The Three Stooges of Classical Blogging

Greg Sandow: Classical music is dying.

Alex Ross: Classical music is not dying.

Kyle Gann: Die or don't die already, but get outa the friggin' way.

January 12, 2007 12:28 PM | | Comments (4) |

Categories:

4 Comments

Ah, but classical music ISN'T dying precisely because people like you are reinventing it. Even by way of killing it. Paradox upon paradox! To quote PDQ Bach: "Dying, dying, dying, and yet in death alive."

KG replies: Ah yes, Iphigenia in Brooklyn. Here's another paradox: Postclassical music is in imminent danger of dying, as least as far as its public presence goes, largely because the dead kind of classical music soaks up all the funding and won't give it any support. The baby is starving because all the available food's being used to try to resuscitate the corpse.

Hey you know, the LA Philharmonic and the SF Symphony are doing quite well financially. And their repertoire is like 70% contemporary!

There's plenty of reasons to be optimistic, especially as composers writing new music. It's pretty likely that others will have to follow suite or risk tanking.

Death to classical music. All hail Twisted Sister!
No, I'm just kidding!

Art Music (is what me and my wife refer to it as - you choose "post-classical") WILL die if the people in power (such as yourself) don't support it (a none to subtle hint to click our link, listen and do a little research). How an art music making married couple of janitors don't qualify as (at least) blurb worthy...I'll never know. You can either recognize us now...or wait (like the rest of the ballsless dopes) and catch on later.

Leave a comment

Sites To See

Postclassic Radio! - Kyle Gann's internet radio station that accompanies the blog; see the playlist at kylegann.com

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page - great Downtown composer

Just Intonation Network - a meeting place for people interested in alternative tunings

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by PostClassic published on January 12, 2007 12:28 PM.

See You in Hell, Pachelbel was the previous entry in this blog.

The Kleinmeister Factory, Then and Now is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Ads

Introducing
AJ Arts Blog Ads

Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.

Advertise Here

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
critical difference
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dog Days
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Performance Monkey
David Jays on theatre and dance
Plain English
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Real Clear Arts
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
Creative Destruction
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PianoMorphosis
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Another Bouncing Ball
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.