Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

From Greg: This comes from one of my Juilliard students, taking my course on the future of classical music. I asked her to write something about one piece of reaching we'd done, an excerpt from Richard Florida's book The Rise of the Creative Class. I assign this in a class session called "Classical Music and the Rest of Our Culture," and it's about what nightlife is like for youngish creative people (who might be artists, designers, tech people, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, you name it). Florida defines these people as "the creative class," … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="RA3iJiJmYa6EyKKxPXWnuz1mkJ94tKzh"] My Juilliard course on the future of classical music is well under way, with a terrific group of students. Including four violists, which makes me wish we were giving a concert. Thirsting to hear music — maybe write music!  —for viola quartet. Such a sumptuous sound. I've offered to teach a shorter version of this course online, if enough people are interested. And we're almost there! Contact me if you'd like to join in. You can see what the Juilliard version of the … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="15M7ihQfdjjqM0HTZ3eY4nOu9vVGCkxV"] Emotions are running high. That's what I thought when I read the reactions of two writers I know, to the piece in Slate that I commented on here, at the end of last month. This was the piece that exaggerated classical music's troubles, with a title, graphic, and perky one-liners, all of which said that classical music wasn't just troubled, but was actually dead. You can read my reaction to see my own view, which is that classical music is plainly not dead, and that we need to … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="D4QkkQ8dHwwS9FcJubCxxKtoo6o9Xy7x"] Saturday mornings, when I was a kid, were spent at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, with a rigorous schedule of what we called “Saturday Classes”: theory, solfege, sight reading, music history, chamber music, composition, and more. This regimen started shortly after I started piano lessons at 4, and by the time I was 7 those classes had prepared me to write an opera based on Charlotte’s Web, which got its first and only performance that year at the conservatory. And which … [Read more...]

  From Greg:  John Steinmetz is one of several people I've gotten close to after meeting them online, because (apart from liking each other) we share an interest in the future of classical music. He's a bassoonist, composer, thinker, and (I think this is right) a musical activist, based in Los Angeles.  More than a year ago, I invited him to blog here, and though he was happy to do it, life took him down other paths. But I've now learned once again that all things come  to those who wait, because now John has a post about something he … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="0r9ca5TFWpUXf04Mo0vvkAc7rPMbjw1M"] There's been a lot of fuss online about a piece that showed up on Slate, about the death of classical music. Well, maybe it meant to be about the decline of classical music, and certainly included a strong array of facts and figures, more than I've usually seen in writing on this subject, no matter what point of view the writer take. But because the headline on the piece was "Requiem: Classical Music in America Is Dead"…because of the graphic I've reproduced here, which led off … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wJcXkzkyJUssy2xubvb9Ddc3tlk7r4lk"] The moral, that is, of my critique of the Chicago Symphony's "Sounds and Stories" online magazine. It so badly disappointed me. Great idea, for an orchestra to provide the kind of classical music coverage we don't find these days in the media. But why make it so deadly dull? So drastically out of touch with the kind of lively media people find everywhere else? I was being interviewed by a British journalist about "Sounds and Stories." That's how I happened to look at the site, … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="8ztu9nCruuPSlwrEiH4EX1JvU3HhSHZT"] A British journalist wanted to interview me about the Chicago Symphony's  new "Sounds and Stories" online multimedia magazine. So of course I looked at it. And I was so very sadly disappointed. What a good idea, I thought, to launch an online magazine, so people interested in the CSO or in classical music can read things they'd never get in standard media, where classical music is covered less and less. From the moment I got the CSO's press release about this, I was cheering … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="04kBz0K1NB0qA7njQeqBDs14QffvwPrg"] That's the course I'm teaching at Juilliard this semester, as I have every spring since 1997. Which means I've been teaching this course — about the future of classical music — for 17 years. Which of course also means that there's been concern about the future of for 17 years. I gave a talk at Juilliard in 1996 as part of their Doctoral Forum, about classical music's future, and that lead to an invitation to teach the course. (I'm giving another Doctoral Forum talk next month, … [Read more...]

My little son, two years old, was taking CDs off the shelf where we keep operas. Looking at each one, and handing it to me. One he took down was the old Joan Sutherland recording of Rossini’s Semiramide, with Marilyn Horne, and Richard Bonynge conducting, I don’t think I’ve heard it since it came out in 1966, when I'd eagerly awaited it  — I was, and still am a big bel canto fan — but then was disappointed. Too many cuts, I thought. (I was a snob about cuts.) And apart from Sutherland and Horne the singers weren't great. Even Sutherland … [Read more...]

To everyone who reads the blog, everyone who comments, all our guest bloggers, anyone who happens to see this — my best wishes for a warm and happy holiday season, and a terrific 2014. Changes have been gathering force in classical music, and I hope we'll all track them here, with hope and joy. My warmest thanks to everyone in this blog community, and everyone working for classical music's rebirth. We're all in this together, and together we can work miracles. I'm grateful to all of you. … [Read more...]

Here's a thought from my friend and Juilliard colleague David Wallace, a violist, composer, teaching artist, and — as Doc Wallace — a Texas fiddler. And much, much more. His subject? All the issues he, I, and so many others thrash out, about classical music, its problems, its future, its place in our culture. Everything discussed in my blog. At some point…but let David tell it: At some point, self-marketing that surfs the "What's wrong about classical music wave, and why I'm not that" is going tobe blown away by marketing that simply … [Read more...]