A message from conductor Niel DePonte to the students attending the 15th annual Young Artists Debut! concerto concert on May 3, 2009, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
I have chosen to address my remarks this evening to the 1500 students in the audience. What the arts will look like in this city and in this country over the next 20 years is very much in your hands, believe it or not. I want you to know that a concert like this one costs around 40,000 dollars to produce. The musicians in the orchestra are some of the finest players in America and they have come to Portland to play in the Oregon Symphony, or to play in the ballet orchestra or the opera orchestra. And they love this city, and love playing for all of you. And they deserve to make a living doing just that.
Many arts organizations in Portland are in danger of going away. It’s not just a weak economy that is responsible for this. The fact is that in Oregon, for the entire 32 years I have made music in this city, the arts and arts education have been chronically under-funded. State government, city government, and local school districts all say that the arts are important… yet don’t fund them adequately.
If the arts organizations in this city vanish, or cut their orchestras, artists will leave this city. We may never be able to recover from the loss of these artists, or their arts organizations. And I am telling this to you, the students, because you need to know about this right now, in your formative years, in the years where you come to determine what is important in your life and what you want your world to look like when you become an adult.
History tells us that students, those who still possess great optimism and hope for the future, begin the revolutions, for it is students who have the most to lose if the status quo remains intact.
I am not asking you to take up arms…or storm City Hall. What I am asking you to do is to ask your parents to pay close attention to what is happening in the arts. Ask them if they are willing to act to keep the arts available to you in your schools. Ask them if they are willing to act to keep the Oregon Symphony thriving, to keep the Oregon Ballet Theatre Orchestra performing with its dancers. Ask them to be activists on your behalf to support the arts in the community that will someday be yours.
And when the time comes, when you are old enough to act on your own, choose to act in support of the arts yourself. Choose to make it possible for concerts such as this one to continue. Choose to tell politicians that you expect better of them, and that the choice between paying for paving the roads and paying for the arts is a false choice. Tell them that you expect paved roads and the arts; that you expect well paid teachers; a quality education; the Oregon Symphony; the ballet; the opera; the museum; the theater; and all other opportunities where you can find out what being human really means, to be made available to you. And if the politicians can’t figure out how to do that, tell them to go back and work harder to figure it out. Making cuts is easy. Being a visionary and leading the way to a new set of possibilities for our community is not. Tell the people in charge you expect more of them, and see what they have to say.
You, the students, have more power than you might imagine. Do what you must do to make this world and this community become the kind of community that your glorious imagination says is possible. “Twitter†the adults! “Facebook†them, “friend†them, text them, call them on your myriad cell phones. But in all seriousness, remember…you can have the future you desire only if you choose to act. And that is true no matter how old you may be. When it comes to the arts my friends, I am here to tell you the time to act is right now.
Niel DePonte is the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of MetroArts Inc, a non-profit arts education organization, and is the Music Director and Conductor for Oregon Ballet Theatre.