I might criticize the classical music world, but not everything is gloomy. All of us can help to make things better, even in small ways — and here are three examples of people who did that.
The American Composers Orchestra:
We’ve talked here about the passive audience, but the ACO has a page on its website where the audience talks back.
“Truly Dreadful,” said one back-talker, about a controversial piece (Swirl, by Todd Levin, which combines classical music and techno; I myself like it): “An exercise in the composer’s imagined self-importance.”
But these calmer (though still outspoken) comments on a Roger Sessions symphony are more typical:
“I loved the Symphony No. 1”
“The Largo movement was lush, calm, regular in structure, and fulfilling”
“The Roger Sessions First Symphony was enjoyable and accessible (unlike most of his other works that ACO has performed).”
“I was surprised to hear yet another Sessions Symphony,well constructed but a composer that really doesn’t age well. It is dutiful but increasingly irrelevant.”
More, please — from every orchestra.
Greg McCallum:
He’s a North Carolina pianist, who — in a four-year project that began in 2001 — is taking his piano (quite literally packing it in a van and moving it) to every county in the state. In each county he gives concerts, plays in schools, holds master classes, and organizes “community jams,” where local pianists play.
Apart from what’s on his website, I don’t know anything about him, (though I like the single sample of his playing he provides; why not more?). But his county tour has to be a wonderful thing for classical music, guaranteeing both publicity and contact with the audience we wish we had. Too bad our largest classical music institutions — including the most famous orchestras — don’t get out on the county roads and do what McCallum does. It’s not enough to give concerts; classical music has to reach everyone at once, by getting in the news, and also has to touch people directly, outside the concert hall.
And then there’s the website where I learned about McCallum: Classical Voice North Carolina:
Two years ago, two North Carolina independent weeklies — both of which specialized in arts and entertainment — stopped printing classical reviews. So four North Carolina critics followed the adage of the great labor organizer, Joe Hill (my analogy, not theirs): “Don’t mourn, organize.” What they organized was this lively webzine, which covers classical music all over the state, along with theater and dance. Even when the world turns against us, we have resources of our own. Now if only they could reach new listeners…(if they’re doing that, they should let me know).
(This is modeled, by the way, on something similar in San Francisco, San Francisco Classical Voice.)
Does anybody know more good things I should report? E-mail me!