March 2008 Archives

From Rob Teehan in Canada comes the following, posted as a comment to another post, but worth attention on its own. Thanks for this, Rob:

Hello,

Up here in Canada there have been a lot of developments at the CBC, our flagship public broadcaster, that I'm sure you'd be interested in, if you're not already aware of them.

First off, the CBC announced recently that it would be scaling back its classical programming on CBC Radio 2 in favour of other genres. 

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2008/03/04/radio-two.html

 Second, the CBC recently announced that it would disband the CBC Radio Orchestra in favour of more geographically-diverse broadcasting of orchestra concerts.  Based in Vancouver, it was the last Radio Orchestra in North America and has been important to the Canadian classical scene, producing many recordings and, especially, commissioning and performing Canadian compositions.  But recent budget cutbacks had reduced all of these activities drastically. 

 Chris Foley has some comprehensive coverage, especially of the latter development, on his Collaborative Piano Blog:

http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com/

 These two developments have caused a wail of outcry from the Canadian classical community, and, more tellingly, a wail of silence from the rest of the country. 

I would be very interested in your opinion on this, as I'm sure would many others. 

Regards,

Rob Teehan

Yes, an outcry from classical music people, and silence from everyone else -- we've seen that before. Certainly that happened in New York when WNYC, our public radio station, cut back on classical programming. (Though they didn't abandon classical music. Just look where they've taken it.)

So what explains this? Lack of interest in classical music from the world at large (surely no surprise, given the directions current culture goes in). And yelps of pain from classical music people, who get genuinely hurt when they see this lack of interest forcing classical music cutbacks.

Because those cutbacks really are necessary. Yes, any organization has a little wiggle room, in deciding what to present, and yes, an organization really committed to classical music might settle for fewer listeners, lower income, fewer people buying tickets, or whatever the applicable hit to their bottom line might be. But there have to be limits. If the CBC finds that the expense of maintaining an orchestra just isn't worth it, given (let's say) the number of people who listen when the orchestra plays, who can blame them? They have a large operation to run, and can't keep pouring resources into classical music if most of their listeners don't pay attention. (Some stats from WNYC, when it cut back on classical broadcasting: 80% of their listeners turned the dial to another station when classical music came on, and the listeners who did care about classical music -- and angrily threatened boycotts when the cutbacks came -- gave less money to the station, in proportion to their numbers, than listeners who didn't care about classical music.)

So the CBC cutbacks shouldn't be a surprise. My only question might be whether they've considered alternative classical programming, like WNYC's. And instead of an orchestra, what would happen if they supported a much smaller ensemble, playing much more varied classical music, much of it new? Or else replaced the orchestra with live broadcasts of groups they bring in from outside? We shouldn't think there's only one classical audience, or just one kind of classical music. As I've said here before (see the links above), there's a new classical music world emerging, complete with new programming and a new audience. Wouldn't this audience be found in Canada as well as the U.S.? (Though I do understand that the CBC broadcasts nationally, and might not have as large -- percentagewise -- an alternative audience as the one WNYC can find in New York,)

Maybe you've noticed a new look here -- subtly new. That accompanies a switch (throughout the ArtsJournal blogs) to new blog software. It does look better, I think, and it's a big improvement, from a working blogger's point of view, making things easier when I write and upload posts.

But! Some comments to previous posts didn't make it into the new format. I'll be working on those over the next couple of days, and soon they'll all be visible again. Apologies to the commenters, whose thoughts (which I value very highly) disappeared.

Everything that was on the old site is now on this new one, including all comments (along with my replies). We're up and running.

Some things I've been thinking about....(And I'll have to add more in another post. Note that I'll be on vacation for a few days, and won't be able to post any comments till next Monday or Tuesday.)

First, and most exciting, Terrance McKnight (and also here), the new host and programmer of the "Evening Music" show on WNYC, New York's public radio station. He started on March 3.

I've been fascinated, over the many years that I've been commenting on the future of classical music, to see that future emerge. Fascinated, and delighted, too. I wouldn't have dared to predict exactly what the future would be, or when any part of it might arrive. And I'm finding that it's coming faster and faster. Terrance McKnight is a major step. He programs a nightly classical music show (well, Mondays through Thursdays), in which new music is the norm.

But it's not a new music show! Mainstream classical works are also featured, along with jazz, and other things. He opened with some African-American folk music from Mississippi, very rural and wild, which then unforgettably segued into the slow movement of Beethoven's Op. 109 piano sonata. You must look at his programming, which I've collated, up to the start of this week, from the WNYC website.

I think this is the classical music programming of the future, programming in which new music isn't an occasional spice (or annoyance, for people whose main love is standard repertoire), but is - I'll say it again - the norm. Certainly this is the kind of programming that can attract the new, young audience that classical music people always talk about. I don't know what kind of numbers the show is pulling, whether it's gaining audience or losing it. I can imagine many scenarios, one being a stampede toward the program, as word gets around, and another being a stampede away from it, and then a slow but steady surge of new people, growing over time, ending up with more people listening than listened before. Certainly I'm likely to listen.

