To continue and answer in part a question from the last post (Baby Mozart), I ask here: If Mozart, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berio, and Boulez are all outdated, then where is the classical art form? What is happening in the 21st century for performers, composers, and most of all, listeners? There is excellent news: the tradition thrives in a way perhaps unheard of in centuries past. Thousands of composers and tens of thousands of performers, all trained to a professional level, play with ensembles around the world, write, produce, and arrange music in both the concert, film/media, and popular scenes, teach, advocate, and spread ideas through sound. The number of composer training programs, competitions, grant opportunities, music-based residencies, and calls for scores that repeat yearly or every few years numbers over 800, and many organizations see music as an avenue to promote messages of social advocacy for good. The sheer amount of opportunities for composers today is promising, but where is the music? Why do orchestras seem completely unaware of what surrounds them? Why do so many orchestras still carry a museum culture?

Perhaps awareness is difficult because it takes time to seek after great music in the riffraff of so many aspiring artists. Certain musicians do rise to the surface though. For example, an orchestra is looking for music with lots of style and excitement—why not commission Valerie Coleman, James Mobberley, or Christian Asplund? Or something thrilling and virtuosic like a piece based on the idea of video games from Andrew Norman or a percussion concerto from Chen Yi? An atmospheric, otherworldly exploration of sound? George Friedrich Haas or Kaija Saariaho would do. Something passionate, deeply personal, and timely? Lansing McLoskey or Alvin Singleton would be marvelous options. Or something simply beautiful and immediate by Hannah Lash or by recent Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Ellen Childs (not all their music fits in this category, but orchestras seem to like the very accessible)? Or Stephen Hartke, Silvio Ferraz, Gabriel Bolaños, Augusta Read Thomas, Dave Rakowski, Amy Williams, David Felder, Panayiotis Kokoras, Mark Applebaum, Louis Karchin, or so many others? These are already accomplished composers who have been fortunate enough to get some big-name performances, so imagine how many younger composers also have something to offer if these were the highlights of the concert with young composers as the openers!

How do orchestras currently program their concerts? Let’s take a look at an unnamed symphony orchestra’s concert season for an example:

First, “Beethoven for the Generations” features only Beethoven to celebrate the legend’s 250th birthday. Of course, one concert is not enough to celebrate: this season will feature ALL nine symphonies and much more from him.
The next concert is titled “Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.” There are four pieces: Brahms, Mendelssohn, [Vivian Fung], and Beethoven. Oh, there was a piece by a living composer, but our embarrassment of the piece left it out of the concert title and hid it in the middle of a cozy program of pieces heard so much that many in the audience have it memorized.
Next, “Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Ax performs Beethoven.” This begins with Louis Andriessen’s The nine symphonies of Beethoven. Even invoking the name of Beethoven as a living composer doesn’t make the cut for a concert title…
“Zukerman plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto,” and Beethoven overshadows Janacek (early 1900s) and even our beloved Mozart.
“Beethoven’s Mass in C” has a Haydn and Beethoven sandwich with some James MacMillan (living composer) hidden inside.
“Schumman’s ‘Rhenish’ and Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto” is the concert title that excludes Samuel Barber, indisputably one of the most popular American composers ever.
“Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Midori Plays Dvorak” features the two listed and, oops we forgot Anna Clyne (recent Pulitzer Prize winner).
The only mention of a post-1945 composer happens in a celebration of a violinist who played a modern piece by Dutilleux, but wait… “Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Tree of Dreams.” At least the piece title is catchy enough to hide a composer’s name that some wouldn’t recognize (and during the concert, Dutilleux’s piece is sandwiched between the big shots from on average 150 years ago).

To sum up the entire concert season’s promotion: yikes.

One solution for this serious issue is the concept of curation. The word has popped up lately among composers and performers, and it deserves further investigation. To curate is to borrow the model that art museums use to showcase their works. A museum sets expectations for the experience, organizes its art into logical categories, provides historical context, and includes knowledgeable historians and other specialists to answer questions. Each museum has a different standing collection and rotates through visiting exhibits. One could consider the standing exhibit the pieces that museum uniquely owns. Could this not translate into the musical experience? Let’s try a new concert season:

