I was off-line yesterday, attending a roundtable on the future of classical music radio up at Minnesota Public Radio (here’s a press release about the project). At the event, Alan Brown gave a fabulous overview of the study he wrote on the audience for classical music.
Given the study’s findings that people connect with classical music in many ways (radio, recordings, live performance), and that radio is, by far, the dominant mode of connection to the art form, Alan asked a challenging question: What would an organization look like who’s true mission was to engage a broad audience in classical music? It certainly wouldn’t focus only on live performance, as so many performing arts organizations do. It would reach through many and any media to bring value to people’s lives through its art form.
The deeper question, for a future item in this weblog’s Thoughtbucket, is whether nonprofit arts organizations are really serving a mission (a broad and lofty goal), or rather serving a means (a specific way of delivering an art form). Sometimes we seem to get so focused on the means we have chosen, we miss the opportunity to reach our communities where they actually live their lives.
