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From Dan Walter, who’s 30, says he grew up with heavy metal,

rock, pop, and rap. Lately he’s been buying and downloading classical

recordings, and says he’s “a little bit upset with myself

for not discovering and continuing to follow this great form of music much

earlier in my life. I have been reading biographies of composers and doing

research on the web about all the music I am interested in and continue to

discover something new on a daily basis. I have a pretty big CD collection of

popular music and have decided to start a collection of classical music.”

But that’s not all. Here, with his permission, is what he

told me he’d like to see in classical music today:

1.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      New

music!

2.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      New

music!!

3.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      New

music that is relevant to today, and is marketed with as much effort as any

popular music.

4.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Orchestras

taking advantage of PBS again.

5.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Orchestras

without so many stifling rules.

6.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Audiences

without so many stifling rules.

7.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Concert

halls embracing new technologies. (recording audio,

and visual tech.)

8.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Music

that has some controversy. (Political, social, religious, etc.) By this I don’t

mean controversy for controversy’s sake.

But a composer who is not afraid to take some risks and

class=GramE>a orchestra not afraid to take those risks also.

9.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Low

cost or free children’s concerts that when it’s over the kids are allowed to go

up on stage and talk to the musicians and see and possibly try out the

instruments. Get the kids excited about

instruments they probably have never heard of before.

10.

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>  Everyone

to lighten up when it comes to art. Far

more often than not art is to be enjoyed.

Not studied to death.

Many, many thanks to Dan for this. Point four might be reversed, so that

PBS (which is the culprit here) would telecast more orchestras. And point nine,

very happily, describes something that many orchestras have done.

But no one should underestimate how important this list is.

Here’s what someone who comes from classical music from the pop world would

love to see — or, to put it more strongly, what many people who look at

classical music from a pop perspective would like. Dan’s not alone. We’d

attract a lot more people his age — and have a much more

lively time ourselves — if we did what he suggests.