Later today, ArtsJournal editor Doug McLennan will post a commentary on American
and European cultural funding by William Osborne, the composer-social activist-musicologist
whose “downtown” music will be performed Tuesday at REDCAT in Frank Gehry’s
Walt Disney Hall complex in Los Angeles. The commentary is typical of Osborne —
probing, thorough, scholarly and provocative. Get a preview of it now: “Marketplace of Ideas: But First, The Bill.”
Among other things, Osborne takes on what he calls “the Hip-Con
argument” that “classical music must enter the market place in order to survive.” The
notion was embraced at ArtsJournal by the critic Gary Sandow in his self-named blog
on the future of classical music. For a variety of reasons, Osborne
finds the “suggestion that classical composers should tap into the fringes of the pop market …
interesting, but of limited value.” Read his commentary. It’s filled with serious ideas.
