Contemporary classical music in many ways was not created to be an audience pleaser. If you talk to a modern day composer they will tell you that they are creating the music as they hear it and that giving the audience a "boring", traditional piece is not acceptable. They would rather see the audience dislike their piece than see them sit their not thinking about the piece being played. Though I have not found many contemporary pieces that I enjoy, I can appreciate that composers are trying be controversial in their styles.
Audiences have been declining, however. In an article entitled The Right Kind of Advertising, Sequenza21 explains that the Met saw a huge decline in box office sales. By 2006, they were only selling out 10% of all of their performances, a number they had never come across before.
Contemporary music had a drastic effect on box office sales because the majority of regular opera and symphony goers do not understand the music and would rather hear a more traditional piece like Don Giovanni. So the question is, how can orchestras sell tickets to new operas, even if the music is not like anything people have heard before?
Marketing is everything for this new age of classical music. The Met, for example, was able to overcame its slump in ticket sales by putting together a new marketing plan.
So a marketing task force was put together. For a modest budget, aided by contributions from a board member, the team was able to create dozens of different marketing initiatives designed to attract specialized audiences. New-age magazines yoga groups, anti-apartheid organizations, India groups, South African organizations, et al.
This marketing plan was perfect because they targeted the market that was most likely to be interested in contemporary music. They realized that their are separate audiences that attend traditional classical music concerts and contemporary classical music concerts. As a result, the marketing plan for each segment must be different in order to attract consumers.
In Greg Sandow's blog, he also investigates the power of marketing, especially with contemporary classical music. He believes that orchestras need to be more aware of the the types of audiences attending their concerts. Like Sequenza21 mentioned, there are several difference types of people who enjoy classical music. As a result, in order to attract as many consumers as possible, you must separate the market into several segments. Within each segment, the marketing plan is going to be different because each segment holds different values and characteristics.
Sandow makes an interesting point when he says the orchestras should not be so worried about the internet. Well balanced marketing can encourage listeners to purchase music online and attend concerts more frequently. He is even so bold as to say that orchestras should offer more free concerts. I actually like this idea because it would give people an incentive to attend a concert with contemporary music. Many people avoid the symphony all together because they have a pre-conceived notion that they are going to hate whatever contemporary piece is being played. If they were to attend a free concert, however, they might find that they actually appreciate contemporary music and that they would be more willing to purchase tickets in the future.
3 comments:
I stumbled on your blog to find we're speaking on many of the same topics... Where is Contemporary Classical Music...
Not all modern composers are trying to make music so difficult it is unplayable, or not care about what audiences think. I think those composers are part of the demise of Classical Music. While what they write is interesting for musicians, it can drive an audience away, and ultimately it comes down to money - orchestras and classical artists need to make money - and if the audience goes away, so does the money.
Anyway... keep up the thoughts and I'll check back now and again.
The main premise here is correct. There is a market for both traditional classical music and contemporary classical music, and more often than not the twain will never meet.
The question of "where is contemporary classical music" is not the correct one, but rather, who is the contemporary classical audience and who is the traditional classical audience.
And where do both listen to what they like.
Invariably, those who like contemporary classical music more often than not do not get to see live performances, but only get to hear the music they like in some rather unusual places. Like on New Age Radio programs like "Echoes" or "The Hearts of Space"
Some composers in the field of Contemporary Classical Music, like Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams can only be heard on radio in the guise of New Age performers. Reich and Glass currently have albums in the top 100 sales on the latest list, with Glass having two albums in that classification. Reich's latest is at about 300 on the latest classical lists by sales, but he is at number 85 in the classification of "various: where you can find classical, opera and new age albums that are not performed by traditional groups.
On the other hand some very untraditional albums have been in the top 100 for a long time. Wendy Carlos "Switches on Bach" has been in the top 100 for forty years as of this year. It was this very untraditional album that led me to an interest in classical music and later to move from playing electric guitar to classical.
But to be honest,when it comes to instruments other than guitar, my tastes still tend to lean to electronic classical music or contemporary classical music. I also like contemporary pieces played on traditional instruments such as "Cantus Borealis" a collection of contemporary classical music from the Faroe Islands, anything by Gyorgi Ligeti, and also choral works by Morten Laudisen.
And I am not what one would call a "classical music afficionado" I basically stumbled on these composers because of their appearance in more popular venues like the movies, or I simply heard them one afternoon on public radio.
While symphonies may have their main supporters, they will certainly not attract new ones like me who have come to an interest in classical music through its use in modern media.
While I also stumbled on Pachelbel this way, I have to tell you the affair was brief. It really did not have the same appeal to me as what I heard of Ligeti by watching "2001, a Space Odyssey" Or stumbling across Laudisen when I accidentally picked up his "Lux Aeterna" while seeking out a copy of the Ligeti version.
To be honest, I would be glad to go to a concert of contemporary classical music, but if I had to sit through one more hearing of Beethoven's Pastorale before they played the contemporary pieces, I might tear my hair out.
As it is, I do not attend the local symphonies at all because more often than not the fare is almost totally traditional. Which I can listen to occasionally, but which is something I really can only deal with in small quantities.
Like most people of my generation, I stumbled on classical music by hearing it in the movies, on the radio, even in commercials. I really did not come in for the basic "snob appeal" that many of my friends attach to traditional classical music. These friends insist that there is no audience for "contemporary classical music" but this is not so. In the United States the apparent audience for contemporary classical may seem small but this is because the same audience also crosses over into the new age genre, largely out of necessity.
Worldwide the appeal of "contemporary classical music" is something else entirely. Concerts of Schoenberg are often sold out all over Europe and Japan, as other contemporary composers are.
The phenomenon of "anti contemporary classical music" complaints largely is an American phenomenon.
This does not surprise me, because America has not produced any real school of classical music of its own, so to speak, and largely "contemporary classical music" is composed and performed in the same places that "traditional classical music" was born. Europe. Occasionally Latin America.
But American composers have not really created any classical music that can be truly described as "American Classical Music"
We do have Gershwin, and Copeland, but rather than have created some new genre of music that can be considered an "American Classical Music" they simply took some European classical forms and tossed in a bit of American Folk or American jazz elements.
I have heard many listeners who allow their preferences for traditional classical state that there is no place for "contemporary classical music" or that this music is being "forced" onto them by the musicians who find that its complexity is more of a challenge to them as performers and composers.
This is not true. There is a very large audience who would gladly pay to attend concerts where nothing but contemporary classical pieces are performed. To be honest I am one of them.
The primary problem is that these are two totally distinct audiences and those who prefer to listen to traditional classical music are`actually more intolerant of contemporary classical music than those of us who prefer contemporary classical are towards traditional.
I will most certainly tolerate some traditional classical as long as those who prefer that will tolerate the contemporary classical I prefer.
I find this not to be the case. Those who prefer traditional classical seem intent on driving contemporary classical out of all public performance venues, and this leaves those like myself back where we started. Turning the dial to wait for something contemporary to come on the the radio, or just putting a CD on the player.
Your post about the marketing of contemporary music is well noted. I only think that as Chip said, the composers are really to blame here. They have separated themselves from the audience and from anything corporeal into an abstract world that a normal listener will never understand... and never want to, unless he derrives some benifit from its study. My blog - music of our time - is trying to start a discussion about that, please check it out. I will follow yours, its great! BW
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