First, a list of innovations in classical concert-giving, which I compiled for my Juilliard course on the future of classical music. It’s just a start, and leaves out far more things than it includes. Comments are more than welcome. The list needs to be vastly enlarged, and improved, maybe not for my course, but for all the rest of us.
And second, a Wall Street Journal piece on the new alt-classical audience in New York. There’s nothing new in it for regular readers of this blog, and the blog commenter (John), who said I’m wrong to say that people in the new alt-classical crowd (or, more broadly, no younger people) ever go to mainstream classical events, will surely say, “There he goes again.” He’s got a point. I’m oversimplifying (as I acknoiwledged in my response to him).
But what’s important in this piece, I think, is a challenge to the mainstream classical institutions in New York. Why aren’t they trying to attract this new audience? I make an analogy between them and the management of a mainstream supermarket. A Whole Foods store opens down the block, and does terrific business. But the supermarket management doesn’t think that maybe they should put some organic products on their shelves.
Maybe, though, the analogy should have been stronger. Maybe the mainstream institutions are like Kodak, smugly selling photographic film after digital photography started to take hold. The truth, I’ll guess, lies between these two extremes. But the mainstream institutions ought to notice what’s going on. They’re missing the boat, both artistically and with any hope of attracting a new audience.
One thing (of many, to tell the truth) that I didn’t have space to say in the piece. Maybe one problem the mainstream institutions have is artistic. For one thing, to the extent that the alt-classical new music derives from minimalism (or is influenced by it), some mainstream people may well roll their eyes, because they’ve never quite accepted minimal music.
Second, there are two compositional styles — which loom large in the mainstream classical world — that I don’t think we hear in alt-classical work. One is modernism, and especially the European sort. Certainly there’s at least an indirect modernist influence, because I don’t think we’d be hearing all the dissonance that’s in alt-classical music if Schoenberg hadn’t lived. (Though maybe it could just as well have come to us from Ives and Henry Cowell, but that’s another story.) But very little, or maybe even nothing, in alt-classical music sounds like it’s influenced by the second Vienna school — by Schoenberg, Berg, or Webern — or by music descended from that school.
So if you’re in the mainstream classical world, and — like the New York Philharmonic or the Cleveland Orchestra or the Philadelphia Orchestra — you think it’s important to hear music by Matthias Pintscher or Harrison Birtwistle or the Philharmonic’s new composer in residence, Magnus Lindberg (or many others) — well, there’s hardly any trace of this music, or anything in it, in any alt-classical style. So maybe then you think the alt-classical styles have something lacking.
They also don’t have much trace of what we might call neo-romantic music, though that name would be a gross oversimplification for what I really mean, which is new classical music that’s written in approximately the style of older classical works, or at least with an audible line of descent from the standard classical repertoire. So again alt-classical music sets itself apart.
And mainstream purists might also object to the pop influence in alt-classical music. Of course, many people are willing to give it a shot — you might find some organizations programming both Pintscher and an alt-classical star like Nico Muhly. But maybe the alt-classical movement, in full force, might seem one-sided to some mainstream people, who in turn might seem one-sided to the alt-classical crowd. Who, however, have an audience, which (for new music) the mainstream people might not have.
loved the WSJ alt-classical piece, greg. it’s amazing, if a little dismaying, that it’s commonly acknowledged that there are about a handful of classical music presenters who ‘get it’. the rest are seemingly resigned to seeing the art form die off of its own calcification.
it’s good to have someone of your prominence and passion to sound the clarion call for smarter, hipper and more committed and passionate presentation of an art form that, always a product of its time, was never less than topical. it’s not a museum, people! it’s a living, thriving way of life!
Even though I belong to the aged 60+ crowd I look forward to orchestral performances of music by living and/or 20th Century composers. I am irritated by the artificial categories imposed on music, and think that younger audiences tend to simply ignore these. The only acceptable categories are “music I like” and “the rest” — with constantly shifting boarders.
