On the classical website Slipped Disc, Christopher Morley, longtime music critic of Britain’s Birmingham Post, takes several big bites out of a new mission statement by the management of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, aiming to make the concertgoing experience more inclusive, immersive . . . and other trendy I-words.
The mission will be put into practice with innovations (another I-word!) such as “theatrical and creative techniques including lighting, movement, staging, live video mix and elements of movement, to allow audiences to use their eyes as well as their ears” – i.e., turning a listening experience into a stage show.
This, plus wear-what-you-like, applaud-when-you-choose, and other do-your-own-things that Morley characterizes as “removal of any perceived ‘rules’ of a traditional concert,” are efforts to make the orchestra attractive to those who feel constrained or alienated by hoary symphony-hall decorum, or aren’t into classical music unless it’s in a film soundtrack or otherwise visually enhanced.
Ditching decorum and adding visual stimulation, it’s thought, will entice non-traditional or under-served music consumers – especially younger people.
Regarding the pursuit of younger customers, Morley offers a reality check: “Audiences evolve as their life evolves. We go to concerts as students, then we marry and raise families, and those exigencies prevent us from attending concerts. As we get older, and family and financial responsibilities get easier, then we return to the concert hall. That is how it works.”
Brum’s best critic deconstructs CBSO’s new concept
There is much to be said about updating old standards of classical concert etiquette and rethinking programming. Most of it has been said already, repeatedly, here and elsewhere. Rather than revisiting issues such as the lack of music education, the relegation of music to background sound (“wallpaper”), the fossilization of classical music into Mozart-to-Rachmaninoff amber, etc., let’s do a few more reality checks:
– Classical music is not for everybody. Neither are NASCAR, kimchi, knitting or golf. What stimulates, satisfies or spiritually enriches me may not do it for you. I-be-me, you-be-you is how we thrive in a free, pluralistic society.
– While classical music is considered “elite” entertainment, the economy didn’t get that memo. Symphony and opera tickets are no more expensive – often cheaper – than those for “popular” attractions such as superstar arena shows and professional sports. Compare costs for lodging, food and entertainment in an artsy destination like Santa Fe or Tanglewood vs. a Disney theme park.
– Classical and other instrumental musics are abstract, internalized art forms. The action, atmosphere and emotions exist in our minds and hearts by way of our ears. There is, or should be, not much to see in a performance. Added visual or narrative elements impose someone else’s conception of what the music is about, and make it a garnish instead of a meal. Besides, we already have music-and-more art forms: opera and musicals, ballet, film, TV and video-game soundtracks.
– People who weren’t schooled in classical music, or didn’t connect with it at a formative age, are going to be a hard sell, regardless of what musicians and presenters do to appeal to them. There are ways, usually involving places – parks, brew pubs, art galleries – to make music-as-music attractive without remaking it as theater.
– Young people are sampling classical music, in their own ways. I do a show at a college radio station. I’ve long since gotten over being surprised to hear student broadcasters programming Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt or Hildegard of Bingen (or Indonesian gamelan or Mongolian throat-singing) alongside alt-rock. On YouTube, you can find metalheads and hip-hoppers extolling Bruckner and Stravinsky. The proliferation and accessibility of music media and the range of music that they offer, coupled with youthful craving for the new and different, are addressing classical music’s youth issue, however haphazardly. (Will they all become highbrows? See “classical music is not for everybody.”)
– Forty-somethings who dress like teen-agers invite ridicule. So, usually, do attempts by 40- or 50-something classical musicians to devise programs for the young and hip.
– Endemic diseases and bad habits notwithstanding, people are living longer, and elders are staying mobile and sentient enough to go out at increasingly advanced ages. Before hyperventilating over a statistic showing your audience growing older, consider that patrons in their 50s may still be buying tickets 30 years from now. In classical music, alienating the old in pursuit of the young is a losing proposition.
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