It’s Beethoven’s 250th birthday! Let’s celebrate with “Regards to Beethoven by the Great Masters of Today.” We commission three composers (or find composers who have already written pieces about Beethoven, like Louis Andriessen), and have a night of homages to our historic forefather. To give some context, the first piece is by Beethoven, followed by the three new pieces (none of them are too long because we all have shorter attention spans these days…). Oh, and no more Beethoven after this—this concert will sell out because Beethoven is the visiting exhibit.
“20/20 Vision: Looking to the Future.” We can start with some Messiaen piece with a religious looking forward or maybe one of the Futurists from the early 1900s, then go with two pieces about social issues of today such as climate change or a more equal society. Could music be relevant to today by speaking on issues that matter today?
“America, the Beautiful.” It is shocking to me how little investment our orchestras have in playing music written by composers within our own country. Do we really need to import so much culture that is alien to our own? Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, John Cage (not 4:33 unless they really want to do it), John Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, and Jennifer Higdon are easy choices that orchestras need not dig deep in their libraries to find. But let’s add some lesser-known yet highly influential voices in there. Most of the composers I listed at the top can showcase craftsmanship in the United States.
“The Fast and the Furious: Concerto Night.” One night of some of the most aggressive, hardcore, virtuosic pieces with the top soloists. A world premiere would build the hype if both the composer and the soloist had a reputation for it.
“Stealing Styles: Jazz, Rock, and Pop in the Orchestra.” We’ll give them some Gershwin and then switch it up with some more contemporary music that incorporates popular idioms into concert music (and there is lots of this nowadays).
“Who We Are.” This concert will consciously represent the diversity of contemporary composers who are of top caliber. This is not an affirmative action-type event but a realistic showcase of American musical identity. We have fantastic composers of many backgrounds writing in many styles, and this concert clearly shows the influence. This could even be a goal for a concert series…
“Deep Listening.” For the mindfulness people, John Luther Adams’s Become Ocean could launch a concert that focuses on color. And audience members could be encouraged to really relax and make the experience comfortable and meditative (lie on the floor?).
“The Grand Finale.” It’s the end of the season! The ballet and the local chorus join the orchestra for a world premiere closer with two or three epic pieces to lead into the work. This concert is intended to be the shot heard ‘round the world. People will know about this concert on the news and then look back to see that the entire concert season was filled with exciting projects with lots of documentation for publicity. As the next season is prepared, people will plan to travel for miles, donors will be caught in the excitement for doing something different, and music will seem like a living art form much more than a rusting, disorganized museum.

Is this too idealistic? To further support this vision, people need to know what they are getting into. The advertising hits YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere with up-to-date advertising. Bite-size musical excerpts float around everywhere with cliffhangers. Members of the orchestra are the ones being interviewed in promotional materials (not the conductor every time) and speak about how exciting it is to be part of something different and bold. Photos of the composers pop up on all visuals, showing the selection of contemporary composers that the listeners will hear. Marketing connects with different demographics than the 70+ by considering popular topics (orchestras so missed a great opportunity several years ago with the zombie craze, for example! We have so much music about the undead and the macabre!!). At concerts, members of the orchestra stand in the concert lobby afterwards to meet the guests and talk about the music experience (again, in addition to the conductor). The pre-concert experience has video footage playing while people get into their seats that shows the promotions that got them there in more depth: interviews with performers, composers, the conductor, etc. (starting a half hour before showtime). The videos are setting the stage for the concert experience, just like a movie theater prepares its viewers by getting them immersed in cinema before the movie begins. People outside the door are trained musicologists and theorists who answer questions about the concert program, with visible identification such as a name badge or even a visitors information booth. And right after intermission, the conductor gets podium time to welcome everyone to the concert, ask how far people have traveled to the concert, and to set the mood for the last piece with some artful prose (not a lecture). Music presented in such a natural context, without apologies before genuinely valuable new art, would change the atmosphere of orchestra life.

In an age that prizes the new, orchestras would have something to offer. Listeners, performers, donors, academics, and composers would all thrive off the energy of this new concert experience. There is no catch; this is all reasonable. The technology is easy, the resources are waiting, and, most importantly, an eager audience can be reached that would genuinely love this concert experience. Yes, not every piece would be loved by the audience. But with so much context and preparation, they will at least appreciate the vision of the artist. Nevertheless, chances are that as orchestras redefine the concert experience, listeners will redefine theirs. They will broaden their idea of what music is. It is more than notes on a page or structures in major and minor. It is the fingerprint of one human experience, the embodiment of a time, place, and culture, the study of sound in time, the expression of humanity, the vision of something more, the dream of something that was or could have been. It is a deep connection to the spiritual and subconscious, sometimes seeking in sound the deepest of mental and emotional states. It is vulnerability and severity at times, and though uncomfortable at first, the most beautiful experience can be had in sailing in the imaginations of the artists who live the same digital-age life as the listener and share or differ in the perspectives and problems of the current age. Music of this caliber has worth, more than any previous age’s artwork can. Let museum orchestras handle the 19th-century Germans. Bold orchestras will accept a true challenge to upgrade to the 21st century listening experience.

In an effort to legitimize music education through “facts,” scientists set out to prove the intellectual, emotional, and even physical benefits of participation in music experiences. Rather than trust that the organized sound that accompanied humankind from the beginning had in it some inherent strengths, figures and statistics assuage policy makers. And once numbers get involved, we get interpretations of data and initiatives that lead to a plethora of potential truths and obvious misconceptions about what music is and what it does for the everyday person.

