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You might think — given my views on the future of classical music — that I’d welcome what I heard at the Kennedy Center Friday night, when the National Symphony played Ben Folds’ Piano Concerto, with Folds himself as soloist.
Because there it was. A piano concerto by an indie rock star. The concert hall full of younger people. You might think I’d tweet my excitement about an audience much younger than usual.
A simple fact
But I can’t quite go there. First because — and this is just a simple fact, not a way of throwing cold water on the project — it’s no gret achievement to get Ben Folds fans to come to a Ben Folds show. To quote GEICO, it’s what they do.
I’m not saying you don’t need any skill to make that happen. You have to produce the show, and get the word out. But once you’ve put your production and PR and marketing chops behind those tasks, getting his fans is a no-brainer. They hear it’s Ben Folds, and they show up.
That’s true of anything in pop. Pop fans don’t just go out to hear big musical events. They go to hear artists they love. So Ben Folds fans might not come back to hear anything else. Which means that — no matter how new and young the audience was — the Kennedy Center and the NSO didn’t necessarily break new ground. Didn’t establish themselves as a destination for a new audience, and maybe didn’t even take much of a step toward doing that.
Such a simple thing
Similarly — to name only some pop-to-classical crossover things I’ve been at myself (there are many more) —the Miller Theater in New York didn’t break new ground when Radiohead fans showed up to hear Christopher O’Riley play Radiohead songs on two piano recitals. They’re Radiohead fans! And Chris had been a fixture on Radiohead sites.
And the Wordless Music series in New York may not have built an audience for contemporary orchestral music, when it formed an orchestra and, among other pieces, played something by Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead’s lead guitarist. Two thousand people came, over two nights, but they came to hear Greenwood.
Same thing happens when an orchestra plays videogame music. It fills the hall, but these people don’t come back for Beethoven.
Or, safely within the classical music world, at the Kennedy Center, the concert hall was full of new people a couple of seasons ago for a big Arvo Pärt concert, and also for Lang Lang. These were people who were younger than the normal classical music audience, and in other ways were just plain different. More like people you’d see out in the wider world, outside the classical music bubble.
But, again, they most likely weren’t coming back for anything else.
Where this goes
All of which raises questions about just what Friday night’s concert meant. It was part of a series called Declassified, in which (loosely speaking) classical music becomes less classical. As one step toward that, there was an afterparty Friday night, with dance music. Not needed, of course, for the Ben Folds fans, who would have come regardless.
Will afterparties — along with free drinks, and whatever other club-like promotions anyone might try — make the Kennedy Center a destination for a younger crowd?
Not by themselves. The shows themselves have to have some appeal. And so here’s another problem. Apart from Ben Folds, this one — featuring orchestral selections before Ben Folds — was weak. Maybe even for the Folds fans, who cheered with notably less excitement after than the concerto than they had when Folds came onstage.
Here’s my wife’s very skeptical review. I agree with it. And I’ll have more to say in further posts, since getting events like this right is so important for the future of big arts institutions.
It doesn’t help that — as far as I can see — there isn’t a page about Declassified on the Kennedy Center/National Symphony websites. (The two are joined, because the NSO isn’t an independent organization, but instead is part of the Kennedy Center.)
The closest I could come, after spending time with Google, was what I linked above, a video introduction on a page with videos about other things.
I did find a page where you can buy tickets for all National Symphony concerts, with the Declassified ones labelled, but not in any way standing out. I also found pages on separate Declassified events, like this one. But it’s kind of crazy — unless I missed something — that I couldn’t readily find a page about the series as a whole. Don’t they want to promote it?
As a side comment, I think it is interesting, coming at it from the opposite perspective, that Ben Folds was willing and eager to be presented as part of the NSO’s line-up. There is still a thrill, a “I’ve made it” aspect to Classical music for those involved in pop music. To have a concerto performed along with the other canonical masters is still something that Ben Folds, superstar, was eager to add to his resume, or at least to his personal achievement bucket list.
So what is it about Classical music that still retains that Holy Grail aspect? Maybe that is also what we should be looking into in order to attract non-connoisseurs.
Very good points, Greg.
But there’s one small thing worth noting – a “one of these things is not like the others” point.
Maybe the folks who thronged to the Arvo Pärt concert didn’t come back to hear the National Symphony play Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, but Arvo Pärt is classical music. Always has been.
So is (just for instance) Steve Reich, who’s been known to pack a concert hall or two.
So gee, maybe it might be safe for our flagship classical music institutions to start making at least some music by living composers – stars like Pärt and Reich, if nothing more – part of their standard rep.
Sure, those gentlemen’s music may not fit on a program so well with Mozart or Brahms. But I can’t understand why every major big-city orchestra or presenter isn’t offering a series (subscription or not) of contemporary classical concerts. (You probably feel the same way.)
Heaven knows it wouldn’t solve everything, but it would be a start toward a goal that orchestras and concert halls say they want. And we have actual evidence that some of these living (or recently deceased) composers can draw an audience.
How was the music, Sandow? Worth coming back for?
Dear Mr. Sandow,
I’m dismayed to read what you wrote here. Your article doesn’t seem, to me, to have presented enough substantial evidence for you to make your claims.
I’m a classical composer and mezzo soprano. I’m also an indie crossover artist. And on behalf of all indie artists, I would like to provide an articulate statement to stand up to your criticism of what we do. In essence, you dismiss indie music as some sort of disposable musical offshoot, to be employed when needed as a tool to recruit listeners for “real” music. Whether or not one likes the music of Ben Folds, I would urge you not to make the mistake of equating one artist whose work you perhaps personally do not enjoy to an entire branch of musical output.
I operate as both an indie musician and a classical composer and mezzo-soprano. To counter any possible skepticism, I would like to note that I have the requisite training and knowledge (BMus, Master’s, and two artist diplomas, currently an artistic research position at a major arts university, fluency in five operatic languages and knowledge of three more) to undertake both classical and indie challenges. For example. I could do something on the scale of composing an orchestral art song or opera, as well as subsequently performing it myself without shaming either myself or the music, if so desired.
I actually have empirical evidence that counters your claims. I sang with the Wiener Kammerchor a couple of years ago for the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds tour. This is a classical chorus that took part in a “popular orchestral” production.
Several friends who were not yet classical music fans showed up and were awed. They were computer scientists and engineers, and they attended because of their deep love of the game’s music. And you know what productions they specifically went back for later? Mozart. Strauss. Beethoven. New music concerts full of challenging compositions.
As a composer and performer, the evolution of music interests me a great deal. Perhaps, indeed, the crossing and blending of genres is something that could also legitimately be considered an offshoot of classical music? For me, it is. Alienating indie and game music fans, among others, by writing what you did above seems to me an unproductive method for recruiting new audiences to listen to classical music. Yet I suppose they would need to stay within your rigorous definition of such anyway to qualify.
Thank you for reading and hope you have a good day.
Clio