Classical Music Through the Looking Glass
Six years ago, Lexus produced a TV ad that opened with three classical musicians playing their instruments in the back seat of a new Lexus model. The driver stops suddenly, throws the classical musicians out of the car, and invites a rock band to take their place. The car speeds away, rock band happily jamming in the back seat as the classical musicians look on forlornly from the side of the road.
Without an unflinching reexamination of how it is produced and delivered to the public, classical music, for a long time exalted as one of the crowning achievements of Western civilization, will become a quirky bit player, a sad caricature of itself occasionally making desperate cameo appearances alongside commercial music like in an episode of “When the Jetsons meet the Flintstones.”
The world of classical music is at a crossroads: it must change its purview or continue to recede farther and farther away from cultural relevance. The very definition of what is meant by classical music needs to change. The definition needs to be inclusive of more than the music of dead European white men, played by musicians wearing livery and gowns to an audience of essentially old white people. As concert halls and opera houses remain closed for the foreseeable future, the acceleration of the demise of full-time employment in classical music, especially orchestras, is inevitable.
As I write these words, in late 2020, in the midst of a horrific pandemic and gut-wrenching social upheaval, the very notion of pleading for classical music to try to save itself sounds off key, tone deaf to the throngs of people, including many artists, demanding a change from the way things had been done in the past—where and how money is spent, who receives support, which music is considered more important than other music. I list some suggestions below about how to promote “serious” music and cultivate new audiences to appreciate it, but we all must accept the fact that the page has been turned, that music from other cultures has ascended to center stage. The world is not interested in bumping to Beethoven anymore, regardless of how great Beethoven’s music is. It is irresponsible to spend a half a billion dollars renovating a concert hall (as David Geffen has done at Lincoln Center) to enhance the sound of the bass section in a symphony orchestra, while large portions of the population have their basic needs ignored and their cultural needs and desires seldom considered as well. I humbly offer a few “band-aids”:
1. Amplify the music in large concert halls. People are not accustomed to hearing “acoustic” music anymore. Unamplified music sounds pale to 99 percent of the public.
2. Promote community engagement. Build and actively support as many small multi-use performance spaces as possible. Build spaces that attract many different kinds of groups and projects ready to show their wares to the community. Spend money to manage them. Hire diverse groups of artists to curate the content that is presented in these spaces.
Don’t waste money on “dinosaurs” by building or renovating enormous concert halls. How many performance spaces could be built in New York City for $500 million?
3. Invest in state-of-the-art outreach programs. Hire the most creative writers, film composers, and TV/video directors to design and train musicians to present live 30-40-minute shows that are entertaining and offer young people an inspiring introduction to ALL genres of good music, from ALL musical cultures. Spread the good word by hiring musicians to bring this show to as many young people as possible. The “serious” music world needs music evangelists. We need to create new generations of passionate amateurs.