Support the Arts
Volume 12, Number 35
Issue 582
In my collection of Richmond history items, I’m fortunate to have a bound volume of original newsletters entitled “The Baton” that were published WEEKLY by the Richmond Mozart Association in 1888 and 1889. The newsletters detail a story of an active group of Richmonders who used their personal resources to promote classical music. Though the publication is detailed and professionally done with much advertising content, as the issues progress it appears that only a few are doing the work after being encouraged by many more who offered great praise but no financial or volunteer support. Funny how 116 years later, the more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same.
“The Baton” was published every Monday; most of the issues list the program for EVERY Monday night’s concert at the Mozart Academy at 115 South Fifth Street.
It took me a while to realize that music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was only a fraction of what happened at the Mozart Academy. Looking through the issues makes me realize that a VERY proud group of people devoted a great deal of time, effort and talent to the cause that they believed in—the promotion of a vibrant arts community in Richmond. Mr. Everett Waddey—long a household name to many Richmonders as the namesake of a chain of office supply stores before Staples and Office Max ran them out of business in the 1990s—was the publisher many of the newsletter’s weekly issues.
One of the issues--February 27, 1888--proclaims “Programmed 610th Weekly Musicale, Offenbach’s Opera in Four Acts, Entitled ‘La Grande Duchess’ by the Richmond Opera Company.” We had an opera company in Richmond? Based in Richmond? Richmond, having a mere population of 81,388 in 1890 according to one of my reference books had an opera company? It apparently did. Even though probably only 5-10% of the 1888 population was educated and white-collar, it had enough people recognizing their duty to their community to support cultural activities to have weekly musical programs, an opera company, publish a weekly newsletter and often bring classical music stars from Boston and New York. Another of the issues even referred to Richmond having “Ford’s Opera House.” Still another welcomed the Norfolk Amateur Opera Company. An early October issue announced a concert for the “Engagement of the New York Opera Club.”
Considering that the population of the metro-Richmond area counting Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover was 996,513 in the 2000 census, was estimated to be 1,033,407 in 2003 and is estimated to be 1,416,000 in 2025, I think that it’s remarkable what the folks connected with the Richmond Mozart Association did in 1888.
I also think that it’s very sad that there aren’t more people who devote their professional time and talent to helping arts organizations in Richmond in 2004. But, I’ll go one step further: Where it was an educated person’s overt civic duty to support charitable causes with large amounts of time and money in times past, it’s sad now that educated people--as a general rule--don’t volunteer material amounts of time to sit on charitable boards of civic and arts organizations, and if they do, many of them feel that they are outcasts because they are doing something so far outside of the “norm.”
I was especially impressed that the Richmond Mozart Association had a template “NOTICE” in each issue that stated “By a rule of the Mozart Association, the officer in charge of the stage is required to order the suspension of any musical performance during the prevalence of loud conversation in the hall.” These officers, directors and volunteers had a lot of confidence. They weren’t afraid to have a standard that they weren’t publicly ready to uphold. Today, I see so many arts organizations that are afraid to start too early, too late, be politically incorrect or have music or a show that might offend an ethnic group because it was too aggressive in its presentation. In my opinion, the visual arts, music and the theater are supposed to be aggressive in their presentation—that’s how I learn something non-traditional. That’s how I get stimulated to broaden my horizons, so to speak.
In looking through the advertisements in the Richmond Mozart Association’s weekly newsletters from 1888, I found many advertisements from companies that still exist or that existed in the 1960s and 1970s when I was a little boy—before what I will call the computer revolution.
I found the Binswangers selling glass, the Rylands selling pianos, the Crumps selling Coal and Wood and Walter D. Moses selling musical instruments. Can there be a connection to business success and supporting the arts? I think that there is. If I use my personal and professional resources to support the theater and other arts organizations, I am target-marketing to a highly educated and creative segment of the population. I’ve learned more than once that these are the clients that are keepers. I’ve thought that when you produce a product—like tax and consulting advice—that is complex, that having educated clients is the cornerstone to having successful relationships where advice is listened to and where better questions can be asked (by both sides) that are based on respect and common sense.