The other thing that attracts (or repels) me is whether or not the performers seem to be enjoying themselves. I have to believe that the joy goes out of having to play a beautiful old warhorse for the 50th time. And this communicates itself to the audience. Bang on a Can and Kronos concerts are exciting and fresh. Yet the season ticket holders push back at their appearance. It’s a tough job for the Christies and the Alsops, but I think they are doing the right thing.
And you are definitely doing the right thing to bring this issue to the fore.
There’s one big thing that makes the pop and classical genres difficult to bridge, which is the gap between dance music culture and classical culture. Socio-economic issues aside (which probably for another topic), I found that the differences in performance-practice between the two makes doing a synthesis somewhat difficult.
Expanding on the point about attire, I know a lot of people who get intimidated by the formal atmosphere of classical music culture so they end up not going to live concerts. The classical concert experience tends to be more of a “sit-down and listen” kind of thing, and this is reinforced by the structure of the concert hall. You pay a ticket, then you’re assigned a seat, as if you were traveling on an airplane or something. A lot of people come to associate music with the idea of dance, so being confined to a chair while the music is going on doesn’t make for a pleasurable experience for a lot of people.
Whereas say, if you go to a jazz club or a rock show, you’ll probably pay a cover price at the door then are free to roam about the room (or wherever you might be) while the musicians are playing. It’s probably unrealistic to expect concert halls to tear down all their beautiful seats, but they could probably afford to loosen up the atmosphere a little.
But those penguin suits — in 2009? Really? I mean, come on.
The penguin suits (and female equivalents) should go away right now. I used to think that would be a complicated decision, since musicians and management would have to agree on what to wear instead. But really it’s simple — wear business suits (and the women’s equivalent), as the players already do for some concerts. Make the change now. Why not?
“One thing (of many, to tell the truth) that I didn’t have space to say in the piece. Maybe one problem the mainstream institutions have is artistic.”
How do we reconcile this problem? How can the artists on New Amsterdam Records coexist with Birtwistle? This is a question that hits home for me, not just as an observer of the scene, but also as a composer. What to do for someone who likes aspects of both? One option, is to be the chameleon, but that runs the risk of being disingenuous and kitschy. The second option, is to write one kind of music, but actively engage yourself in the other–whether as a promoter or performer. A third possibility–I think this is the one chosen by most, is simply to pick one side (neo-romantic, modernist, or alt-classical/minimal-influenced) and try to block everything else out.
None of these options seem completely satisfactory to me and it’s my primary struggle these days. Nonetheless, this is a personal artistic crisis, and only tangentially related to what you’re talking about.
On the other hand, I think the performer/programmer has a easier task. There has to be a way to reconcile the differences. What George Steel is doing at Miller is amazing (and I hope someone else manages to continue the good work next year), where Birtwistle and Ferneyhough and Jefferson Friedman and Reich and Chris (with his Radiohead and Classical piano repertoire programs are selling out quickly…I couldn’t get a ticket this past week!) can all co-exist in a season with nothing feeling out of place.
Granted, sometimes it is just better to only have a band playing in a club by itself, or an orchestra playing Beethoven. Not every Schubert song has to be paired up with a DJ act in order to be interesting or relevant, but when it’s done right and works (as in your Messiaen example), it’s simply amazing.
It’s just that everything’s out of balance/out of whack. There are way too many performances of Beethoven symphonies (what is it with conductors and Beethoven symphony cycles/festivals? I see it on a season announcement and I throw the pamphlet out. Talk about extraneous and irrelevant. Perhaps if one day a music director or general manager realizes that Beethoven might be relevant again if they only played him once every so often…I might show up. Hearing that 5th symphony after its absence on the program for 3-4 years? That’s an event.)
“Of course, many people are willing to give it a shot — you might find some organizations programming both Pintscher and an alt-classical star like Nico Muhly.”
