Forwarded to me by a friend... Excerpted from John von Rhein's recent blog on Arts Journal: Being reasonably conversant with classical music, its traditions and history used to be considered one of the marks of an educated person. No longer. (Just try asking any self-styled intellectual you meet socially to name a few living classical composers.) How can we even begin to expect audiences to "get" new music if they're so poorly educated in (hence indifferent to) music that even the standard repertory is like this exotic foreign tongue to them? No wonder our symphony orchestras are going in for spoon-feeding them. Daniel Barenboim said it best: "Music has lost a large part of its place in society." Full stop. I guess most of us would agree with this perspective? However, I wonder if our concept of an educated person is different from what it might have been some 40 years ago. Where are people going to be exposed to the range of art music. Certainly not on NPR, or PBS...or in the concert hall, or in school. Where should they be exposed to art music? Once again I am reminded of the notion of dumbing down art music so it will attract new listeners. I wonder, how many years has that notion be applied to programming concerts and the media, and is there any evidence that it has accomplished any good? Karl