Bernard Chasan:

>Last Wednesday I attended a rehearsal of the Boston Symphony ...  I
>noticed the same change observed by Janos- it has become a much younger
>orchestra than it was just a year or so ago.  Approaching Symphony Hall
>and passing the stage door, I wondered what those kids with musical
>instruments were doing going in there.  Well of course what they were
>doing was showing up for work.  Later, during the concert, it appeared
>that the tympanist was about 15 years old.

The Milwaukee Symphony recently featured an extroadinary 15 year old
narrator for The Diary of Anne Frank by Michael Tilson Thomas (which I
learned that Audrey Hepburn, the same age as Anne Frank, and from the
Netherlands too, shared responsibility for.) And a few weeks ago so many
young people were in the audience for a performance of Elgar's Cello
Concerto and RVW's London Symphony, that I asked some ushers afterwards
why that might be the case.  Their explanation was that Lynn Harrell was
the soloist.  (I had not known that he was from Texas, by the way; I had
thought him British, for some reason.) Hilary Hahn brings out an even
younger audience, of aspiring child violinists, a long line of whom
waited for her autograph and kind attention the last time she was here.
Encouraging signs.

Jim Tobin