I think this is the way to go for mainstream groups, but I often think that sometimes highly -trained musicians can become myopic with programming choices. On one hand, an orchestra playing a Harrison Birtwistle premiere before Ravel and Mozart (why?)…the orchestra/music director thinks they are doing composers/new music a favor when in fact they’re doing a disservice to everyone. Likewise, performers often misjudge the relative qualities of pieces…they think a mumble-jumble of pieces in succession is fine, as long as everything is played well. Sometimes, it’s an art in itself to decide whether Morton Feldman should end the concert following a piece by Nico Muhly. That’s just as important as the playing of the piece itself. Perhaps classical musicians need to start thinking of the concert like a recording…a group like Sigur Ros or Bjork or Radiohead probably spends hours figuring out what song should follow what, what song should end the album, what should be the first song etc. I think this is something classical musicians don’t think enough about–and putting the wrong piece in the wrong order on the wrong concert next to the wrong piece can ruin an otherwise good performance (and happens all too often). The big question is: How can Nico Muhly fit logically/emotionally/(another adverb) together with a Matthias Pintscher piece. If you can’t find an appropriate answer, perhaps the pieces simply don’t belong on the program together.
Anyway, finding a good concert worth going to these days is difficult for me. I’ll go to something out of the ordinary like the O’Riley 2+2=5 series (If you’re reading this Chris, I’ll have to try to make it to the Schumann/Elliott Smith) which is great. The super-modernist European new music group Klangforum Wein is playing at Alice Tully this week, with some multimedia concert which looks very cool (though I doubt it’ll fill more than 50% of the seats) and (a shameless plug for New Amsterdam, as I’ve been doing a bit of work with them; thanks for the shout out Greg!) the Undiscovered Islands festival at Galapagos Art Space in May (http://undiscoveredislands.com/) which promises to be awesome with both CD releases and world premieres.
As with alt-classical not carrying traces of modernism or neo-romanticism…I think Judd Greenstein’s amazing The Night Gatherers (coming soon on Nadia Siorta’s new New Amsterdam album) is about as hyper-romantic as it can get. Andrew McKenna Lee’s ‘the dark out of the nighttime’ (also on a New Am disc) has quite a bit of modernist influence (at least to me…not sure what the composer would think).
Also, I also don’t think alt-classical has to be defined as mainly minimalist-influenced, though it’s undoubtedly a big part. I think your example of Messiaen shows that more modernistic works CAN effectively work in an alt-classical paradigm. A few years back, there was some concert which paired Aphex Twin and Squarepusher with Cage, Stockhausen and Xenakis and that seemed to work out quite well as well.
Thank you for your articles and blog posts on this subject. They are very thought-provoking. I would probably be classified as a “mainstream classical purist,” and am feeling almost guilty about it (!). In reading your piece here and the WSJ article, the general idea seems to be that if we want to save classical music we need to ‘let it go,’ in a sense, or at least loosen up a bit.
We need to be willing to embrace something different that has a chance of attracting a bigger audience, like the nonclassical nights in NY, in order that the concerts we love to attend now — the traditional classical symphony or piano recital for that matter — can still exist.
What can I as an independent music teacher do? How can I break out of my mainstream mold and take this concept to heart? How can local music teaching organizations get involved? Wow, this is no small task.
[Jon Hurd said] The other thing that attracts (or repels) me is whether or not the performers seem to be enjoying themselves.
