Rick Mabry wrote: >Videos of classical performances can be extremely inspiring, even if it >is not ballet or opera. (In my case, *especially* if it is not.) Do we >go to a live symphony only to hear it? Or do we also want to see it? >Surely both. We go to a live symphony because it is an Event, and because live music is the most authentic way to listen to music. >I think seeing the faces of performers can be inspiring to young listeners, >who might be moved by the passion they see. It would help many of them >connect to classical music for the first time, I suspect. I could not disagree more. Most performers in orchestras do not look especially passionate. The correlation between passionate and expressing passion in art is, I suspect, negligible. In my experience artists as a group pretty much look like anybody else. It is pretentious and counterproductive to offer up evidence that classical music is self referential- see how sensitive the players are!! Dance relates music to real movement, real stories. It just might be an entry point for some young people. Bernard Chasan