Minnesota Orchestra: How to capitalize on success

Osmo Vänskä looked tired as he spoke to supporters of the Minnesota Orchestra at a reception after the band's two London concerts. But by all evidence it was a good tired, as he related how BBC Proms director Roger Wright had greeted him, emotionally overwhelmed, after the Aug. 28 performance of Beethoven's Ninth.

"It is such a privilege to be a conductor when you are standing in front of the Minnesota Orchestra," Vänskä said.

There were no speeches the following night in Edinburgh, but audience and critical response at Usher Hall felt even stronger than in London. One review called Minnesota's performance the best in Edinburgh's International Festival.

Throughout the three-city tour, an air of accomplishment accompanied the orchestra. Soloists Alisa Weilerstein and Gil Shaham won the hearts of concertgoers in the program's first half, and then Vänskä sealed the deal with passionate accounts of Beethoven.

So thorough was the orchestra's success that in the cool morning of analysis, questions turn to the next chapter. It would seem that Michael Henson, CEO and president, need only ring up Wright and ask when it should return for a victory lap.

"I wouldn't say that," Henson said Thursday. "You have the greatest orchestras in the world wanting to get into the Proms. You need the right concert at the right time, and now we have to work on making it the most attractive proposition for the BBC."

More distant challenges

"Obviously, we're having discussions," Henson said. "I'm not saying anything, but you have Lucerne, Salzburg and a number of other ones. Those are the highest-quality festivals and those are the ones we should be positioning ourselves for and figuring how we use that as part of a much bigger long-term strategy."

Tours work on levels that ripple far beyond the concert hall, and this is why Vänskä and Henson must be so pleased with their Proms success. The enthusiasm in Albert Hall is nice, but even better is the critical approbation from a dozen critics who fill UK newspapers with (mostly) kind words. Further, Vänskä did several days of advance press, which produced substantive coverage.

Then there is the BBC itself, which broadcasts the Proms throughout Europe and the United States.

Catching his breath

The orchestra probably will not tour again until 2013, Henson said. First, you need to ensure that you get invitations.

Lastly, touring is expensive. Minnesota has an anonymous patron who picked up the tab for this trip. How long that will continue is an individual's decision.

Many major American orchestras have pulled out of touring programs. Dallas, for example, canceled a European tour this year, hoping to perhaps get across the pond in 2012. Philadelphia and Boston have suffered similar fates.

"The strategy we employed for this tour was to concentrate on very high-profile concerts and festivals to maximize the impact that we made," Henson said Thursday.

"The Proms is probably the greatest festival in the world, the Edinburgh Festival is one of the greatest cross-arts festivals and Amsterdam is one of the five or six great concert halls in the world. So what we've done there is very pleasing."