Obstacles

From a reader who prefers not to be named, a description of things that can

keep people away from classical music:

I have read your blog for some time now because I love classical music

and am the parent of a teenager who is an aspiring orchestral musician. As

former southern Californians, we had many hours of pleasure attending

concerts at the Dorothy Chandler Music Center and other So. Cal. venues in

our time there.

Six years ago, we moved to Huntsville, AL. We bought season tickets to the

Huntsville Symphony. Our experience started on a low note and has not

changed a great deal until the present time. The concert hall is, to be

frank, ugly and cold appearing. The foyers are dreary. The expensive seats

that we had did not allow us to see all of the percussion section due to

baffles that extend onto the stage. There were no cough drops at the

entrance to quiet the continual hacking coughs that occur in an area where

there’s lots of smoking and chronic allergies. We were 30 years younger than

almost anyone sitting near us and the music was punctuated by snoring and

comments such as "wake me when it’s over, etc." Many seats around us were

unfilled. The performances were only slightly more inspired than the

setting.

Huntsville is a rapidly growing city with a highly-educated population (most

moving from larger metropolitan areas). There are two youth orchestras

(split 20 years ago because of disagreements) and there is no reconciliation

between them even though neither one has enough players. The leaders of each

are entrenched in maintaining the control they have. Meanwhile the young

players suffer from a less than ideal situation. The symphony does not

directly participate with either one.

The symphony should be expanding based on the growth in this area. The

symphony staff, some of whom are longtime symphony musicians, have put the

bulk of their effort into developing relationships with a chosen few patrons

who may or may not give enough to subsidize the symphony in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, a large population with unknown, but potentially large assets,

sits untapped and seats remain unfilled. It reminds me of a church we went

to. It had approximately 20 members. Few members attended and the church

staff seemed content with that. We were told that the church received enough

funds from non-attending members or those who left money in their will, to

not need to work to attract or maintain new members or to care whether seats

were filled or not. While this may be effective in the short term, there is

no way that it can be sustained over many years.

Huntsville has a dynamic new conductor. Unfortunately he is only here a few

days out of the year. While he is away, the status quo continues. Though his

programming and conducting are more appealing, it can not make up for the

lack of relationship that the symphony has to the broader community.

This year we gave up our seats and have few plans to attend any of the

concerts here. In the time that we have been here the symphony has has made

little effort to establish a relationship with us. We were never approached

directly to donate funds. The symphony seem to have chosen to focus their

energy on a few select patrons and to neglect the larger potential audience.

We have never been asked why we gave up our seats.

So, what do we do now? We travel to other cities, including back to CA, to

attend concerts. We invest more in recorded music. We choose to use our

resources more selectively.

As our child looks at colleges next year, we will be looking to ensure that

along with a music degree, he/she will get an education in leadership,

management, and community relations that seems to be missing from our local

symphony. After all, a future musician’s livelihood will depend on the

whether attending classical concerts will matter to anyone in the future.