CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
Redefining Classical Music
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of Master of Music in Music Performance
By
Shannon Canchola
May 2017
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Copyright by Shannon Canchola 2017
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The Thesis of Shannon Canchola is approved:
______
Dr. John Roscigno Date
______
Heather Clark Date
______
Dr. Lawrence Stoffel, Chair Date
California State University, Northridge
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Table of Contents
Signature Page iii
Acknowledgement iv
Abstract v
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Defining Classical Music 5
Chapter 3: Looking to The Future 8
Chapter 4: Music Audiences Can Relate To 11
Chapter 5: Diversifying Audiences and Music 14
Chapter 6: Innovation and Technology in Classical Music 19
Chapter 7: Adventurous Venues 23
Chapter 8: Conclusion 26
Bibliography 27
Appendix A: Title Page of Interview and Participant Disclaimer 30
Appendix B: Composer Interview Questions 31
Appendix C: Interviews 32
Appendix D: Recital Program 37
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Abstract
Redefining Classical Music
By
Shannon Canchola
Master of Music in Music Performance
This thesis will explore the need to redefine classical music in order to ensure its survival. Through the analysis of data taken from orchestras across the country, I will examine why many organizations are folding and what some establishments have done to prevent further downfall. With this information, I will explicate the current understanding of classical music and then discover possible methods in securing future generations of audiences that will enjoy and support this genre. I will also explore the problems many composers and musicians face in creating a successful and lasting career and what these musicians can do to gain popularity with audiences who may not be musically trained.
The primary form of data received will derive from Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra 2015 to 2016 statistics taken surveying 89 orchestras total, comprised of both major American symphonies and smaller organizations. This data will include information behind programming for an orchestra and how this crucial action directly
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affects the type of audiences orchestras receive. I will also include interviews with current contemporary composers as primary sources within the text to further delve into what musicians and composers can do to allow classical music to thrive. Interviews with various musical directors and conductors will offer insight into what they feel is causing a lack of interest in the orchestra hall and what they are doing to ensure its survival. This will include discussions on utilizing new technology and innovative venues that will foster a genuine connection between the audience and the music.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
“There is no such thing as ‘serious’ or ‘popular music’. There is only
‘good’ and ‘bad’ music.”1 This quote, from Milton Babbitt’s article, Who Cares if You Listen?, describes a significant factor many musicians and composers may be neglecting; the opinion of the audience member. Babbitt goes on to say that,
“the concertgoer is secure in the knowledge that the amenities of concert-going protects his firmly stated ‘I didn’t like it’” for no reason other than “I cannot or will not state why.”2 The music that audience members dislike is therefore not music to them at all. Consequently, the composers who create music that audience members do not understand are therefore not composers at all.3
This dilemma plagues the classical music world in the twenty-first century. In 1937, “the median age at orchestra concerts in Los Angeles was 28.”4
This median age has since changed; most classical music concerts now contain an audience consisting of solely white, well-educated, fifty-plus attendees.5 The current aging audience many orchestras and symphonies are encountering is a cause for fear and worry among music directors and musicians alike. There has been a significant lack of new patrons and young ticket buyers to replace this aging audience, which has caused ticket sales to fall. The National Endowment for the Arts created a survey on public participation portraying this crisis. In
1. Milton Babbitt, Who Cares if You Listen? (1958) (originally titled “The Composer As Specialist”) (High Fidelity, 1958), 246 2. Ibid., 247 3. Ibid., 248 4. Mark Vanhoenacker, “Requiem Classical Music in American is Dead,” Slate (2014), accessed March 20, 2017,
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2012, adults who attended classical music concerts “declined from 9.3 percent of adults in 2008 to 8.8 percent.”6 The ages of audience members from 2008 to
2012 also drastically changed, wherein the attendance by adults between the ages of thirty-five to fifty-four reduced, while the attendance of those older than fifty- four grew significantly. Statistics reflected in classical album sales are also definitive proof of the lack of income and financial support from new patrons.
From 2012–2013, there was a 21 percent decline in classical album sales and
“just 2.8% of albums sold in 2013 were categorized as classical.”7 It has become a well-known fact that classical music audience members are diminishing yearly in America. According to Robert Flanagan, a Stanford emeritus professor,
“attendance per concert has fallen…even if every seat were filled, the vast majority of U.S. symphony orchestras still would face significant performance deficits.”8
Beyond these complications, classical composers and performers face an even larger struggle. Do composers compose to “pursue a private life of professional achievement” or should they now choose a “life of unprofessional compromise and exhibitionism?”9 All this for the sake of creating works that are simpler and perhaps easier to understand for a wide variety of potential new audiences? In the 20th century, this attitude towards caring about audience’s opinions largely did not exist. Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton
Webern, and Karlheinz Stockhausen began exploring the extremes of
6. Brian Wise, “NEA Report: Arts Audiences Grow More Diverse Amid Declines,” WQXR (2013), accessed March 21, 2017,
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contemporary music by creating new electronic instruments and exploring jarring new sounds from classical instruments. This exploration was extremely dissonant and confusing to many classical and non-classically trained ears. These composers literally “began to rally against the traditional conventions of music to produce compositions which lack tonal centers, known as atonal music.”10
This music was poorly received by many, as it was difficult to understand.