I think that this is a really important point, and one that isn’t sufficiently discussed in the classical world, other than the sort of urban legend stories (although they are true for all I know) about players in a famous orchestra wearing earplugs to listen to the baseball game while they play. I agree that part of the problem is that orchestral musicians are asked to repeat a relatively small group of pieces on a regular basis – I’m guessing that it is difficult to get excited about playing the same symphony for the umpteenth time in your career, especially if you never particularly liked it in the first place. And especially when the decisions about how it is played are out of your hands. If you think of Edward Hicks and his between 60 and 100 different iterations of “The Peaceable Kingdom,” each time he was working out a different ‘take’ on the subject matter, and so presumably it remained fresh and exciting to him as he painted more or less the same thing over and over. Otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. Orchestral musicians have largely had to turn these matters over to the conductor in the past couple of centuries, and so it becomes a bit like working on a assembly line, I would guess – the look of the auto body might be slightly different this year, but you’re still sticking the same rivet into the same bit of the frame. Rock bands play largely the same sets night after night, but they have the option to shake it up and change it out. And fans tend to react badly when the band phones in a performance – they feel that they have been cheated, and say so. Classical audiences don’t seem to feel that they have the right to object. Although they may be the driving force that keeps the musicians under the grindstone of the standard orchestral canon – conventional wisdom seems to believe that, anyhow – how is that different than rock audiences that come to hear the latest album tour, and also expect to hear a lot of their favorite tunes on a show? Maybe if classical audiences felt free to object to a dull and uninspired performance, the players would take more trouble over this.
My (small choral) group has a rather different problem. We very seldom repeat repertoire, and most of what we sing is fairly difficult. The repertoire on any given program may span 400 years or more, and be in numerous languages. Few of the singers are making a living as musicians – most have day jobs. We have limited rehearsals, and so we very seldom feel over-prepared or over-familiar with the music by concert time. As a result there tends to be a look of intense concentration on the singer’s faces that presumably wouldn’t be interpreted as boredom, but doesn’t look like enjoyment either. We have put a lot of thought and effort in the past few years in ameliorating that to some degree, by things like the singers consciously looking pleasant or smiling when they aren’t actually singing (during a rest, for example) or otherwise trying to drop the tension without losing their focus. It is a difficult balancing act, and some singers do it much better than others. Jon, I’m going to bring your comment with me to rehearsal tonight, because it is a great reminder that the audience does respond to the people producing the music, and not just to the music.
The New York Philharmonic starts Contact, a new-music series, this season. They’re commissioning Nico Muhly, the poster-child of indie classical music, Sean Shepherd, a young American of a neo-Romantic bent whose work deserves to be better known, and Marc-Andre Dalbavie, whose spectral works would fit right in inside an ambient evening. The programs are of *entirely* new works. And music director Alan Gilbert is involved, so it can’t be argued that this is some sort of affair that’s being pawned off on an intern. The entire series consists of nothing but premieres. The series is similar to the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW series, which has been up and running for more than 10 years. Why do you argue that the mainstream institutions are doing nothing to attract this nonclassical audience?
Hi Marc,
NYPhil seems about 10 years late to the game. The CSO’s MusicNOW and the LA Phil’s Green Umbrella series have been essentially doing the same thing for a while…
Also, Judd Greenstein makes a wonderful point. With a multitude of new music groups in New York, I’m not sure why the Phil thinks its priority is to simply start another chamber New Music group. It’s an orchestra, and it has resources new-music groups generally don’t have…in that it’s a giant 100-piece orchestra. They should be commissioning orchestral pieces–a lot more, and doing things only the orchestra can. Not simply move over into territory that lots of groups have already been doing.
Here’s Judd’s finer, and more nuanced argument:
http://www.juddgreenstein.com/why.html#newnewyorkphil
Hey Greg-
I saw your article in the WSJ, and immediately I thought of the Wordless Music Project, which is being promoted by WNYC.
Wordless Music: Isn’t that what Bach and all of those cats were about?
Seriously, those old cats are in the shadows, and Wordless Music is trying to bring them back into the light by presenting their works along with the more popular works of current composers.
Does anyone know how this project is doing?
>>RSM
Great WSJ piece, Greg. I think you could extend the line of thought to record labels, as well. I’m reminded of Deutsche Grammofon’s Recomposed series, which is using remixes as a means of introducing a younger, non-classical public to the DG brand and catalog. First there was Jimi Tenor’s Deutsche Grammofon Recomposed (2006), in which the Finnish musician remixed music by Steve Reich, Pierre Boulez and Erik Satie, among others, by incorporating his own peculiar fusion of minimal electronics and hypermodern lounge jazz. (More background here: http://danray.org/2007/02/05/jimi-tenor-deutsche-grammophon-recomposed/). Then, last year, DG invited Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald, two noted electronic dance music producers, to “recompose” pieces from Mussorgssky and Ravel; the well-regarded techno experimentalist Ricardo Villalobos contributed an additional remix for a vinyl-only 12″ single.