And thus Baby Mozart was born.

Infants who listen to classical music may become smarter and more emotionally mature. This would be a wonderful result of the sonic art form that has intrigued our forebears for countless generations. But when do children listen to Baby Mozart? Parents often use the music to put their children to bed. And if not, the music is administered in doses as if a supplement to the anxiety-ridden broccoli-feeding and diaper change. In my family, Baby Mozart was the new age music from the early 1990s. I later learned that my father used them because he believed they were so boring they would put anyone to sleep. Does this translate over to the treatment of classical music at-large?

I had two completely different experiences with classical music as a child. The first were recordings of Bernstein conducting Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, Marche Slav, and the 1812 Overture. Also in the room was a CD of Mozart’s Symphonies 40 and 41. These energized me, akin to the Sound Test options on Super Nintendo videos games, which conveniently played atmospheric or intense music on endless loop. These experiences likely drew me towards music-making.

Then, there were the dreaded CDs titled “Meditations.” Six volumes of the most bland moments of classical music history were obviously intended to knock one out or at least nullify the mind. And then that famous CD Chant . I tried many times, even as a child, to survive that CD to secure some form of personal musical depth. As cited by Wikipedia, “it was strongly marketed as an antidote to the stress of modern life.” I actively work against achieving this Meditation CD status.

How do the majority of people perceive classical music today? Is the orchestral hall a place of liveliness or is it an extension of the fuzzy reclining chair in the living room? And if it is a place that people envision falling asleep, why would the average person spend money and time to attend? To many, the perception of classical music is that it is simply boring. And concert programmers have a knack of feeding into this stereotype without realizing it.

To gain young audiences at concert halls, the concert experience should feel lively. The real Mozart felt this excitement in his day as he traveled from place to place. The 1780s were an unusually active time for music throughout Europe and especially in Vienna. He marveled to his father about amazing performances and complained about dull ones. Mozart especially loved the new technologies in music. The piano was relatively new technology, and instrument makers continued to finesse its sound during his lifetime. Mozart also loved the inventive basset horn, which soon after became the clarinet. The time also saw an increase in size and accessibility of performing groups. The orchestras, typically reserved for the court, entered the public square as part of the Enlightenment. The Mannheim Orchestra specialized in creating magnificent rushes through intense, long crescendos. And Mozart did not only involve himself in music but collaborated with theater, poetry, and visual arts through his operas. Though opera was already a longstanding tradition, Mozart revolutionized the art form by bringing the energy of his time into something that had become stiff on the one end or cheesy on the other. He also merged the musics of Italy, France, and Germany into his sound to form a cosmopolitan vibe. These circumstances and activities came together to create an exciting atmosphere from which the famous Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven rose to prominence and bore out a lasting legacy.

So, shall we bring back more music from Mozart’s time period and recreate this fervor? Surely Mozart would roll in his grave at such a suggestion! While the great composer looked back to find inspiration, he and his contemporaries did not believe in preservation projects. But we can certainly learn from him. Four major focal points came together in that day that also seem to be the best received in our day as well. First, technology cannot be ignored. Electronics do things that purely acoustic instruments cannot. Even with one microphone channeling an instrument’s sound, a new sonic world can be explored. One of the greatest trends in contemporary classical music is the use of software, especially interactive digital technology to create music. Second, theatricality and interdisciplinary work takes music to a higher plane. Opera is in the process of a major revival because it provides a multi-sensory experience. Important new music ensembles, such as Eighth Blackbird, include a visual or staged component to their work. Dance collaborations are particularly welcome. Third, genre plurality and diversity create a more relevant and comprehensible music. To completely ignore the access we have to music throughout the world and to dismiss the popular idioms of today as points of dialogue in classical music ignores the almost constant strain of external influences that fuel the art form. The most important artists had a way of bringing many forms and styles together to create a new path. And fourth, a recontextualization of past styles; in other words, an acknowledgement and play on tradition, seemed to be essential to the First Viennese School. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven all have a sense of humor in their music as they look to the past, and we have so much more history to deal with.

This last point brings the great caveat: we recontextualize the past, and we do not live there. The current state of music is, in effect, proof of its death. Orchestras that play 90% repertoire from before 1900 are like the rare stumbling on a live website last updated in the 1990s. It is fascinating, curious, and nostalgic, but the average person will not visit the site ever again. Music written hundreds of years ago does not carry the same relevance as music written today. A living art form would include 90% repertoire from after 1990, and museums would take in the rest. The museum orchestra would play Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. It would also play Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Xenakis, Cage, Takemitsu, Berio, La Monte Young, Milton Babbitt, and Pierre Boulez as pieces of a distant history. What then is there to listen to—even the edgy avant-garde music is irrelevant?! That is the serious discussion to be had to maintain a living, thriving, and relevant art form. More next time…