Stirling S Newberry wrote:

>Imagine someone took over buying your CDs for you, and bought about 15%
>in areas which they thought you should like - spending your money on them.
>Suppose further you disagreed violently with this person's ideas about
>what is important, as opinionated, artistically sensitive people can, and
>perhaps even *should* do.  Would you continue to have them buy your CDs?

Your point about CDs is well made, but I think there is a difference
between record collections and concerts.  The former are entirely personal
constructions, and the latter are public events.  I may be impossibly
idealistic, but I would hope that the world of people interested in CM
would contain enough people who are not narrowly focused all the time on
one little sliver of the whole repertory, but who are willing to keep their
minds open and sit through at least part of each concert which is outside
their own "specialty," that the tradition of broad concert programming
might continue.  Unfortunately, in the age of readily available recordings,
we seem to be getting more narrow-minded about what we "like," not less.

As others have pointed out, if you happen to live in an area with a
large enough concentration of CM fans (such as Boston, Philadelphia, LA,
San Francisco, and especially New York), you can find enough ensembles
specializing in early music, contemporary stuff, etc., to fill in the
blanks left by the general-purpose organizations, BSO, Phil.  Orch., NY
Phil., etc.

>Or would you rather show up to one concert where the works are the
>focus, where the audience is there for the same reason you are, and the
>orchestra has done nothing but eat and breath the idiom.

I think, as I say, that such organizations already exist, or am I wrong? Of
course, you need to be in or near a CM center to have ready access to them,
as I said.  But just as people seriously interested in mountain climbing or
surfing generally choose to live in the mountains or by the sea, those who
are seriously interested in CM generally consider settling in a suitable
location.  At any rate, this has always been an important consideration in
my choice of residence.

>Concert going is a social activity as well.  I think it is more conducive
>to artistic discourse to bring together people who are enthusiastic about
>a set of works, and who know the rest of the audience is as well, than to
>merely throw people together.  How many times each of us have gone to a
>concert, and wanted to discuss, and by discussing live through the work
>again, savor it in its details.  The more knowledgeable and enthusaistic
>the audience - the more likely this is to happen.

I too would like for this to happen more than it does now, but I don't
think you necessarily need to segregate audiences by interest area to
promote it.  What you need to do is to schedule opportunities for it
to happen.  The Phil.  Orch., and probably a lot of others these days,
sometimes has discussion sessions before or after concerts, at which the
audience can Q&A with the conductor, soloist, program annotator, etc., and
I have often found them quite enjoyable.  Of course, only a small part of
the whole audience attends them, so there is a self-selection of people who
are interested in the works on that particular program.  But they are not
all knowledgeable on an expert level--it is important, I think, to have a
mix of levels of sophistication represented, so that the discussion is not
limited to technicalities.  The professional experts know where they can go
to talk shop.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]