The series has resulted in some excellent music; it’s also been a successful outreach campaign, leading to press coverage in many magazines, websites and blogs that cover electronic music but would rarely think of mentioning Deutsche Grammofon. (I would suspect that it has sold well, at least for the dwindling vinyl market; I’ve seen the Recomposed remixes on many DJs’ charts.)
I’m not proposing that every classical album release somehow needs a remix 12″ as a tie-in. But I do think this is an excellent example of the classical establishment reaching out (and helping create) an alt-classical audience—in large part by paying careful attention to the tastes and activities of the electronic- and experimental-music scenes, and utilizing the latters’ existing structures as a means for extending Deutsche Grammofon’s own reach.
Thanks for the article on Gabriel Prokofiev, a couple of whose pieces will make it onto my classical radio show today, between Haydn and Sibelius. Your observation about the dearth of modernism and neo-romanticism in alt-classical also resonated with my belief that the new classical music new audiences can generally do without are the kinds that require insider knowledge of earlier classical styles to get the point. “Cool, he’s referencing late Beethoven! Wow, she’s subverting sonata form! Yikes, a gesture out of ‘Le marteau’!” Yawn…Well ok, I suppose contemporary pop/rock refers back to earlier stuff too. But at least the music it refers to occured within living memory, and is still in someone’s vernacular.
Greg: I played the 1st movement of the Quartet No. 2 in both the original and “new, improved!” (i.e., remix) versions. Hey, a little taste of club mixed into the classical didn’t hurt anyone. And as is our wont, I linked both Prokofiev’s Myspace page and your article to our on-line playlist for folks wanting more info. Keeps things fresh and timely!
Greg, So your argument for the New York Philharmonic’s Contact series not succeeding is because they may not market it correctly? That they don’t know how to reach out to the alt-classical audience? Do I understand this? That it really doesn’t stand or fall on any aesthetic grounds? It’s true, the marketing needs to back up the artistic product, and it has to give an honest picture of what listeners will derive from it. No question. But to argue that it’s doomed to fail because the marketing department might not do enough research or know how to do its job seems less like a repertoire question – which is what you were initially saying New York and other top institutions weren’t engaged in – and a marketing one, which is an entirely different proposition. “Of course, we’re assuming here that they actually want to reach the alt-classical audience! Do they? Did the people who did the main artistic and other planning for Contact ever think of such a thing at all?” I don’t know, but I know who I could ask…and so do you.
Eric, I know about MusicNOW, I mentioned it in my original post above…and I was one of the series’ biggest champions…http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/opera-classical/15242/musicthen…and I work for the CSO now.
Thanks for the link to Judd’s piece. I know his music, I kind of know him, and I’ve written about his record label, and have a great deal of respect for him. But he doesn’t know what he’s talking about on this one thing. The Philharmonic started this to present new music for similar reasons to why the CSO started MusicNOW (and they share an administrator who helped shape both series). It gives people a chance to hear more new music than they would, it gives the orchestra a chance to present more new music, and more varied new music, than it could if it only presented new orchestral music. Maybe the Philharmonic should only present new music for orchestras. Fine, wonderful, lovely argument. But there simply isn’t room for a lot of it in the schedule or the budget, and so they open this other avenue. Which also isn’t cheap, by the way: You have to pay the musicians additional money to play and rehearse for this series, and rent Symphony Space. So, is the answer for the Philharmonic to play less new music? Is that really a reasonable goal?
And Greg, don’t knock my boy Dalbavie! Yes, he’s a modernist, but those smooth textures of his would fit right in in any chill environment. His Piano Trio? No?