It is the FLUTE Doctors aim to cure our society’s misconceptions about classical music by offering them remedies that are easy to swallow.
Remedy #1: A story-driven series that documents the Flute Doctors journey to build new audiences for classical music with their inventive programming, guerilla marketing strategies, face-to-face interactions with the public, and educational outreach. Fusing their infectious enthusiasm with two doctorates worth of information about these four hundred years of music, Liesa Norman and Laura Barron will get listeners jazzed about their passion. The hosts, busy soloing with the Boston Symphony, composing film scores for the BBC, recording Radiohead cover tunes for their flute duo, and singing original songs opening for Chantal Kreviazuk, finally put their dusty degrees to good use.
Remedy #2: Contact with new listeners on the street and through social media networks. Our show will include conversations with the public – backstage at musical events, in their local record stores, and throughout their city – to better understand what music moves them. Laura and Liesa playfully abduct passengers waiting for the Sky Train, and arrange a date with Mozart by taking a few willing nervous discovers to their first ever opera.
Remedy #3: Building bridges to school, corporate, and community groups less exposed to classical music because they believe that this is music for everybody. The hosts mine EA’s video game stock for classical music references to open these Gen X techie’s minds, and maybe their Ipods, to music older than Nirvana.
Remedy #4: Healthy doses of classical music’s far-reaching benefits, with customized playlists to eat, play, and love by. The Flute Doctors act as sommeliers of classical music for our ‘in the know’ culture, which has people racing to find everything from the next great indie artist to the best chickens for their backyard. With rousing Italian opera arias filling their ears, will diners notice the more flamboyant flavors in their mouths as they feast on the meal that this music inspired Umberto to concoct?
Remedy #5: No-holds-barred selling techniques that have classical music filling arenas, going platinum, and making tabloids. Liesa and Laura repel off the Shangri-La to unravel 61-story Flute Doctors banners.
Remedy #6: An interactive website that supports the show’s content. From here, we will field questions that we can answer on air, offer extended interviews and videos of the musicians featured in our live performances, and elaborate on the classical music facts and stories that we cover in each episode. Dear Flute Doctors, Can you please alleviate my burning symptoms of curiosity. What’s that menacing music they always play just before something powerful happens on film or tv? I’ve heard it on everything from a Carlton beer ad, a WWF match with “The Undertaker”, the movie “Jackass”, and even for the” evil puppy” music on Conan O’Brien? Funny, we get that question all the time. It’s “O Fortuna” from German composer Carl Orff’s 1936 choral orchestral piece, “Carmina Burana”.
Remedy #7: An interactive website that supports the show‘s content. From here, we will field questions that we can answer on air, offer extended interviews and videos of our guests, and elaborate on the classical music facts and stories that we cover in each episode. Dear Flute Doctors, Can you please alleviate my burning symptoms of curiosity. What‘s that menacing music they always play just before something powerful happens on film or tv? I‘ve heard it on everything from a Carlton beer ad, a WWF match with “The Undertaker”, the movie “Jackass”, and even for the” evil puppy” music on Conan O‘Brien? Funny, we get that question all the time. It‘s “O Fortuna” from German composer Carl Orff‘s 1936 choral orchestral piece, “Carmina Burana”.
This format will work well for a program with a 22–minute running time, but can easily be adapted to 44–minutes. Each episode will include the following segments:
SURGICAL PREP (Introduction) – 1 min.
TRAVEL SHOTS
(On-the-road Concert Abductions)
– 6 min.
• Each show finds the Flute Doctors in new locations seeking unlikely characters to expose to live classical music. They visit Seattle for its epic Wagner opera, Ring Cycle; Frank Gehry’s fanciful Walt Disney Concert Hall to hear the LA Phil, and San Francisco to listen to the punk-haired rock stars of classical music, the Kronos Quartet.
HOUSE CALLS
(Mobile Classical Classroom)
– 6 min.
• In each episode, our hosts will hit the streets, the schools, even the board rooms, to talk to the public about their perceptions of classical music. From the Allouette Women’s prison to the offices of MacMillan Bloedel, from the Commodore Ballroom to the Downtown Eastside schools, the Flute Doctors bring their show to people from all walks of life, with entertaining anecdotes that provide a context for classical music which relate it to our listeners’ daily life.
REMEDY RECIPES
(Customized Playlists)
– 4 min.
• Brainstorming at their best, each episode will have the Flute Doctors curating classical music’s vast choices for clients ranging from the famous King Pacific Fishing Lodge, Vij’s, YYoga studios, to law students during UBC Reading Week.
PHARMAFLUTICAL SALES
(Guerilla Marketing Maneuvers)
– 4 min.
– Whether trying to fill concert halls, sell CDs, or get on the David Letterman Show, the Flute Doctors have crazy tricks up their scrubs sleeves. They trade the Canucks jersies on the Lion’s for slinky Flute Doctor’s shirts; amuse impatient JapaDog customers with an impromptu performance; or slip their Forbidden Flutes CD’s into the apple bin at Whole Foods (think forbidden fruit).
Note: As with all medical procedures, some take longer than others. The length of each segment may vary, each episode, according to content.
Doctors Without Borders
TRAVEL SHOTS • Pink Martini, not just a cocktail the Flute Doctors love to throw back, Portland’s classically-trained lounge band proves the perfect taster for the culturally curious of this City of Roses.
HOUSE CALLS • Bach Rocks and Mozart Swings, and so do the students at Lord Strathcona Elementary School. Bringing their classical/jazz/pop performance to kids, The Flute Doctors marvel at the look on fifth graders’ faces when they hear Bach for the first time.
REMEDY RECIPES • Flute Doctors’ good friend, Philippe Kjellgren, asks them to design classically –inspired lounge music for the lobbies of the luxury resorts that he promotes on his Kiwi Collection website.
PHARMAFLUTICAL SALES • The hosts recruit contacts around the world to cycle through their cities with “Ask Dave to Book the Flute Doctors” posters plastered all over their bikes.
We are confident that the FLUTE doctors will fill a broadcasting niche not available anywhere else in North America, and we feel that audiences are ripe for our show’s contemporary yet cultural content.
Contact information: Laura Barron laura@laurabarron.net 604-875-8865.
