Wither the Audience for Classical Music?
Source: www.polyphonic.org
Topic: Classical
Sort Desciption: concert hall may be aging, the overall audience for classical music is not. .... audience attendance at classical music concerts ofall kinds has increased ...
Content Inside: Harmony F ORUM OF THE S YMPHONY O RCHESTRA I NSTITUTE N UMBER 11 • O CTOBER 2000 TM Wither the Audience for Classical Music? by Douglas Dempster ©2000 by the Symphony Orchestra Institute. All rights reserved. Symphony Orchestra Institute 1618 Orrington Avenue, Suite 318 Evanston, IL 60201 Tel: 847.475.5001 Fax: 847.475.2460 e-mail: information@soi.org www.soi.org To subscribe to Harmony or provide support to the Institute, contact: 42 Harmony: F ORUM OF THE S YMPHONY O RCHESTRA I NSTITUTE Editor’s Digest he witty essay that follows had its genesis in an address that author Douglas Dempster delivered at the American Center in Tokyo in August 2000. While conceding that assessing the vitality of classical music is a complicated question, Dempster posits that classical musical activity in the U.S. is greater today than it was 20 years ago. Prophets of Doom Dempster opens his essay with a review of what critics have had to say in recent years about the declining condition of classical music in the U.S. He then begins to turn those assessments inside out. Using data from a series of government reports, the author guides readers toward the conclusion that while growth for live-concert classical music may have been modest over the last 20 years, there has been no decline. He next turns his attention to the demographics of the classical music audience, suggesting that although the audience actually present in the concert hall may be aging, the overall audience for classical music is not. This leads to the conclusion that the overall audience for classical music is actually growing. The Influence of Electronics After reviewing statistics from the Recording Industry Association of America, Dempster points out that in a recorded-music market that has grown nearly 100 percent in 10 years, classical music sales have held their own, increasing from $237 million in 1989 to $453 million in 1998. He hazards a guess that the audience for classical music wil ...
wither the audience for classical music dempster