Many of the issues referred to in “The Baton” were often literary in nature, presenting poems, quotes and short antidotes. The promoters of the Richmond Mozart Association knew that there is a connection between all arts, especially between music, art and literature. One quotation attributed to Samuel Stiles stated “Lost wealth may be replaced by industry; lost knowledge by study; lost health by temperance or medicine; but lost time is gone forever.”
I’ve often said that money is a renewable resource. Through hard work and recognizing that mistakes are the by-product of moving forward successfully, money can be made over and over and over. On the other hand, we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day and there are the physical limitations of the human body--inherent limitations that prevent the creation of new amounts of time. Time is the most precious resource of all because we have so little of it and new quantities of it are very difficult to create, if not impossible. Waste my money and I will work hard to make more; waste my time and you have taken from me a precious commodity that cannot be replaced.
The Richmond Howitzers held a “Fair and Festival at the Regimental Armory at 7th and Marshall Streets From April 9th to the 23rd (1888) Inclusive” that was reviewed in the Richmond Mozart Association’s “The Baton” on April 16, 1888: “The “Happy Howitzers” are holding high carnival at the Armory. Bright colored bunting streams from roof to floor, walling in a merry crowd of pleasure-seekers. The red cap of the cannoneer, the bearskin shako of the guardsman, and the poke bonnet of the girl of the period, mingle in a kaleidoscopic wave of color; and the youth of the city whirl through the evening hours in an ‘endless round of pleasaunce.’” Though this fair sounds only vaguely arts-related, perhaps the fact that “The Baton” promoted it was their effort to promote to the masses and then gradually, over time, refine them. The most important thing, though, was reminding the population at large that “art” is a many faceted concept and that art can and should be fun.
In Sunday, August 22, 2004’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mark Holmberg and David Ress wrote a great deal from their individual perspectives--commentator and investigative reporter, respectively--about the lack of leadership among Richmond’s adults and the idleness of Richmond’s youth. They painted in easy-to-visualize detail the continued violence on the streets, mostly perpetrated by youth. When will we, as a society, learn that success in life all comes back to education, manners and respect? In my opinion, the true leaders of a society also need to mortgage their own personal and professional reputations by making sure that charitable giving and volunteering to the literary, theatrical and visual arts is a cornerstone of every community. Promoting the arts shouldn’t be directed towards the wealthy—they probably know about it already. Promoting the arts should be fiercely and passionately directed towards youth to let them discover it as the defining by-product of an educated society. If we don’t—and let our youth continue to languish in a sea of idleness, promiscuity and thievery—it will be far, far, far more expensive in the long run.
Be like my clients David and Christine Gardner, Deborah Costello, Chic Day, Martin Rust and others—find arts organizations and give of your professional time and talent as a true community leader.
By the way, Mr. Everett Waddey published “The Batton” for a year and then Mr. Jefferson Wallace “tried to make it a bright, interesting and well arranged paper; a paper that would be a credit to the Association and that would serve to relieve the dullness of the half-hour before the concert.” In an additional page of poetic prose about being an arts supporter and there only being “a slight difference between poetry and doggerel,” Wallace announced the cessation of the publication because he was apparently the one doing all the work to get it published each week.
Supporting the arts is something that you need a group for. A Board has many active members. The cornerstone of volunteerism is comraderie. A theater company is composed of many actors, not one. All artists need lawyers and accountants. A box office needs a manager. And, most of all, the lights don’t need to be turned out unless there is electricity turned on by paying the bill in the first place.
Well, back in 1888 and 1889 the Richmond Mozart Association did all that they did even without electricity; funny how 116 years later we are doing far less with so much more.
David B. Robinson, CPA
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