Another thought on access

Here’s e-mail from Larry Beckhardt, who plays in the wind octet I blogged about a while ago, the group that plays 18th century music in a beer garden in New York, with a large crowd of people if all ages sitting around eating, drinking, and listening, and sometimes even dancing:

 

Your recent discussion of access points on your artsjournnal.com blog reminded me of the Bohemian Hall Beer Garden wind octet and your blog about it back in August.

 

Is it possible that we found one access point to the 20-30 year old population, as well as children and older people through that venue? Of course we are just a group of amateurs sight reading music - can you imagine the response of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble or Met Opera Orchestra winds did the same thing?  I get a chill just thinking about it.

 

That would be fabulous, wouldn’t it? I’ve heard of musicians from smaller orchestras doing things like this. The day the musicians in the big ones do it will be a great day for classical music—and might even signal a turnaround in the classical music business. Imagine actually caring for the people in the city you play in! Not just doing “outreach,” but simply being there, where people hang out, doing your music. It could be worth its weight in gold (read: ticket sales, donations, and by the way, sheer pleasure for the musicians).

November 17, 2005 11:02 AM | | Comments (0)

Categories:

Leave a comment

Resources

Age of the Audience 
Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Reality: It used to be younger -- dramatically younger, in fact. Here's some evidence -- actual texts of old studies, links to NEA studies -- plus my blog posts on this subject. more

earlier resources

Things I like

Frank O'Hara... 
...or rather these lines from one of his poems, quoted today in the New York Times Book Review: more

The Ten-Cent Plague
 
To paraphrase the old quote about the Nazis: "They came for the comic books, but I didn't read comic books..." more

Improvisation Games
 
An inspired book... more

Elektra 1957
 
Seismic recording.  more

Carmen Sings Monk
 
It's piano music, but she'll sing it anyway...
more
more things

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Sandow published on November 17, 2005 11:02 AM.

Comment on access points was the previous entry in this blog.

Omnivores 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

special
Program Notes
the blog of the National Performing Arts Convention
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
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
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
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
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
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
Stage Write
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
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.