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Me out in the world, that is, showing up in a couple of places. First, a podcast from WQXR, the classical music public radio station in New York. On which I talk with host Naomi Lewin about the National Symphony’s triumphant performance for 2000 people in a dance club. The podcast starts with Sunil Iyengar, the National Endowment for the Arts’ director of Research and Analysis, who talks in the most relaxed and engaging way about an important study his agency did, about barriers to attending arts events.
I come later. If you want to hear just me, go here. Though I promise the whole thing is worth hearing.
What’s a 21st century musician?
That’s the title of something else I did, an article for the launch of a new website, devoted to the future of classical music and the musicians who right now are building it. The site — 21CM — is ambitious, offering ideas, interviews, articles, a listing of future-oriented performances, and case studies. It started just recently, as a project of the extraordinary 21CM curriculum at the DePauw University School of Music.
Which is nothing less than a complete renewal of the standard conservatory program, designed to meet the needs of our future. I played a small role in the birth of that program, as a consultant, but since then it’s launched full-bore, with no need of my help.
I did help out by writing this piece, in which I offer thoughts about what 21st century classical musicians are — they go their own way, performing or composing the music that matters to them, no matter what anyone else might be doing. And they make their own opportunities.
You can — to give you the link again — read what I wrote here. I offer a short list of people who are doing that, in many different ways — Stewart Goodyear, Lara Downes, James Ross, Mason Bates, and the duo piano team of Anderson & Roe. Would have been easy to pick five other people, or fifty. Or more. Because things are exploding!
It’s an exciting time to work in classical music.