As stated by J. Peter Burkholder in his article Museum Pieces: The
Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years, “in no other period has art music been so divorced from other traditions…in no other period has so much music by so many talented composers been so hated and ignored, so little played or understood.”11 This music was challenging, and many musicians and audience members “turned back to Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, creating the concept of the ‘master’ and the ‘masterpiece’ in music and deifying these three as the geniuses of a great musical art.”12 Communication with audiences became less important than creating a “masterful” work.
This way of thinking of essentially ignoring audience members has now become a tradition seeping into our culture today; a tradition that has created in listeners a reaction of despising the new out of fear of lack of understanding.
Should classical music performers consequently choose to perform music that is largely deemed as “museum music” that audiences know and recognize instead of choosing music written during a contemporary time of exploration?
10. Richard Gray, “Audiences Hate Modern Classical Music Because Their Brains Cannot Cope,” The Telegraph (2010), accessed by March 21, 2017,
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To many, classical music has been defined as concerts featuring only old masterworks with composers of the past such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and
Brahms with no room for anything new. The need lies therein to redefine classical music as a genre that goes beyond style or sound, beyond any repertoire, and to encompass a new identity entirely. The future of classical music depends on the contemporaneous working classical musician and composer to devote themselves to connecting with their audience. Together they must birth a new era of accessible music from around the world supported by a more diverse audience by including more relatable music and providing commentary on current events performed in novel venues. Classical music now must employ contemporary and eclectic influences from various genres, adding more aspects that are familiar to non-musically trained audiences, as well as exploiting more creative uses of innovations in technology. It is only a new approach and a new definition that will allow classical music to survive and thrive.
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Chapter 2: Defining Classical Music
Before examining the ways that a musician, composer, or musical director can help to reverse the negative aspects of today’s classical music world, it is important to know how classical music has been defined in the past and what defines this genre today. The term “classical music” currently embodies all art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music including both religious and secular music from the 11th century onward and can be also referred to as a specific period from 1750 to 1820.
The common definition of “classical music” has evolved throughout history because humans have evolved. It morphed over time to be used for religious ceremonies, for folk dances, and even has been used for political and nationalistic purposes. Starting in the 16th century, the invention of the printing press provided the masses with great access to music and the music making process. The small madrigal grew to the large opera, which then grew to the first symphonic pieces composed where audiences and musicians could witness music progressing. Evolutions from the baroque era, to the contemporary era have seen drastic changes within each era that embody classical music as a whole. Why is it that the term “classical music” is now used to describe a large amount of stylistically diverse music spanning hundreds of years?
There have been other possible terms suggested in renaming this immense genre— “serious music” or “art music” have been suggested by many scholars
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over the years.13 But cannot a hip-hop ballad also be deemed “serious music” or a masterfully composed bebop tune be labeled as “art music”? As discovered in the earlier paragraphs, the term “classical music” stemmed from the term
“classicism.” This type of tradition of art, music and architecture in the ancient
Greece and Roman eras contained standards that were simple, balanced, and restrained. In this definition, music contains “perfect form and balance and proportion…tried more than anything to have a perfect shape.”14 However, to many, this definition seems incorrect as well. Classical music can also contain humor, wit, and can be imperfectly beautiful with not as perfectly shaped structures. Many times, the most imperfect structures in classical music can cause audiences to feel the most sorrow or pain.
Perhaps this music is named “classical” because it has withstood so many hundreds of years and has become a “classic”— something that is of usually the highest quality and is known to be an established work of art. Classical music can therefore be believed to be only for the elite, or in other words, the highest quality audience that will appreciate a fine work of art. This definition is toxic to the music community as a whole. Redefining this genre carries the same challenge for all music in general because many of the genres that have developed through classical music contain many of the same qualities as classical music. A DJ must still first compose electronic beats as a classical composer does, and jazz melodies are also written on manuscript paper just as
13. Leonard Bernstein, “What is Classical Music?” interviewed with New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts #2 (Leonard Bernstein at 100, January 1959, New York City, New York), accessed April 10, 2017,
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Mozart and Beethoven had done. Perhaps the new definition audiences use to label classical music should involve the aspects that classical music contains that no other genre does not — for example, “orchestral music,” “symphonic music” or even “harmonically-notated formal music.”
With this current definition, classical music concerts have become stuffy: held in pristine concert halls where people are forced to sit in their pre-assigned seats. Pop music, hip hop, and jazz concerts on the other hand, audiences are free to sing along, interact with the musicians, and even record their favorite tune.
They can wear any kind of casual attire they wish to wear, and can come and go as they please. The formal elegance of a classical concert invites an elitist environment. Music must progress into the new century as it has in the past. To explore the transformations from the elegant Baroque era, to the “grandeur of the classical style, which in turn gave way to the languid sensuality and unbridled passion of Romanticism,”15 is to trace how the human race has evolved as a whole.
15. Heather Mac Donald, “Classical Music’s New Golden Age,” City Journal (2010), accessed April 10, 2017,
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Chapter 3: Looking to The Future
When classical music was only an era and not a designation for all music currently performed in a concert hall, it was the contemporary music of the day.
