How could we think in a really big way — an expansive, loving way — about the future of classical music? I think we might move toward acceptance. Acceptance of classical music’s place in the world, even if it's not as large as we'd like it to be. I don't mean we wouldn't work to give it a larger place. But we wouldn't be angry at how things are now. We wouldn't blame anyone. And above all, to all the many people who don't love classical music, we'd open our arms, with loving acceptance. Because these are our fellow humans, who … [Read more...]
Something American orchestras don’t want known
Continuing from my last post, with what should be in a book on the past few decades’ history of American orchestras… One main focus of the book would of course have to be orchestra finances. Along with the long-term decline in ticket sales, which of course affects the bottom line. So the writer of this book would need accurate information about orchestra ticket sales from the 1980s till the present. And orchestras won’t reveal this! They of course have the data, and report it to the League of American Orchestras. The League then publishes … [Read more...]
We need to unearth some history
I wrote on Facebook awhile ago that there ought to be a book on the history of American orchestras from the 1980s on. Or the 70s, maybe. I got that idea from comments on a good-natured post I did, citing Will Roseliep’s writing about the first websites the Big Five ever created. Period pieces, all of them, As of course they’d be, since they date from the early days of the web. In the comments on Facebook, people active in orchestra affairs back then reminisced about creating those websites. How hard it was to convince orchestra boards … [Read more...]