I love it when I’m wrong. It’s a good place to learn, change long held beliefs, get current, and then powerfully proceed in a new, better direction.
I recently went to a concert presenting 20 - 21st century women composers in original and transcribed music for clarinet and soprano.
At an Active/Assisted Living facility.
What could possibly go wrong?
The music and the performances were strong, and the audience sat attentively, completely focused on the music and its intricacies. They experienced something meaningful and appreciated to each piece on the program.
Congratulations to the Whistling Hens.
A few months ago, I went to a violin recital at a church in a small city in upstate New York. As was the case with the Whistling Hens concert, I was one of the youngest persons in the completely filled church venue.
The violinist played a solo work by Esa-Pekka Salonen. On the Esa-Pekka scale of thorny listening challenges, it was about a 6.9.
“This will be interesting…I wonder how this will go,” I thought to myself.
The audience sat in rapt attention, completely focused on music’s ebb and flowing narrative. The performance was powerful and the applause was long and sustained.
Congratulations Rachel Lee Priday.
I am throwing myself under the bus, because I had the wrong profile for these older than age 70 classical elders. I sold them short.
One more…I heard the Academy of Ancient Music play all six Brandenburg Concertos as part of the concert season at George Mason University in Northern Virginia. The subscription series audience leans towards the 60 and above crowd.
Leader and Harpsichordist Richard Egarr played the epic and iconic solo cadenza in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5’s 1st Movement. When he concluded and the orchestra rejoined him to play the rest of the movement, the audience applauded loudly en masse while the orchestra was still playing. This was not the Jazz from Lincoln Center Orchestra, anchored by pianist Dan Nimmer or any other Jazz concert where solos are typically applauded during the music. This was the Academy of Ancient music.
We make a lot of play and talk about attracting younger audiences, how the classical music audience is dying* and how classical music will die if we don’t do something.
Worse, we tend to belittle, disregard and even overtly disrespect our classical elders aka “Blue Hairs”) That’s a bit odd, if not completely insulting, since they have been supporting classical music performers and concerts for most of their long lives – they might even be responsible for you being able to play classical music in countless venues throughout the country.
So, let’s all definitely go big on finding and inspiring new younger audiences, but not at the expense of underestimating those classical music loyalists who have brought us to where we are today.
To quote the old political adage, "Dance with the one that brung ya.”
*At last count, classical music has been dying for more than one hundred years.
