America's Orchestras Are In Crisis

[mjzee]

How an effort to popularize classical music undermines what makes orchestras great.

New Republic

[David Ayers]

I dunno. Whenever I have been to US concerts and operas they were sold out. Sounds like the music gets along just fine but the fancy new venues are bankrupting the orchestras.

Here in UK everything I go to is sold out or very full. The Proms concerts I have been to this season I was calling all week to get return tickets, and that is in a venue which accommodates well over 5000 people. None of the events I attended had star orchestras or conductors or soloists. Nashville is not London but it is a world center of music of other kinds, at least historically, and you can have a serious conversation about music with just random folks you meet in a bar. Not *that* kind of music though and I guess maybe their catchment doesn't allow them to fill their concert hall as regularly as they would like. The crisis so-called just doesn't square with all the full venues I go to...maybe it's the ones I don't go to that show the truer picture.

[Guy Berger]

How an effort to popularize classical music undermines what makes orchestras great.

New Republic

The phenomenon this article describes rings true to me. When I lived in a largeish city in NC, the city orchestra's repertory concerts had a very elderly audience. I think it will get into progressively deeper trouble as they pass away.

That said, I didn't really understand the point of the article beyond that. The southern orchestra I mentioned was extremely conservative in its repertoire - playing something like Bruckner or early Sibelius was as adventurous as they got. I'm not saying this isn't worth preserving, but let's also not romanticize it too much. So what if they do various pops concerts or try to reach out to a wider audience.

For what it's worth, audiences at NYC classical concerts tend to be younger than in NC (though still older than jazz audiences) but also project WEALTH. So it is a pretty narrow cross-section of society.

[JSngry]

I got an email from the DSO this evening with the subject line

Two Virtuoso’s Not To Be Missed!

Close enough for classical, right?

[David Ayers]

Hope they play some good tune's.