In the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic Eras, music was performed frequently and was modern, revolutionary, and forward-looking. The music of the past was rarely performed.16 It is also important to note that in the past, the audiences during these periods of time consisted of “both connoisseurs and those less knowledgeable, and all elements of the audience could find pleasure in a single work of art.”17
For the past one hundred years, however, classical music concerts have consisted of “music written for an audience familiar with the art music of the
18th and 19th centuries.”18 Orchestras across the country have created entire seasons featuring the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn: music of the past. Only a few modern works are exhibited in an average orchestra season for audience members to experience that reflect today’s society and state.19 In
Ricky O’Bannon’s article By The Numbers, shocking information has surfaced surveying the typical 2015–2016 Orchestra season in the United States. Some staggering numbers of these 89 American Symphony Orchestras demonstrated that for both major American symphonies as well as smaller regional groups, the average date of a composition performed in a season is 1882 (which is a
16. J. Peter Burkholder, The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years (California: University of California Press, 1983), 118 17. Ibid., 117 18. Ibid., 116 19. Rickey O’Bannon, “By the Numbers,” Baltimore Symphony Ocrhestra (2015), accessed March 21, 2017,
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midpoint of the romantic era in classical music).20 For most orchestras across the country, the concert hall has now become a kind of listening “museum” featuring composers of the past. If this demand for music of the Classical and Romantic
Era continues, classical music as a whole will cease to fully continue in its evolution, and will therefore cease to live.21
Because the repertoire of a classical concert features mostly works of the past, the classical concert has taken on the shape of a lecture hall “requiring background study and concentration on the part of audiences…emphasizing the intellectual,”22 therefore rendering the classical concert a stuffy, unwelcoming environment to many. It is now assumed that attendees of symphonic concerts in the 21st century must be attentive and well informed while listening.23 In Stephen
Moss’s article, People Will Find Their Own Way to It, Moss wrote about how he was approached by a music critic while researching audience members for the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This critic had the notion that “the audience for classical music has always been small…classical music is hard, it won’t appeal to everyone, let the masses carry on wondering.”24 Both Stephen
Moss and David Robertson: a music director of the St. Louis Symphony
Orchestra firmly disagree with this stance that only the elite and highly intelligent can understand classical music. Robertson is extremely passionate of promoting new works with his symphony and has attempted to bring more new
20. Rickey O’Bannon, “By the Numbers.” 21. Milton Babbitt, 250 22. J. Peter Burkholder, 117 23. Stephanie E. Pitts, Melissa C. Dobso, Kate Gee, Christopher P. Spencer, Views of an Audience: Understanding the Orchestral Concert Experience from Player and Listener Perspectives (UK: University of Sheffield, 2013), accessed March 22, 2017,
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works to his halls than any symphony in the country. However passionate he may be about premiering new works, Robertson still must stick to what so many concert organizations have deemed “‘The 50,’ which is 50 works that the largest number of people can agree are great masterworks of classical music…these 50 works are the pieces that get played with the greatest frequency.”25 Many symphonies across the nation are forced to entertain entire seasons with this in mind out of fear of losing their aging audience to new music that might be too outlandish or difficult to understand.
25. Tom Huizenga, “Why Are American Orchestras Afraid of New Symphonies?,” NPR Music (2013), accessed March 22, 2017,
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Chapter 4: Music Audiences Can Relate To
As a result of this need to program music of the past, some composers have attempted to modify the way they compose to please the audience’s demand for more tonal music; music with a sense of the familiar that is similar to composing styles of the past. In order to become successful younger composers now must “create music in the tradition of art music which would say something new, while incorporating what was best and most useful from the music of the past.”26 Some current composers however, are also looking into current events and other historical incidents for inspiration. In creating music with current historical influences, classical music can seem more accessible to audiences that can relate to these events regardless of its tonality.
One notable composer trying to bridge the gap between classical music and current events in America is John Adams. Terrorism is seen to many
Americans as a criminal activity filled with extreme hatred that is absolutely inexcusable. American composer John Adams, however, defines terrorism as “an act of desperation.”27 In his eyes, terrorism is an act that “goes to the max.”28 He viewed this extremist scenario as a perfect plot for his controversial opera, Death of Klinghoffer. Opera contains dramatic acting, powerfully sung commentary on social norms, and until recently controversial political events. Opera is the “most irrational art form…[that]…through compelling music, often [causes] us to enjoy
26. J. Peter Burkholder, 120 27. Metropolitan Opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer: 2014-2015 New Production,” accessed March 23, 2017
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the company of characters we might normally dislike.”29 Through this dramatic historical event of the execution of Leon Klinghoffer, John Adams imagined the unthinkable and created an incredibly controversial opera which supported the
Jewish American community and Palestinians and their desperate terrorist act simultaneously.
