you use your art tomorrow. Flexibility is going to be critical. Learning to work between and among multiple arts is essential. Taking risks with what and how you create and make and recreate the arts will be essential to that balance between tradition and the future. Understanding the fundamentals of craft and skill, history and context in the arts and creativity will not change. In fact, I maintain that if we ignore where the arts came from in our mad rush to create future relevance, if we create an artistic culture if which everything must be new without applying those building blocks of understanding that are elemental in the study of the arts, then we may endanger the arts in education even further. That is the fine line you will walk in your years as leaders, the fine line between tradition and societal change that has been the energy that has driven the arts and creativity throughout history.
What are the ideal qualities of an Interlochen alum? What a great question. Interlochen alumni are passionate. Articulate. Thoughtful. They are people who bring fresh new ideas and perspectives views that others don’t. Honest. Humble yet proud. Tolerant and respectful of diversity. Compassionate and caring. Enthusiastic. Persistent and often trailblazers.
How does the ideal Interlochen alum behave in society? This is my favorite question. The answer is clear: by doing what you did this summer for the rest of your lives. Making the arts a central part of who you are and what you do, whether you choose to make a career in the arts, or serve as advocates, supporters, or provide the arts to your children, and all children. We planted seeds of leadership this summer. Some students will explode into ready leaders in the arts. Others will take time and take different paths. But the end result is a strengthening of the arts as a core part of our world and its artistic and cultural infrastructure. That is what marks an Interlochen alum. It is your destiny.
It has been my privilege to watch you grow and achieve this summer. You have my best wishes for a great final day, and for a lifetime made whole by and with the arts. Thank you.