The Scholarization of Classical Music

One of the chief problems facing classical music (of any sort - orchestral or vocal) is what I term the 'Scholarization' of Classical Music.  While classical music has never been mass media like pop music, it was not too long ago that most people knew something about classical music and recognized a few opera stars, such as Placido Domingo, Beverly Sills, and Maria Callas, or perhaps new a famous conductor like Leonard Bernstein.

Today, if you ask random people if they know an opera star, it is most likely a dead one - Luciano Pavarotti.  Even people who might show a taste for classical music, such as people who enjoy jazz, attend musical or other staged works, or follow film music, have little awareness of the classical repertoire.

I personally believe that classical music has become entrapped by universities.  At school, a general culture of classical music as SERIOUS music, and not easily ACCESSIBLE, is taken for granted.  Serious and accessible are basically code words for "classical music is for serious, cultured people who have a certain intelligence."  This is a LIE.  If you look at most classical composers of the past, their music was not aimed at a certain class.  Mozart did not make an opera about a half-man, half-bird to appeal to the prince of Austria.  Beethoven did not write an opera about a revolutionary woman who seeks to free her husband from the state prison to make amends with his royal patrons.  Opera, and classical music in general, is an artform that appeals across race, class, and language.  While we shouldn't expect EVERYONE to love classical music, it is amazing how many people accept and enjoy classical music once they are exposed to it in a comfortable, easy manner.

I do not claim to be a marketing genius.  I know there are business people in the classical world who are brilliant and addressing these issues right now.  But every classical musician needs to contribute by being great ambassadors for the genre.  Similar to American citizens visiting foreign countries, we must be on our behavior lest people take a moment of arrogance, boorishness, or standoffish as representative of classical music.

DWS