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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

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Archives for July 2009

Response to comments

July 21, 2009 by Greg Sandow

I know I let a large number of comments build up, unanswered. That's because of the press of other work, and also -- no small thing -- because of my quest to live a more balanced life, one in which I'm not at the computer every minute, typing, typing, typing. But now I've gone back over the comments from the past couple of weeks, and responded to a number of them, especially to the very gracious response from the man who conducted the Chorus America study. I can't say I agree with many of the points he made, but I'm grateful for his attention … [Read more...]

Magical thinking (2)

July 16, 2009 by Greg Sandow

This post makes me just a little sad to write. Chorus America, a while ago, published the results of a study, which they say shows that people who sing in choruses are exceptionally good citizens. They then say that choruses should bring this information to the media, "to help establish an awareness of the personal and communal benefits of choral singing." Here's their press release about the study, and here's the study itself. (The quote comes from the end of the study.) So why am I sad to talk about this? Because the study suffers from an … [Read more...]

Magical thinking

July 14, 2009 by Greg Sandow

I've talked before here on the lack of solid information -- statistical data -- on the current state of classical music. This hits in two ways. First, about some things (ticket sales to orchestra and chamber music concerts) there either isn't any data at all, or else the data hasn't been made public. And second, the data that does exist (for instance the NEA's periodic surveys of the classical music audience, or my own work on the age of the audience in the past) doesn't seem to circulate enough.As an example, look at an eager essay by Karin … [Read more...]

Why ticket sales matter

July 13, 2009 by Greg Sandow

Sorry for my silence here. I'm trying to find a livable rhythm for my life -- but then that's a long story. I've had a few projects that claimed priority time, and I haven't wanted to be obsessive about this blog. But I shouldn't neglect it, either.*When I posted some time ago about the new NEA stats, about attendance at classical music events, and their potentially dire implications for the future of mainstream classical music institutions, some people objected in comments and elsewhere that ticket sales didn't really matter that much. Live … [Read more...]

Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

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How to write a press release

As a footnote to my posts on classical music publicists, and how they could do better, here's a post I did in 2005 -- wow, 11 years ago! --  about how to make press releases better. My examples may seem fanciful, but on the other hand, they're almost … [Read More...]

The future of classical music

Here's a quick outline of what I think the future of classical music will be. Watch the blog for frequent updates! I Classical music is in trouble, and there are well-known reasons why. We have an aging audience, falling ticket sales, and — in part … [Read More...]

Timeline of the crisis

Here — to end my posts on the dates of the classical music crisis  — is a detailed crisis timeline. The information in it comes from many sources, including published reports, blog comments by people who saw the crisis develop in their professional … [Read More...]

Before the crisis

Yes, the classical music crisis, which some don't believe in, and others think has been going on forever. This is the third post in a series. In the first, I asked, innocently enough, how long the classical music crisis (which is so widely talked … [Read More...]

Four keys to the future

Here, as promised, are the key things we need to do, if we're going to give classical music a future. When I wrote this, I was thinking of people who present classical performances. But I think it applies to all of us — for instance, to people who … [Read More...]

Age of the audience

Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Here's evidence that it used to be much younger. … [Read More...]

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