Bernard Holland had a good piece in the Sunday New York Times about arts education. In it, he tugs apart the assumed connection between arts education and arts appreciation:
An implicit contract has been signed but is not necessarily being honored. It states that if I understand a piece of music, I’m likely to like it, too. This is not true. No amount of experience and analysis can by itself induce the stab of communication between art and its beholder.
Holland’s point is that learning about something is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t automatically translate into loving something. It’s a disconnect that is rarely discussed in the motives of arts organizations trying to build future audiences through education. He also suggests that the emphasis on arts education can be another enabler of arrogance, ‘we’re not marketable, because our audience isn’t smart enough to appreciate us.’ Says Holland:
For listeners swayed in the right direction by music education and music appreciation courses, I am deeply grateful. The downside of music education is not only that it confuses understanding with love; it threatens an arrogance that classical music can ill afford. If we put it in the wrong hands with the wrong motives, we end up with a superior class charged with remedying the illiteracy of the unwashed. The consumer, it would seem, bears the fault. The product is rarely held accountable.
