Orchestras and new music

The following comes from somebody in the business who wants to be anonymous. It was sent as a comment on my book, but it's worthwhile putting it out for everyone to see:

Permit me to offer a real-world perspective re your comment that "orchestras should try to find people who really like the modernist works." That's very true, but the cold, hard fact is that, at the present time, it's a small audience.

The research I’ve seen says somewhere between 5 – 10% of the current orchestra audience likes modern or contemporary. And the other 90%+ are becoming increasingly reluctant to buy an expensive ticket for a concert where half the program is music they dislike.

There’s a fundamental law of consumer behavior at work here -- people don't spend time or money on something they don't want. This fundamental reality applies to consumer behavior across the board, including orchestras.

I’ve also seen analyses of ticket sales that shows there is a strong, statistically valid inverse relationship between the word 'premiere' in a program – world, national or local -- and ticket sales. In other words, say “premiere” in a classical context and you can count on lower attendance.

These are just the realities of the orchestra business today. And here’s one more cold, hard reality: if new music sold more tickets, you can bet your bass clef orchestras would be doing a lot more of it.

I confess the data I see makes me kinda skeptical that the answer lies in whether or not we play new music, in and of itself. I sense that the answer is to connect. And to deploy all the elements of the experience -- the music, how it's performed, how it's presented, etc. etc. -- towards that purpose.

I think what you're REALLY arguing, Greg, is that we need to change the paradigm, challenge the assumption that today's audience is tomorrow's audience, that today's concerts are tomorrow's concerts, that today's organizations are tomorrow's organizations. The tricky part is getting from today to tomorrow; I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

March 24, 2006 4:29 PM | | Comments (0)

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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 March 24, 2006 4:29 PM.

Cleveland again was the previous entry in this blog.

Performance of my music is the next entry in this blog.

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