Another prominent composer trying to change the way audiences can experience and perhaps even heal after tragic events is Steve Reich with such incredibly powerful compositions as WTC 9/11. This piece was composed as a memorial to those murdered by the September 11th attacks. In this emotionally charged piece, Steve Reich hired the Kronos Quartet (a traditionally classical string quartet) to imitate the manipulated recorded voices from emergency dispatchers, and interviews with close friends who had lost loved ones that day.30
The passages from everyday people who experienced this tragic event were formed into “speech melodies”31 Some of the emotional quotes used in this piece included “I was sitting in class. Four blocks north of Ground Zero” and “debris engulfed everybody that was there.” where instruments imitate the inflections of the human voice. This was a new technique that Reich had invented years earlier that created melodies out of naught and added a humanistic element of understanding to the composition. These composers who incorporate historical events that generations in this country have experienced have a rare voice that not only would solve the crisis of “dying” classical music, but would also help
29. Mark Swed, “Seeking Answers in Opera,” in The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer (NJ: Amadeua, 2006), 327. 30. Jayson Greene, “Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet WTC 9/11,” Pitchfork (2011), accessed March 23, 2017,
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this genre in its advancement into a more humanistic, accessible art form that could attract a more diverse audience.
In addition to featuring composers who create works using current events, some orchestras are now attempting to bring in other aspects of familiarity for their audiences who may not be musically trained. One such group is the Los
Angeles Philharmonic. Every season, the LA Phil performs many works that are familiar to audiences that come directly from their favorite films or even cartoons. This orchestra has been known to perform the soundtrack to Bugs
Bunny cartoons and music by the great film composer John Williams. In a recent concert, the orchestra performed the music from the film Casablanca with the entire movie being projected in the background inside the world-famous Walt
Disney Concert Hall. This innovative and commercial programming may seem gimmicky to many classically trained musicians. To the contrary, this programming can help to reshape and redefine classical music as a whole.
Adding music that is familiar to a wide variety of audiences can encourage more people to attend these traditionally highbrow mediums that may have never thought of entering those halls deemed solely for the sophisticated. Perhaps the audience member that enjoyed hearing their favorite film score being performed live may lean more towards returning to hear a more traditional classical concert because the venue was welcoming and open to a more varied audience. Including these types of concerts can help to make the classical music world more inviting and hospitable to an audience member who is not musically trained.
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Chapter 5: Diversifying Audiences and Music
Just as the repertoire in the classical concert season has transformed, audience members have also changed over the last hundred years. As stated by
Mintel, a global research and market company, classical music now seems to appeal “only to a narrow demographic: getting on in years, retired, white, middle class.”32 Why is this happening? Is it because new music has been deemed inaccessible and audience members prefer to attend concerts with musical composers they recognize? David Robertson, the music director of the St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra, believes there are other reasons why new music has not been featured in symphony halls across the United States.
I think this is harder now than it was, say, in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s, when there were still roadblocks to getting your new piece played, but there were fewer of them than there are today…most of todays’ composers tend to write for groups that they know, or chamber music groups that are interested in pieces of music. So the symphony has taken its place as this kind of mythic Mt. Olympus that you can scale at your own peril.33
What a conductor and music director must now essentially do to make sure their orchestra survives to see another season is to please the concertgoer as best as they can with what they are familiar with. “People feel that their time as audience members is extremely restricted and they really just want the best.”34
Thus, many concert organizations will only perform certain composers and
32. Stephen Moss, “People Will Find Their Own Way to It.” 33. Tom Huizenga, “Why Are American Orchestras Afraid of New Symphonies?.” 34. Ibid.
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pieces that are deemed by a large number of people as master works by master composers of the past.35
The typical classical music audience member’s views not only hinder concertgoers’ ears and performers’ creativity, but also cause the genre’s evolution to retard. It is essential to understand works of our past, but to also acknowledge incredible works that are being written today by diverse composers who are living through what we are experiencing today in the modern world together. Music can be for any man, woman, or child of any race, religion or color. This way of thinking can be transferred to all art forms and can be observed in the evolutions of painting, fashion and even film.
The great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock cared deeply about his audience and their emotions. This caring nature towards his audience has not been always positive, but was always present none-the-less. When asked about his “deep logic” in movies, Hitchcock stated that his job in his horror film Psycho was “to make people suffer.”36 He liked to “play the audience of his films ‘like a piano’
…with a careful and shrewd understanding of how each creative decision helped to shape a different experience for the viewer.”37 Composers in the 21st century should take note of this filmmaker’s tactics and understand that their audiences need to be the most important instrument to ensure success and the survival of classical music as a whole.
35. Tom Huizenga, “Why Are American Orchestras Afraid of New Symphonies?.” 36. Frances Wilson, “How Hitchcock Instilled His Own Anxieties in His Audience,” Newsweek (2015), accessed March 23, 2017,
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The Kronos Quartet, a world-famous string quartet based in the San
Francisco area, is working to ensure this survival by creating concerts to entice a more diverse audience. The members of this string quartet have had a successful career performing classical modern works while donning rock and roll attire.
They included music on their programming with music arranged by jazz legends
Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Maria Schneider, and rock artists Jimi
Hendrix and indie-rock group Sigur Ros to attract an audience that may not be musically trained. This string group is changing the way their audiences can experience classical music. Audiences are able to experience something new and something familiar at the same time. Performances that both combine classical music and popular music together can help to influence a new generation of potential audience members that will embrace the past and the future.
