NACUSAsf meeting Thursday, October 14, 2004, at 7:00 PM in the Meeting Hall of Lori Griswold’s apartment complex.

Attending: Herb Gellis (President), Nancy Bloomer Deussen (Vice-President), Anne Baldwin (Treasurer), Joanne Carey (Secretary), John Beeman, Dale Victorine, Lori Griswold, Ken Takara and Bob Hall.

Treasurer’s Report: Anne Baldwin

Anne reported that we currently have $2,852 in the bank. She offered the following financial profile of our last concert:

Receipts: $1068

Cost: $3342

$3000 of the above was spent on players

Hall rental and house manager:

$290

Printing costs:

$52

Paid ticket holders: 82

Complementary tickets: 7

Total audience: 114

She said we are in good shape since our next two concerts are fundraisers and composer subsidized.

Anne reported that because of some fluke of her computer system, she couldn’t put out mail to our group mail at Yahoo. Nancy mentioned that there are other members who are not on our Yahoo group or can’t access it, and some who don’t have e-mail. She added that composers who are not computer literate should not be left out of our group. Ken offered to produce the newsletter as quickly as possible and requested these Minutes be posted soon to help get that going. Dale suggested sending a printout of our business from the web site, as well as the directory of composers, to the few (estimated three composers) without computers. John said he would print pages from the web site and send them, along with Ken’s newsletter, to this small group.

Herb pointed out that a few of our prominent members have not paid their dues. He recommended having a clear policy on this: The group decided that only pieces by composers who have paid their dues will be considered for performance. Dues are due on January 1^st of each year. With the new treasurer at National, we should be getting the dues-status of our members more quickly.

National Advisory Council: Herb attended the NAC meeting and voted on seven items. The most important was a resolve to come up with a ‘strategic plan’ for NACUSA, submitted by NACUSA president Deon Price. John Windsor is a strong advocate of the above. NACUSA’s mission has been defined as ‘promoting American concert music’. Herb commented that in his opinion we are not fulfilling this mission if our only audience is our friends. How can we carry out this mission?

1) He said that radio broadcast was an option under discussion at the NAC.

2) Another idea is for NACUSA to have a booth at various annual conferences, such as the annual Chamber Music America conference, where we could sell scores and spread information about NACUSA.

3) We could produce a Chapter CD to represent some of our best music and/or a NACUSA CD at the national level. With this strategy, we would need to deal with performer’s rights.

Old Business

Upcoming Guitar Class

Jerry Snyder, President of the Guitar Society has agreed to do a class for us on November 20, 2004. He said to herb that two hours is too short to provide enough information to be useful. Herb proposed that we meet at 10:00 AM for two hours, break for lunch and then continue till about 2:30. The afternoon portion would go into more of the advanced considerations and effects. The location will be either Lori’s meeting hall or Nancy’s house. Lunch is a salad potluck or bring-your-own-sandwich. Jerry suggested to Herb that he might offer a melody for composers to arrange for guitar, or he could arrange it for us in advance, in a few workable styles. As a preparation, John suggested listening to Jonathon Harvey’s “Guitar Concerto”. He also recommended giving Snyder an honorarium. Although Herb assured us that he doesn’t want much of an honorarium, several of those present thought it would be the right thing to do to give him more than a pittance for his generosity. Bob Hall moved to give him $150. John seconded the motion. The motion passed by a majority of 7 to 2.

Increasing Membership

John Beeman proposed a discussion about the merits of increasing our membership. He described the advantages that a larger pool of composers would offer: more people to do the work, add new energy and ideas, a wider range of styles, more money and larger audiences. The only drawback is there would be competition for performances. I brought up the advantage of more submissions and revealed that submissions have been low lately, with almost no one getting rejected, in particular for the Composers and Friends concert.

We discussed the possibility of unqualified people wanting to join. In this case, their music just wouldn’t get past the selection committee. John reviewed the selection guidelines:

1. Artistic quality

2. Involvement with the group

3. Frequency of performance in previous concerts

Herb reminded everyone of the next score calls for the next “Composer’s” concerts – Jan 1^st for the February concert and Jan 10^th for the April one. If we don’t get enough pieces for new second concert, we can always repeat the repertoire from February. Herb also suggested that we ask those NACUSAsf members in advance who would be willing to volunteer to play other composers’ pieces. This prompted Nancy to offer to sing in a group, but not as a soloist.

