The League of American Orchestras Conference is taking place in Atlanta this week, and a big talking point will be the future of the American orchestra. There will be a live discussion on Wednesday, June 16 at 3:40 PM EST. The topic has been narrowed down to four questions:
PURPOSE: What makes an orchestra matter in the 21st Century?
CHANGE: If we “let go of the past” and “embrace the future”, what should we retain, release, and go for?
STRUCTURE: How should an orchestra be structured, organized, and behave to be successful?
RELEVANCE: What does the artistically vibrant orchestra need to look like to be essential for its community?
(you can vote on the discussion question here)
What’s interesting about these questions is that they can be seen as a front for the larger issue at hand: what makes classical music matter in the 21st century? If classical music does need a facelift, what intrinsic properties does it need to keep in order to retain its “soul,” so to speak, and what are the variables that can be adapted in order to make sure it secures its place as a revolutionary artform?
There are already a lot of ideas floating around, such as having orchestras model Google’s 20% Time or composing a piece that the whole community could get involved in, trained musician or not. And many more can be found at Greg Sandow’s blog and at Orchestra R/Evolution.
As for me, I’m not entirely sure how to go about answering these questions, but I do know the answer does NOT lie in sweeping the entire issue under the rug by playing “less Schubert, more Star Wars.”
I really like the Relevance discussion. I think any of us classical musicians could easily answer why an orchestra matters, but how it should look and respond to the community is a different story! The divide between popular culture and classical music is definitive, but there must be a way to bridge it. At least, I hope, or what are we doing with our lives?
Good entries so far!!!
I think for a long time, classical musicians were the ones paving the way and pushing the boundaries of what music looks like and sounds like. The basic rhythm and harmonic structure used in most of today’s popular Western music was happening hundreds of years ago in the classical world. And today’s trend of incorporating world and folk music elements into Western music was going on a century ago with our good friends Bartok and Dvorak.
If we can find our place as innovators again, I think we’ll be all right. Although I guess atonality and serialism didn’t go over too well with the public. Maybe we can find a happy medium? Or maybe pop music will be atonal 50 years from now? Probably not…