Adding more popular genres to a classical concert setting can be successful, but it is important to note that music from other cultures from around the world may still not be represented. Data from the 2015 to 2016 orchestra season in America reveals an alarming 0.5% of music performed by American orchestras were composers from Latin and South America, Asia, and the Middle
East, from pre-1950.38 This data clearly infers that the classical music world has changed from being an evolutionary art form during Mozart and Beethoven’s era, to becoming an exclusive art form: closing its doors to any other cultural influence. Our nation is “becoming more racially and ethnically diverse…already over a third of the United States are people of color” and this number is
38. Rickey O’Bannon, “By the Numbers.”
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estimated to rise to almost half by 2040.39 Choosing music written by composers other than European traditions could begin to bridge the diversity gap that most orchestras are currently facing.
Orchestras should begin to diversify their programs in order to bring forward a new generation of listeners that are open to explore cultures outside of the European tradition. The Chicago Sinfoinetta, for example, is working to discover new and innovative ways in making classical music more culturally diverse for more varied audiences. The Sinfoinetta hosted a concert in October of
2015 filled with tap dancers accenting the staccato rhythms of Stravinsky’s
Firebird Suite, flamenco dancers all romantically swaying to Rimsky Korsakov’s
Scheherazade, and “gospel music into a tribute to the U.S. armed forces between movements of Dvorak’s New World Symphony.”40 This classical concert titled
“Tap In. Turn Up” was an incredibly original way to create more diversity in the concert hall and brought in many different types of people to their venue: armed forces, veterans, dance enthusiasts, and gospel aficionados. It is also important to note that within actual symphonies and orchestras across America, “on average, only four percent of orchestras [members] are Black and Latino combined.”41
While many orchestras face this diversity dilemma in programming, it seems the problem may also lie in the hiring of musicians with different cultural backgrounds.
39. Andres T. Tapia, “How Diversity Can Help Save Classical Music,” Senior Client Partner and Global Practice Leader Workforce Performance, Inclusion and Diversity Practice Korn Ferry Hay Group (2016), accessed April 2, 2017,
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This change can happen though simple awareness in audition processes, knowing that “plenty of female and minority musicians with world-class skills are available.”42 The process of holding solely blind auditions could also help to omit this kind of segregation in the audition process. Before blind auditions in orchestras became standard, many orchestras had fewer women and players of various races. In the 1970s, “the top five orchestras in the U.S. had fewer than five percent women.”43 Through the years and through the requirement of utilizing blind auditions, that percentage has grown significantly to up to twenty- five percent in 1997 with some orchestras holding close to thirty percent of female musicians.44 It has been proven that even when the blind auditions are in place for orchestras for preliminary rounds, the chance that a woman will advance to the final round climbs to fifty percent.45 If more women and people of color enter into the orchestra working force, a more diverse audience will follow.
When interviewed on this topic of diversity in audiences and orchestras, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Paul Freeman stated that the orchestra should be “about diversity, top to bottom. Our primary social mission has always been to provide music for everyone — all races, all creeds.”46
42. Andres T. Tapia, “How Diversity Can Help Save Classical Music.” 43. Ibid. 44. Curt Rice, “How Blind Auditions Help Orchestras to Eliminate Gender Bias,” The Guardian (2013), accessed April 2, 2017,
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Chapter 6: Innovation and Technology in Classical Music
We are among a new age of technology and electronics where a new younger generation is constantly being bombarded with a multitude of stimulus, information, and different types of music from all different viewpoints. Amidst this age group of highly educated young people, classical music and the act of going to classical concerts is not as popular as it has been in the past. In a 2012
“study of dislikes” conducted by Science Direct found that “classical music faces growing hurdles to reaching the demographic that orchestras and concert presenters covet most: college-educated young people.”47 This study revealed that “classical music is increasingly ‘disliked’ by ‘high-status’ young people: 15 percent dislike it today compared with 8 percent in 1993.”48 Classical music has become difficult to relate to among many in the younger generation amidst the vast world of various musical choices.
One way composers have attempted to bring a more diverse crowd interested in technology and other more popular music genres is to create works that embody the American spirit and the heritage of Americans: essentially by adding jazz influences to their works. One of the very first composers to create such a piece with jazz influence in the classical style is the world famous George
Gershwin and his Rhapsody in Blue. The premier of this piece, however, inspired a large amount of controversy and backlash. Many critics believed that George
Gershwin “straddled the divide between the so-called ‘high’ and ‘low’ realms of
47. Brian Wise, “NEA Report: Arts Audiences Grow More Diverse Amid Declines.” 48. Ibid.
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art.”49 He had utilized his influences of jazz to create an American new-music movement where many other composers followed suit. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in
Blue was a classical piece that “recognized the importance of jazz and acknowledged, if with certain limitations, its roots in black America.”50 This work was incredibly controversial during its premiere, but has now grown to be one of his most popular works and is performed very frequently in orchestras across the country.
Armando Ghidoni, a contemporary Italian composer, also utilizes similar jazz influences in composing his chamber ensemble and concerto works. When asked who influenced his piece Jazzy Flute Challenge, Ghidoni stated that the typical composer is always influenced by the greats “Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler,
Stravinsky…” but also continued on to say “Bernstein, Copland, Duke Ellington,
Count Basie and George Gershwin.”51 These varied influences appear prominently in all the pieces Ghidoni composes, from his piece for alto saxophone, flute, and piano, such as Classical Fugue Goes Jazz, to his Jazzy
Flute Challenge composition for flute and piano. They all encompass a deep understanding of classical style combined with an appreciation for jazz.
