Well... this has been a first for our ensemble. Mostly, we run our own concerts and we just programme whatever the hell we want, and the audience trusts us to come of with something interesting and unusual. And some of the nearer regional concert places have also allowed us the same latitude and freedom in programming as they have seen us in concert and trust what we do.

... of course, for a little and new ensemble, this is quite a huge plus... but it does stem from the fact that the ensemble is new, but the two dorks running it are relatively experienced musicians.

However, for a recent extended tour that we were invited for... they were a little worried at our first draft for a program. The worry was that as people didn't know our ensemble, and we weren't featuring many "known" composers and compositions, that they would struggle to sell tickets to a relatively conservative audience group. Apparently they had this problem in the past, and they suggested a couple of changes to the programming to help them with the publicity and audience reach.

Fair enough, they do know their audience base better than wee do, and more to the point, they are taking most of the financial risk in putting the concerts on. Plus, if the audiences like us, then the concert promoters can always invite us back ... and the audiences and organisers will hopefully give us a bit more leeway to play the more interesting things that we usually like playing!

So, we returned the draft with a couple of changes, we had to dump a couple of pieces from the set list... but we considered those to be an acceptable loss. We already had the heads-up that this might be the case, so our draft was only a first gambit with optional modules that we could turf out as concessions for negotiating a programming that was acceptable to both sides.

... and we have managed to get there! I was a little worried that it might go too far against what we would like to do... but my wife reminded me that this wasn't our concert to plan fully as we had only partial stake in it. Plus, again, it would be great if we were invited back on tour again.

But in the end, most of what we wanted was kept, and we replaced a couple of things with stuff that we didn't mind programming either. Plus, the narrative arc of the concert wasn't disturbed either! Win for us, win for them!

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