Lori suggested that I offer a workshop on the radio-baton. There was not much interest in this idea. While I offered to lend a spare radio-baton, it seemed that most of those present didn’t feel like learning a bunch of new technology.

We concluded our discussion in favor of increasing our membership. John said he would make up a flyer announcing a call for new members and put it up on our group site so we can evaluate it and offer suggestions before he sends it out.

New Business

Our New Website: www.nacusasf.org

This site has more space (200 MB) and executable content capability. Its cost is just $95 a year.

Herb asked for suggestions about how we might use these capabilities. John said we could have a database of our music that is available to performers. Herb said this was already implemented at National by John Windsor. John then suggested a list of all music that’s been performed in our NACUSA concerts. This information is already available on our own site, but not by composer, just by concert. I suggested composers putting up musical samples of their work. This capability is also already available at the National site, but Herb suggested we might try a more NACUSAsf personal idea, such as “composer of the month”, or pieces with a certain theme or instrumentation that we can change over time. Herb said we might need permission for copyrighted pieces and from performers. John said that the Composer’s Orchestra, SFCCO, got samples up on the web the day after a concert.

While we were on the topic of communication, Nancy suggested that the newsletter that Ken is going to prepare include articles by us. She urged Ken to let people know that you would welcome articles to include in the newsletter. This would make it significantly more interesting.

Working with Outside Groups

a. Communication from performing group to composers – This varies a great deal between groups. Anne said that attending SFCCO rehearsals of her piece was helpful to her. John said that composers should be able to attend at least one rehearsal. For unusual instruments, such as the guitar, we should invite a guitarist to be on the selection committee.

b. Program committee Selections – John said that for the last concert, Mark made the final selection and picked at least one movement of all the pieces sent to him, even those with a low recommendation. Bob recommended that the selection committee pass along to the performing group the pieces it likes (irrespective of difficulty), but have substitutes ready in case any are rejected.

c. Hand-off to groups - If we are giving a group more pieces than can be included, we should tell them that so that they don’t over extend themselves. Nancy recommended that we just pick the best music, regardless of difficulty. She relayed that when she was on the selection committee, Owen had told her, “Don’t send anything that is embarrassing.”

d. Agreement with outside group - the performing group has the final word on whether or not they will perform a certain piece at any time in the process. We are hiring them for a certain amount of rehearsal and concert time, not for specific pieces.

e. Notification of “final” pieces - Looking back at the last concert, which all agreed was a stunning success, John voiced the opinion, which I think many shared, that Mark decided too soon that he was going to do all the pieces (or a bit of everyone’s effort). He added it would be a good idea not to announce the selected pieces till he’s very sure, maybe after a reading, if there are concerns.

f. Rehearsal problems, remedies - We should ask the groups that we hire to tell composers if there are difficulties. If the group says it will perform a particular piece, but it is not working, they need to talk to the composer about it right away to see if there is a remedy. Anne told us that the Blossom String Quartet wouldn’t take her advice about her quartet and it was too slow in the performance.

Etiquette in Meetings, Rehearsals and on the Net: Expectations and Remedies

(At the time of this discussion, Bob, Dale and Ken had left)

Herb talked to Deon Price, the President of NACUSA National, about what to do about difficult personalities; i.e. someone who is abusive on a regular basis. Deon recommended that we set up guidelines for acceptable behavior and if they are broad enough she would see if NACUSA National would adopt them for all chapters.

For NACUSAsf, we agreed that the first remedy would be to moderate a person’s email comments to the group, and that the president would do so. Nancy mentioned that it is standard practice for YahooGroups discussion forums to be moderated, and that people even get banned from some of the lists. Nancy also mentioned that as a matter of policy we need to remind everyone that: “This is an organization of volunteers. Since we are all working hard, undue or excessive criticism is unacceptable.”

John said some organizations have a grievance person. Anne Baldwin agreed to try out this new position.

Discussion about a definitive policy still needs to continue, and Nancy and several others will be working on some initial wording.

Meeting adjourned at 9:45.

Respectfully submitted,

Joanne D. Carey

Secretary to NACUSAsf