And note that this future isn't, I'm a little sad to say, the future many of the people in the field so wistfully have hoped for. That's a future in which things continue unchanged, but somehow a new, young audience starts coming to concerts. When you think hard about that, it's unlikely - why should people start coming to something they've stayed away from for so many years? But I know many people (many, many people inside classical music) hoped they somehow would. The sadness, for these people, is that Terrance McKnight might be a strong sign that classical music really has a future, but it's not the future many people wanted.

McKnight, I should add, doesn't do this alone. He was brought to WNYC by my friend Limor Tomer, the station's Executive Producer of Music. Limor had already moved the show in this direction, but needed a brilliant host and programmer to make it sing. She found him, and deserves full credit.

But don't take my word for it! Download the programming, as I've collated it, and see what classical music looks like, when half the pieces you hear (maybe even more than half) are by living composers. I feel like I've been waiting for this for years, maybe for all my life. If this succeeds at (so to speak) the box office, and once word gets around, this might be the biggest a shot in the arm classical music has had in years.

***

Faithful readers may have noticed an echo above of my post on the Wordless Music orchestra concert, a performance of orchestral music by Gavin Bryars, John Adams, and Jonny Greenwood that sold out a thousand-seat church two nights in a row, with no advertising. As I said at the time, we saw - right at those concerts - the new young audience everyone talks about, the same audience (or pretty much the same) as the people who might listen to Terrance McKnight. And I quoted a veteran, highly placed classical music insider who - greatly impressed, even thrilled with what he saw - recalled that he'd told an orchestra he once worked with that if they ever got the young audience they talked about, they wouldn't like it. Here, he thought, was living proof of that. This audience simply won't go to standard classical programs, or at least not nearly as often as the present audience does.

You can hear that Wordless Music concert on WNYC's website. WNYC - another Limor Tomer initiative - broadcasts and archives all of Wordless Music's performances. (Note, by the way, that if you want to listen to the program one piece at a time, click the tiny "more" button at the lower left of the box describing the orchestra concert. You'll be taken to a page where you can choose which part of the concert to hear.)

The orchestra concerts were a new departure for Wordless; normally they do smaller shows, combining alternative bands with classical music. (And absolutely not, as I've said before, as any kind of outreach. The concerts simply reflect the taste of Ronen Givony, who runs the series. And, of course, the taste of their audience.)

I apologize to everyone who posted comments on my last few posts, but who hasn't seen their comments appear on the site. As I've often noted here, I have to approve each comment, because of the vast -- truly unspeakable! -- amount of spam that arrives. And since I like to reply to comments, I usually wait to post comments until I have time for the replies. Now, though, things have gotten out of hand, and I have a backlog. I do apologize, and the neglected comments (for which I'm grateful) will be posted shortly.

Highlights:

My thoughts on the future of classical music: a comprehensive view (assigned to my classes, but never published anywhere, including this blog)

Excerpts from books that show pretty clearly why classical music has to change, if it wants to attract a new audience (see below)

Anecdotes - some of the wild - about how classical music was performed before 1800.

My thoughts on professional music education - what schools should emphasize

Hope for the future - what I told my Eastman class (see below)

My courses this spring - at Juilliard and Eastman - are about the future of classical music. You can read the Juilliard syllabus right here, and in fact I'll happily invite you to do that. (The Eastman course is the same, but much shorter. If you're curious to see how I abridged the Juilliard schedule, go here.)

You'll find you can read everything I've assigned for these classes (and hear whatever music I've assigned). You'll also see that the syllabus isn't quite complete, that I've got a few blank weeks to fill in. Come back in a bit, and the blanks will unblank.

You'll see that the class begins with some of the problems classical music faces - declining numbers (as detailed in many posts here), and, more crucially, a decisive turn in our culture away from classical music. (Which of course is the reason for the declining numbers.)

But here are two things in this part of the course that I might mention here. First, I made a comprehensive presentation of the problems facing classical music, numerical and otherwise. It's here - and it's never appeared anywhere else, not even this blog.

Second, I assigned readings that - in a way I think we never read inside the classical music world - show why a new, smart generation won't like classical music in the ways it's currently presented. These readings come from Richard Florida's book The Rise of the Creative Class, and from John Seabrook's book Nobrow. The people Florida describes want a cultural community that's local and contemporary, fluid, eclectic, interactive, and varied. Does that sound like classical music, as we know it today?

The course also talks about classical music before it was classical. All the reading here is provocative, but for some quick hits, I compiled some anecdotes - and excerpts from scholarly papers - showing how wild classical could be, before it got formal and serious. Then we deal with pop music (what's its relationship with classical music?), with new music (why is it such a problem?), with how the standard repertoire might be performed, and finally with some plans to fix the crisis.

