[From www.sfcv.org]

LONDON - The Times last weekend did an unusual packaging of the UK Art
Council report on attendance by young people at classical-music events.
Right along the news article, the Times ran an editorial disputing the
report's conclusions AND an article by the paper's chief music critic,
Richard Morrison, also rushing to the side of the music organizations
called to task by the report.

"I'm blowed if orchestras can do more (to attract young audiences),"
Morrison wrote.  The editorial was even more forceful: "Time and money
spent chasing fickle youth should instead be invested in maintaining
aesthetic standards.

"The introduction of the young to music should be a matter for schools
and families, not hard-pressed orchestras.  The young will come in time,
it is argued, if they genuinely learn to love good music.  They will not
be attracted by some of the gimmicks which have been tried such as cellists
in T-shirts."

The Council, which funded a $60-million campaign last year to help reverse
the old "graying of the audience" syndrome, reported - with considerable
displeasure - that its last survey, in 1999, showed a drop of concert-goers
from 8.4% to 4% against the previous year.  [Why processing a study takes
three years deserves a study of its own.] The only age group showing
increasing attendance was the over-55s, especially those over 65.

A spokesman for the Association of British Orchestras retorted: "There
are 22,000 primary schools and eight symphony orchestras.  The side which
is not lacking at the moment is the orchestral side." A London Symphony
Orchestra official disputed the figures, but other organizations agreed.
And, on Thursday, a Policy Studies Institute report condemned classical
concerts as "too formal and elitist." Bonita Kolb, an American lecturer
at London's Trinity College of Music, came up with a less-than-original
comment that classical concerts have become "the preserve of white,
affluent and well-educated audiences."

Morrison drew a simple distinction: "Eighty-piece orchestras are
expensive.  Ticket prices reflect this.  Inevitably, that biases the
audience towards the affluent middle-aged.  Where classical music is free
or cheap and accessible, large numbers of the young do listen." Sounds
simple? Too simple, perhaps? But it's true.  For the past two weeks, I've
been in the midst of well-mixed, youngish audiences, at the Edinburgh
Festival's $7.50 late-night concerts, at the BBC Proms, where a similar
amount will get you into the hall.

The Council's faulting of orchestras that they don't do enough to attract
young audiences is simply wrong.  Almost all of them, here, in the rest
of Europe, in the US, certainly in the Bay Area, are trying madly.
"Organizations should never stop dreaming up new ways to reach new
audiences," Morrison wrote.  "Complancency would breed elitism.  But I
see no sign of complacency among orchestral managers.  I have rarely met
a group of people so obsessed with wooing the young, unless, of course,
you include newspaper editors."

The Times placed the matter on a lofty platform: "Live performance is
the oxygen of art.  The task of melding an ensemble of talents to realize
a unique creative vision, the electricity generated by the interaction
between audience and performer, the perennial challenge of making new the
canon, all contribute to providing mankind with its most sublime moments."
Sharing these blessings with the young and obtaining future audiences are
vitally important goals for artists and managers alike.  But, the editorial
argued, to place all the responsibility/blame on orchestras for the
realization of this utopian vision is wrong.  Families, schools,
individuals, organizations other than symphonies need to get involved.
"There need not be any conflict between maximizing access and preserving
excellence," the Times said, representing a balanced, saner view.

Janos Gereben/SF
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