Tuesday 6 July 2010
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Our most recent (deeply unscientific, unrepresentative, tiny sample) poll suggested that 46% of respondents would like to see Manchester Camerata music breaking out of the concert hall, and appearing in different, perhaps unconventional venues. We asked `Does Classical Music Need Saving?' 15% said no, with another 15% saying try out new music, with 23% believing the genre will find its own way home. That does seem to fit with what's happening around the UK and indeed around the world. Read this article from a US Radio station.
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I think we have to accept that classical music is a technology which is now on the margins, and no longer the mainstream. But that doesn't mean it'll go away. We have to live with our niche position, but there are still things that classical music can do which other musics can't - it can represent multilayered complex emotions, for one thing; it's very good at public ceremony for another; the need for these things won't go away, and I've been encouraged of late at how many people from a indie-pop background, who are sensitive to the potential for music, have been seeking out knowledge of harmony, orchestration etc. These things can be learned at any age, but the sensitivity can't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that ‘Classical’ Music is certainly on the margins, but I don’t believe that it should be. There are a number of reasons why it has become marginal – a generation where school music education was considered unimportant and was not supported (this has begun to be remedied in quite a dramatic way through the range of innovative learning programmes which orchestras and other musical institutions are undertaking), an outdated method of performance and delivery, unimaginative programming, a preciousness which belies the possibilities inherent within this great canon, an music education system which values correctness over emotional experience.
ReplyDeleteClassical music is not outmoded but by and large the way we present it, listen to it, write about it, perform it, think about it is! As a sector we need to stop assuming that people should like or even understand the Art form and take risks in all these areas in order to offer something that is truly worthwhile, compelling and enticing for our audiences.