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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

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Archives for September 2005

City Opera footnote

September 26, 2005 by Greg Sandow

A few further thoughts on the New York City Opera, their $25 ticket promotion (for two special performances), and their ways of attracting a new audience. As I wrote, I saw one of those $25 performances—the opera was Butterfly, with a greeting from the stage at the start, and video introductions to the first two acts—and thought it was quite a success. But now what? Doing this once doesn’t mean much, and in fact might even alienate the audience that the promotion attracted. “We thought they cared about us, and now…?” So what’s the … [Read more...]

Opera in the real world

September 19, 2005 by Greg Sandow

Here’s something good—something the New York City Opera did on the second and third nights of this season. On the second night (having opened the night before somewhat conventionally, with a new production), they had a gala. All seats were $25, and not all the music was classical. Rufus Wainwright sang; he’s a big opera fan. And the gala finished with the East Village Opera Company, who do dance versions of opera hits. (They’re hardly the only group that’s done this, but their versions—try “La donna è mobile”—are especially tasty.) Of … [Read more...]

Untapped reality

September 16, 2005 by Greg Sandow

Here are provocative (and very useful) thoughts from Eric Barnhill, a pianist I met when he was in one of my Juilliard courses, the first year I taught there, way back in 1997. He e-mailed me as follows (and of course I’ve posted this with his permission): A belated [reply to] something you blogged in August re: regional groups. Not only are regional ensembles unsung heroes of classical music, I think there is a lot of untapped, appealing material with regional or second-tier groups that they can use to an advantage over "star" ensembles. … [Read more...]

Back

September 15, 2005 by Greg Sandow

I’m back in action, after what I could call a stimulating rest. It’s exhilarating to move into a new house, especially a gorgeous one (if I do say so), which my wife and I helped design. Spacious, comfortable, views on all four sides, with windows everywhere to bring the views to us, plus three decks and two porches…my reward for challenging the sacred cows of the classical music world? Nah. The only cows  I see are the ones in the field across the road. There’s also a fox who comes around (we think she lives with us, because we’ve found … [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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