More on that younger audience

My post on

href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2006/11/how_to_attract_a_young_audienc.html">how

to attract a younger audience — a way that really works – -has gotten an

unusual number of comments. Apparently it struck a nerve, both for people who

like the idea I offered, and for people who don’t.

But one of the most important comments came to me in a

private e-mail from Molly Sheridan, the managing editor of

href="http://newmusicbox.org/index.nmbx">NewMusicBox,

an important webzine published by the

w:st="on">American Music

Center. Molly herself is

AC/DC, audience-wise — a classical person by training, and by disposition a

member of exactly the group the concert I described attracts.

class=GramE>(Hope that sounds right to you, Molly!)

Here’s what she wrote:

I was thinking the same thing about

the show last night [meaning that she agrees that this is a proven way to

attract a new audience to classical music], but don’t you think it’s even more

that the audience is filled with serious listeners, and they want the perks of

hearing their favorites in a classical music setting. It sort of turns the

whole excuse that "it’s the venue, stupid" that’s keeping them out of

our classical music sandbox on its head. They want the quality listening

environment. Andrew Bird is a phenomenal player, but you can’t always hear the

depth of that in a club. Fans want small, quiet environments in which to

commune with the music they love, and if they have to sit through Bach to do

so, they will. That’s not to say they won’t be into the Bach as well, but

looking at the former is an important point not to miss, I think.

I’ll take off from this to emphasize something else I think

is crucial. We can’t — musn’t — think of these events

in patronizing terms, “Oh, it’s all very nice, the kids get their music, and we

slip in some classical, which is the part that really matters.” Forget that. What matters — for marketing, for the

future of classical music (or any kind of music at all), and above all

artistically — what matters is the concert as a whole. These are serious

events, involving serious music. The crucial understanding (without which we’ll

never get anywhere in the current world) is that serious, artistic music can be

found in many genres. This is, currently, the operating principle of Nonesuch,

formerly a classly classical music label, and now a

classy art-music label, on which much of the art music isn’t classical.

Same with these concerts. They’re

art-music concerts, in which some of the art music is classical. This is fine

with their audience, who’ve shown (in many ways, including downloads and

playlists on iTunes) that they like music in many

genres, including classical. (Classical music of all periods,

in fact.) Thus a multi-genre concert makes perfect sense.

And it’ll make most sense when what starts

to get attention isn’t individual concerts, but organized concert series. Each

series would have its own identity, its own mix of artistic music,

class=GramE>its own favored styles. Any concert still would need some

kind of headliner, who could attract an audience (as many concerts in many genres

do), but increasingly the series itself would become an attraction, as people

started to say, “Yes, I like that series. I’ve got to be there because XYZ is

playing, but I always like most of the music these concerts do.” The variety

itself would be yet another draw, along with the pleasure of hearing things you’d

never heard before.

So let me say it again. We’ve got to stop thinking about how

to attract people to classical music, but instead start to think of what kind

of serious concerts make most sense in the current world. And since classical

music belongs on those concerts, as far as anyone can see, people who care most

about classical music shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

(Except, of course, the future of the kind of all-classical

concerts we’re used to now, but that’s another story. I wouldn’t assume they’d

disappear entirely. They might — if they faced competition for their audience –

even get smarter, and more interesting.)