Composers can use more popular influences to create works that will draw an audience that can relate better to said influences. In order for classical music to evolve and include a more technologically savvy generation of concertgoers,
49. Carol J. Oja, “Gershwin and American Modernists of the 1920s,” in The Musical Quarterly, Vol 78, No. 4 (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1994), 646. 50. Ibid., 654. 51. Armando Ghidoni, interview by the author, 31 March, 2017, California.
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composers and musicians should experiment with various combinations of genres.
The concert hall should include “more of a sense of moving beyond the standard repertoire... mixing classical music with other music influences that are more in tune with younger demographics.”52 Innovative composer David Baker believes this way of thinking whole-heartedly with his groundbreaking work entitled Concertino for Cell Phones and Orchestras. In this composition, audience members participate in the performance and chime their cell phones with cues from red lights and green lights seen on stage during certain parts of the performance. In this piece, the composer essentially gives the audience their own part to play.53 Composer Baker recognized this and even stated “the piece was also a recognition that cellphones are not going to go away.”54 The world is changing, and the continued performance of music by composers who have long passed in season after season must adapt in order to maintain vitality.
Many composers and musicians have begun to embrace new technology in composing and performing pieces. One composer that is working to reshape the contemporary stigma of new music being inaccessible to audiences is Ian Dicke.
Composer of Chapter One, Page One a piece for flute and electronics, Ian is quickly becoming a pioneer in creating works with electronics that are easy to use for performers and are extremely accessible to anyone interested in his works. Dicke’s pieces are able to capture clarity of expression while integrating
52. Brian Wise, “NEA Report: Arts Audiences Grow More Diverse Amid Declines.” 53. Andres T. Tapia, “How Diversity Can Help Save Classical Music.” 54. Daniel J. Wakin, “Horns Up. Bows Ready. Cellphones On,” The New York Times (2006), accessed March 23, 2017,
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acoustic ensembles with cutting edge audio processing techniques. This inventive way of composing has pushed Dicke to use his pieces to promote a better understanding of classical music as a whole. It has also helped him to create a concert series titled The Outpost Concert Series featuring “performances of music that fearlessly explores groundbreaking territory.”55 This series features composers and musicians who are willing to explore the unknown and to connect to audiences with new advances in technology. When asked about the relationship between composers and audiences in today’s classical music world, Dicke explained that he believes the relationship has improved and that “composers are finding ways of writing interesting music with many unusual orchestrations and extended techniques while maintaining a memorable and positive experience for audiences.”56
55. Ian Dicke, “Outpost Concert Series,” (2016), accessed April 2, 2017,
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Chapter 7: Adventurous Venues
Orchestras and symphonies across the country need to embrace innovative technology and program new composers into their seasons to bring a new generation of audience members to their halls. Many orchestras can incorporate technology into their musical programing choices and explore possible new venues to lure in varied audience members.
Many orchestras have included different venues in their programming seasons. The LA Philharmonic for example, hosts their concerts at the
Hollywood Bowl (an amphitheater in California) during the summer season.
Orchestras that feature an outdoor concert series during the summer almost always brings in total higher revenue.57 On one study taken by the U.S. Census, festival audiences (i.e. outdoor classical music concerts) “have slightly more females and African Americans”58 than compared to indoor venues. With these statistics alone, outdoor venues can be a new innovative way orchestras can appeal to a larger, more family friendly way of showcasing classical music.
One opera company based in Los Angeles has taken the search for an innovative venue to a new level and created an almost performance art type of classical music concert experience called Hopscotch. This experimental opera is based off of the Orpheus tale in Greek mythology and premiered in October of
2015. This opera was incredibly innovative in its venue choices that took place
57. Bohne Silber, Carole Rosenstein, “Live From Your Neighborhood.” Volume One: Summary Report National Endowment for the Arts Research Report #51 (2010), accessed March 23, 2017,
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in 24 cars exploring the downtown Los Angeles area.59 Audience members got to experience driving in cars with the performers in a condition many Americans have experienced in completely new way. This is an ingenious way to bring so many various communities together to celebrate the world of classical music and all it can bring to our lives. Hopscotch was one creative way to reinvent the typical classical music venues and was incredibly successful because of it.
Other orchestras or composers can attempt to reach a larger audience by searching for venues that are more popular than a classical music hall. One composer in particular has gone from composing for film scores to bringing film scores to life in a venue at which no other classical composer has attempted to perform: Coachella Valley of Music and Arts Festival, a festival that typically features hip-hop, indie, pop, and rock artists.
Hans Zimmer, composer of films such as The Dark Knight and The Lion King performed these famous scores with his orchestra with a more rock-heavy influence. Bringing his music to this world famous popular venue was intimidating for the composer who had been stewing on the idea for years.
