Always the Music

Summary

Always The Music is the fascinating story of Morris’ personal metamorphosis through the highest levels of the world of classical music, his learning and insights into how storied musical institutions function, great artists create, and audiences engage. Over the course of 34 years running the Boston Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra, he had the growing realization that American orchestras had become ingrown on themselves, with rigid structures and cultures that conspired to perpetuate those structures rather than the music experiences they were built to create. Stepping back from orchestras and looking to experiment with his evolving insights, he became artistic director of the Ojai Music Festival. Its size, its setting, its unique structure and a long history with many of the world’s most innovative and influential musicians and composers provided an opportunity for Morris to reimagine musical experiences by challenging all aspects of making music and producing concerts. The first part of the book recounts Morris’s journey through close collaborations with key individuals and projects, while the final chapters synthesizes his career lessons into an unequivocal but thoughtful prescription for the future of the American orchestra. Mostly, though, this is the entertaining story of one man’s lifelong love affair with great music and the people who make it.