And here the mountain gives birth to what might seem like a tiny mouse. I ask my students to present some work they've played or sung (or written), talking about it in very personal terms, trying to interest people who don't know anything about classical music. In a world where the audience is growing older (for the past 50 years!) and shrinking, and where the culture at large has moved in directions the classical music world can't grasp, my assignment may seem like no more than a tiny step.

But it's a seed from which many things can grow. As I told my Eastman class: The problem, overall, is that classical music - at least as we currently see it -- doesn't speak to contemporary culture. And yet here we have my students, and so many other young classical musicians, who inhabit both worlds. They're in the classical music world, as young professionals, and they're also in the mainstream world, sharing the same culture as their friends who don't pay attention to classical music. (Nobody should underestimate how true this is. Many of my students follow pop music far more closely than I do, even some who, if you ask them point-blank, say classical music is more profound than pop. And I'll never forget an Eastman student a couple of years ago, a conservative Christian who with wild delight explained why a song cycle she was singing reminded her of Sex in and the City.) [I'm a geek -- misstated the name of the show!]

So if these students can, even in a small way, bridge the gap between themselves and the culture at large, they've done something potentially revolutionary. They've shown how anyone can do it - even how large orchestras and giant opera companies can do. And in the current climate, this means a lot. At a time of change, any innovation has extra force. People are looking for change; they're expecting it; if they hear about something new, they may well get excited, and try that new thing themselves. Thus, even small individual changes can be multiplied, and the momentum for change keeps growing stronger.

***

Finally, some thoughts on professional music education, as I e-mailed them to the dean of a major music school. (What should schools do to prepare students for the contemporary world?

Students should be trained in entrepreneurship, or at least should have the opportunity to be trained. Classical musicians will, increasingly, be finding new career paths, and students should prepare themselves. 

Music history needs to be rethought. Students now are taught (as I was [and I suspect many of my blog readers were] the history of music as if it was essentially the history of composition. That fits the standard emphasis on masterworks, and on the musician's expected role as the servant of the composer. But this doesn't entirely fit historical reality, and also doesn't help prepare students for the contemporary world. I'd like much more emphasis on entrepreneurship in the past (it certainly existed), on the role of the audience, and on the role of performing musicians.  

Students should be encouraged to find their own musical paths. In classical music, students typically learn the repertoire for their instrument. "I'm a clarinetist, so I'll play the clarinet repertoire." In other musical genres, a musician will far more likely say, "I play the clarinet. What music do I want to play on my clarinet?" Yo-Yo Ma is an outstanding example of a current classical music star who takes this not very classical approach. I'd like to see students take it, too, looking into their hearts to find out what kind of music is important to them, and then finding ways to make that music (or, more likely, all those many kinds of musics) part of their professional lives. (And of course I strongly believe that all students should compose. If that's not going to be a requirement, it should at least be strongly encouraged.)

Well, it's been a whirlwind.

Frequent readers - and my thanks to all of you - will have noticed that I haven't been posting much. Ever since January, my life has been a mashup. I've been back and forth between New York and Rochester, teaching at Juilliard and Eastman. I've been spending time in Washington, DC, with my wife Anne Midgette, who's been doing spectacular work as classical music critic with the Washington
Post.

I've been working with the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, helping to get their audience talking to them. (I'll be there next on March 31, for a concert by the Shanghai Quartet.) Anne and I traveled together to Seattle, for a summit (as they called it) on the future of classical music. I gave a keynote address, Anne spoke on a critics' panel, and gave closing remarks. Later we went to New Haven, to spend hours with a class on (roughly speaking) the music business, taught by the Dean of the Yale School of Music, Robert Blocker.

Music schools, in fact, have loomed large in my life. I've met with the heads of two of them (not places I teach), during the past couple of months, and on Monday will be meeting with a third. No names at this point, but I'm glad that I'm consulted.

And then I've been composing. And working on my book! Yes, the book on the future of classical music that for quite a while I was improvising in biweekly installments, right here on the ArtsJournal site. Now the final version is under way, and as soon as I have something to show, it's going up on the site as well. Or at least the beginning of it will. Then we'll see what the best way is to unfold the entire project. Eventually I'll publish a physical book, but I'm looking for ways to unfold at least a draft of the text, chapter by chapter online. I might ask people to pay what they like for each chapter, following Radiohead's pricing plan for downloads of their last album. (Comments? Does that sound like a reasonable idea?)

But enough generalities. As I read what I just wrote, I see I haven't quite communicated how mashed-up it all was. I revamped my course, finding new readings, new questions to discuss in class. That took far longer than I expected, but was more than worthwhile. I'll leave all that, though, and - in following posts - talk more about exactly what I've done.

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 -- primary sources (actual texts of old studies, links to NEA studies) -- plus two of my blog posts on this subject, and some anecdotal data.