The reason I didn’t do this for the longest time is that I’ve always had a problem with the way we present orchestral music…why would you spend an evening of your precious time with a man with his back to you and a bunch of people in suits reading the paper?60
This innovative creativity Hans Zimmer has brought to the classical music world will help to redefine what it means to attend a classical music concert. Instead of waiting for
59. Jessica Gelt, “’Hopscotch,’ The Experimental Opera Performed in Cars, Gets Repackaged For Your Vehicle,” Los Angeles Times (2016), accessed March 23, 2017,
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an audience to attend a classical music concert, musicians and composers should be more aggressive in bringing the music to the masses.
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Chapter 8: Conclusion
Classical music has survived since its’ beginning during the Baroque Era progressing into what we define as classical music today. Aging audiences, lack of support, and folding orchestras across America, however, has caused the classical music world to cast doubt as to whether or not it will survive another hundred years to come.
Redefining classical music must become an essential part of the creative process of composers, musicians, and music directors. Regardless of whether or not an audience member feels a new composition is “good” or “bad,” this genre should continue to inspire, and to teach humanity to all. To strive for model of classical music in which it belongs to all communities that make up our modern society.
The purpose of classical music, and all art forms, for that matter, is to stimulate the aesthetic of the human condition. There will always be positive and negative opinions on specific performances of classical music. The audience, however biased they may be, should always walk away feeling some kind of emotion, or a new understanding. Our job as classical musicians has always been to give a compelling musical experience for all types of audience members, and if adding more familiar genres helps this experience, then it should be our duty to program more. It is our job as classical musicians to change the classical music world into a more diverse one and to extinguish the stigma behind performing new music from current composers. Classical music can be utilized to bring understanding towards difficult situations and bring awareness to the troubles the world is facing and should be explored more often in classical concert venues. Through all this, classical music will not only survive, but thrive.
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Bibliography
Babbitt, Milton. Who Cares if You Listen? (1958) (originally titled “The Composer As Specialist”). Massachusetts: High Fidelity, 1958.
Bernstein, Leonard. “What is Classical Music?” Interview with New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts #2. Leonard Bernstein at 100. (January 1959). Accessed April 10, 2017.
Burkholder, J. Peter. The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years. California: University of California Press, The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1983.
Dicke, Ian. “Outpost Concert Series.” (2016). Accessed April 2, 2017.
Dicke, Ian. Personal email communication. April 12, 2017.
Gelt, Jessica. “’Hopscotch,’ The Experimental Opera Performed in Cars, Gets Repackaged For Your Vehicle.” Los Angeles Times (2016). Accessed March 23, 2017.
Ghidoni, Armando. Personal email communication. March 31, 2017.
Gray, Richard. “Audiences Hate Modern Classical Music Because Their Brains Cannot Cope.” The Telegraph (2010). Accessed by March 21, 2017.
Greene, Jayson. “Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet WTC 9/11.” Pitchfork (2011). Accessed March 23, 2017
Huizenga, Tom. “Why Are American Orchestras Afraid of New Symphonies?” NPR Music (2013). Accessed March 22, 2017.
Mac Donald, Heather. “Classical Music’s New Golden Age.” City Journal (2010). Accessed April 10, 2017.
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Metropolitan Opera. “The Death of Klinghoffer: 2014-15 New Production.” Accessed March 23, 2017.
Moss, Stephen. “People Will Find Their Own Way to It.” The Guardian (2007). Accessed March 20, 2017.
O’Bannon, Ricky. “By the Numbers.” Baltimore Symphony Ocrhestra (2015). Accessed March 21, 2017.
Oja, Carol J. “Gershwin and American Modernists of the 1920s.” In The Musical Quarterly, Vol 78, No. 4 646-668. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Pitts, Stephanie E. and Melissa C. Dobso, Kate Gee, Christopher P. Spencer. Views of an Audience: Understanding the Orchestral Concert Experience from Player and Listener Perspectives. UK: University of Sheffield (2013). Accessed March 22, 2017.
Rice, Curt. “How Blind Auditions Help Orchestras to Eliminate Gender Bias.” The Guardian (2013). Accessed April 2, 2017.
Silber, Bohne and Carole Rosenstein. “Live From Your Neighborhood.” Volume One: Summary Report National Endowment for the Arts Research Report #51 (2010). Accessed March 23, 2017.
Swed, Mark. “Seeking Answers in Opera.” In The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an America Composer 321-327. NJ: Amadeua, 2006.
Tapia, Andres T. “How Diversity Can Help Save Classical Music.” Senior Client Partner and Global Practice Leader Workforce Performance, Inclusion and Diversity Practice Korn Ferry Hay Group (2016). Accessed April 2, 2017.
Tsioulcas, Anastasia. “First Listen: Steve Reich, ‘WTC 9/11’.” NPR Music (2011). Accessed March 23, 2017.
Vanhoenacker, Mark. “Requiem Classical Music in American is Dead.” Slate (2014). Accessed March 20, 2017.
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Wakin, Daniel J. “Horns Up. Bows Ready. Cellphones On.” The New York Times (2006). Accessed March 23, 2017.
Wilson, Frances. “How Hitchcock Instilled His Own Anxieties in His Audience.” Newsweek (2015). Accessed March 23, 2017.
Wise, Brian. “NEA Report: Arts Audiences Grow More Diverse Amid Declines.” WQXR (2013). Accessed March 21, 2017.
