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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

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Archives for September 2004

New music in Toronto

September 23, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Or, rather, no new music in Toronto. I'm talking about the amazing news yesterday about the Toronto Symphony -- they're going to banish new music from their regular season, at least for this year, and stick it off by itself in a few concerts next spring. I imagine many people will be outraged. If you're a serious classical music person,  you're supposed to support new music, and demand that orchestras play it whether their audience likes it or not. But I'd like to take another view. Maybe the Toronto Symphony's management is right. If … [Read more...]

The tipping point

September 22, 2004 by Greg Sandow

In the past two days, I've talked to two arts professionals who each told me the same troubling thing -- that subscription sales have been dropping strongly, not just in music, but in the other performing arts. (And, within the music world, not just for orchestras, but for opera companies as well. As one of these two people said, the conventional wisdom is that orchestras are in trouble while opera companies are doing fine, but the reality is otherwise.) I haven't tried to check what these two people told me, but they're both in a position to … [Read more...]

How musicians used to make a living

September 18, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Here's something I found in Crescendo 75, a really marvelous book published by the Indianapolis Symphony, to celebrate their 75th anniversary: The issues surrounding a less-than-52-week season [which became an issue for orchestras in the mid-1960s] caused the public to take a look at what these highly-trained professionals had been doing to put bread on the table during the periods of time they were not being paid to perform. An article in The Indianapolis Star of August 23, 1964, shed some light on the typical exploits of those who were … [Read more...]

Performance

September 12, 2004 by Greg Sandow

I'm back from vacation, much refreshed, back to work, but a little frightened of the schedule I, like many New York professionals, take too much for granted -- constant pressure, too much to do, a whirlwind of deadlines, opportunities, and work-for-hire, which all become more than a little demoralizing. Maybe that's related to what I want to talk about today. When we imagine the future of classical music, we think a lot about externals -- a larger, younger, more excited audience, less formal concerts, more new music played, a sense that … [Read more...]

Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

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How to write a press release

As a footnote to my posts on classical music publicists, and how they could do better, here's a post I did in 2005 -- wow, 11 years ago! --  about how to make press releases better. My examples may seem fanciful, but on the other hand, they're almost … [Read More...]

The future of classical music

Here's a quick outline of what I think the future of classical music will be. Watch the blog for frequent updates! I Classical music is in trouble, and there are well-known reasons why. We have an aging audience, falling ticket sales, and — in part … [Read More...]

Timeline of the crisis

Here — to end my posts on the dates of the classical music crisis  — is a detailed crisis timeline. The information in it comes from many sources, including published reports, blog comments by people who saw the crisis develop in their professional … [Read More...]

Before the crisis

Yes, the classical music crisis, which some don't believe in, and others think has been going on forever. This is the third post in a series. In the first, I asked, innocently enough, how long the classical music crisis (which is so widely talked … [Read More...]

Four keys to the future

Here, as promised, are the key things we need to do, if we're going to give classical music a future. When I wrote this, I was thinking of people who present classical performances. But I think it applies to all of us — for instance, to people who … [Read More...]

Age of the audience

Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Here's evidence that it used to be much younger. … [Read More...]

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