STIRRED, NOT SHAKEN

posted by James Reel

    An August 21 New York Times article reports on unusual efforts many American orchestras will be making this season to attract more people, and specifically more youngish people, to the concert hall. About a third of the way into the story comes this point:

Few major orchestras can fill their halls night after night. Over the decade that started with the 1993-94 season, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League, total attendance at 1,200 orchestras dropped from 30.7 million to 27.7 million, while the number of concerts rose from 27,000 to 37,000.

    As I read this, I thought (as usual when I read such dire statistics) that the problem is obvious, and for once the reporter (in this case, Daniel J. Wakin) and some of his sources agree with my evaluation:

Most major orchestras are earning less and spending more. … The problem is not demand but supply: too many orchestras are playing too many concerts.
    “It used to be orchestras had very small staffs and gave many fewer concerts,” said Joseph Horowitz, the author of the recent book Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall. “This is the nub of the issue. It’s a surfeit of product that’s causing many of the dysfunctions.”

    This is precisely what almost killed the Phoenix Symphony in the 1980s: growing the organization without growing the audience. The core audience doesn’t have the time or money to take advantage of all the offerings, so not only will the audience be diluted through the increasing number of performances, but some will become so exhausted by it all that they’ll actually cut back on their concertgoing.
    On a related but separate matter, Wakin goes on to refer to a study resulting from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Magic of Music initiative. “Focus on what the [potential, new] audience wants,” the study says in part. But how does an audience of neophytes know what it wants if it hardly knows what’s available? This sort of lowest-common-denominator approach is what has made television unwatchable and newspapers unreadable, and it’s likely to make classical music unlistenable, for those who love it as well as those who don’t. The last thing anybody should do is alienate the existing audience while reaching out to a new group that may not reach back. It’s not how James Bond prefers his martinis, but listeners want to be stirred, not shaken.
    Some of the innovative ideas described in the Times article look promising, but others are completely beside the point. People don’t need to be lured to rock concerts with résumé-swap receptions and cocktail parties; they go because they like the music. Isn’t that why people will go to classical concerts, too—repeatedly? Letting young professionals do speed dating in the lobby isn’t going to help them like the music any better, so once they get into a long-term relationship, why would they need to go back to the concert hall? It’s the music that will have to draw them back. And it has the power to do that.
    Classical music is not soothing aural glop, even though that’s how certain radio consultants think we should market it. People may turn on the radio for free glop, but it’s not something they’re going to pay for in the concert hall. The fact is that it takes a little bit of work to get what classical music has to offer. What we should all be doing is breaking down unnecessary barriers and help people roll up their sleeves and find out how rewarding and enjoyable the work of classical music can be.