Wood, Mikael. “Why Hans Zimmer is Bringing his Oscar- Winning Film Music to Coachella.” Los Angeles Times (2017). Accessed May 6, 2017.
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Appendix A: Title Page of Interview and Participant Disclaimer
I, Shannon Canchola, am researching and collecting information for my graduate thesis entitled, “Redefining Classical Music.”
My thesis will explore the aspects a composers considers when creating a new piece and their consideration for the audiences they write for. Through this interviewing process, classical music can essentially be morphed into an art form that can be accessible to all.
My thesis is in partial fulfillment of the Master of Music degree in Flute
Performance at California State University, Northridge.
Shannon Canchola
Name:
By completing this interview, you are authorizing the use of your comments n my graduate thesis. The final copy of the thesis will be made available to the public on the
California State University, Northridge Oviatt Library online database.
Signature: ______Date: ______
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Appendix B: Composer Interview Questions
1. What is your job (for audiences)?
2. Who did you learn from? Who was your inspiration when you first began to
composer?
3. Should we compose for upper-class minds that have been musically trained? Who
should classical music be for?
4. Who do you want your audiences to be?
5. How do you feel the relationship between composers and audiences has changed?
6. Do you composer music with the intent for lasting value or for your own
creativity?
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Appendix C: Interviews
Interview #1: Armando Ghidoni, Composer (March 31, 2017 Email)61
1. What is your job (for audiences)?
I am a composer. I compose classical music, chamber music. same times ago I
composed jazz music too for jazz orchestra but today I am more and more in MY
"CLASSICAL MUSIC".
2. Who did you learn from? Who was your inspiration when you first began to
composer?
I had a lot of teachers but three teachers are most important to me. Giuseppe
Saccomani top me the base of harmony. I found within him the wonderful world
of harmony. Attilio Donadio was a nether teacher of mine that was a great
composer and arranger. He composed for television, radio, important shows, for
everything: jazz band, singers, chamber music, Symphony Orchestra he gave me
the secret how to find an have my music and not to be a “copy” of someone. He
believed in my talent. Without Donadio today, I would not be the composer I am
today. Roger Boutry, the “Grand prix de Rome”, I knew him in Paris. Very
important for his advice on orchestration. Today we are friends and I’m so proud
about this and his advice is still very important for me. These three different
teachers trusted in me. They believed in me and for this reason, today I am a
composer with a personal style and impersonal way in the music world.
Some other composers I am inspired by our Mozart, Beethoven, Malher,
59. My Interview with composer was done in English, which is not the composers’ native language. To retain his thoughts, I have kept his responses without editing.
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Stravinsky, Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Debussy, Ravel and many more including
Bernstein, Copland and Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Gershwin, and John
Williams…
3. Should we compose for upper-class minds that have been musically trained? Who
should classical music be for?
For me the music must enter in the heart and soul of everybody. The Music is
Spiritual, the Music is THE VOICE OF THE SOUL and the SOUL IS GOD......
The Music (or all the art) don't speak to the heart and soul is not really music is
not really art. This is my PERSONAL advise, that I feel and my "credo".
4. Who do you want your audiences to be?
Everybody. All the people in the world. There is no difference between humans.
5. How do you feel the relationship between composers and audiences has changed?
The problem today is lot contemporary music don't speak to the heart and soul so
the audience don't feel it, so they don't really like this music. We must learn and
progress in the music like in the life but we must think the man is a part of body
and a spiritual part heart soul sensations emotions feeling..... all these part feel the
music. The contemporary music is just for the body so we don't feel anything
when the audience listen that music so they don't like. No emotions, no passions
nothing so no contemporary music.
6. Do you composer music with the intent for lasting value or for your own
creativity?
When I compose I don't think anything. Really! I feel the music in me and I
wrote it. When I compose I want to be alone, totally full immersion in my
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emotions and my "music's sound world". When I finish to compose the piece I am
tired but so deep happy. Deep in my heart and soul and I feel me.
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Interview #2: Ian Dicke, Composer (April 12, 2017 Email)
1. What is your job (for audiences)?
My job as an artist is to challenge audiences, while providing them with an
engaging experience. I believe there are countless artistic impulses hidden within
our daily lives and my work focuses on finding new modes of musical
expression within these experiences.
2. Who did you learn from? Who was your inspiration when you first began to
composer?
My principle teachers were David Conte (San Francisco Conservatory), Michael
Daugherty (University of Michigan), and Dan Welcher (University of Texas).
Writing and playing music was a great escape for me in high school and I
gradually began to take it more seriously after I went to college.
3. Should we compose for upper-class minds that have been musically trained? Who
should classical music be for?
It is for everyone.
4. Who do you want your audiences to be?
Anyone curious about hearing work outside of what is produced by the mass-
marketed music industry.
5. How do you feel the relationship between composers and audiences has changed?
I think it has greatly improved since the thorny “academic” period of
contemporary music (ca. 1950-1980). Composers are finding ways of writing
interesting music with many unusual orchestrations and extended techniques
while maintaining a memorable and positive experience for audiences.
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6. Do you compose music with the intent for lasting value or for your own
creativity?
I think we all want lasting value. I am interested in creating music that embodies
the passion I feel for a variety of issues, particularly works that are political in
nature.
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Appendix D: Recital Program
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