SAN ANTONIO – It is the sound of a thousand grasshoppers high on methamphetamines, stuck in a shoebox and chirping into a loud megaphone.
To the well-trained ear, however, it is unmistakably “Threnody of the Victims of Hiroshima,” a hymn of mourning in memorial of Japan’s atomic bomb victims, written by Polish classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki.
Until my introduction to Penderecki, my perception of classical music was long boring piano pieces and melodic trips up and down a harpsichord.
But there is much more, like George Crumb’s “Night of the Electric Insects,” an electrified version of our grasshoppers on meth, or Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Eight Songs for a Mad King,” a piece where performers sit on stage in large, golden bird cages.
Hearing these songs opened up my mind to a different part of the art of organized sound, and it sparked an interest in classical music that will never die.
Recently, I was extremely pleased to hear that the man who introduced me to this classic genre, Dr. Timothy Kramer, my former professor at San Antonio’s Trinity University, was having a piece premier at Carnegie Hall earlier this year and doubly pleased to hear that another would have its world premier by the San Antonio Symphony early next year.
But groups of classical musicians, be they symphonies or quartets, are suffering from lack of exposure and interest. Symphonies constantly struggle to negotiate contracts with their musicians, raise enough funds to rent the venues and drum up enough support to turn a consistent profit. This struggle can be boiled down to three significant problems experienced by any symphony anywhere in the country.
Programs Symphony directors have difficult decisions to make when it comes to picking the selections for any given program. After all, there are more than six hundred years of composers to choose from, and the style of those composers range over every possible musical experience imaginable.
Do you choose something reliable, such as Richard Wagner's “Ride of the Valkyrie” or something obscure from Austrian composer György Ligeti's catalog of dissonant music? This decision is made based on dozens of factors, not limited to the desire of your intended audience and the ability of any particular ensemble to play any particular selection. Selection of music primarily hinges on who will pay for what. The reliable audience, consisting primarily of older listeners and season ticket holders, usually wants to hear the classics: Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich. They cringe when a symphony director chooses something new and bold, such as Michael Daugherty’s “Metropolis Symphony,” based on the rise and fall of Superman in the DC comics universe. But if the goal of these directors is bringing in a young, diverse crowd – who are familiar with “Ride of the Valkyrie” from classic cartoons of Elmer Fudd who sung it as "Kill the Wabbit" – the classics will not do.
Publicity How do you publicize the symphony and its performances with a budget that's already stretched thin? For big-budget movies, pop albums or rock concerts, major publicity campaigns are funded by millions of dollars from production studios, corporate sponsors or anticipated future profits of the venture. While many of the country’s symphonies benefit from corporate contributions, those dollars rarely can be spent on publicity. There are already too many needs to meet. To overcome the problem of promotion, symphonies around the country are going to have to develop radical publicity campaigns to blitz the market and negate the effects of insufficient funding.
Technology Earlier in September, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Great Britain announced it would be the first major symphony in the world to produce a regular podcast. In a time when a 12-year-old with a little free time, a decent computer and immense knowledge of comic books can create a podcast in 20 minutes, it seems that symphonies are too far behind in taking advantage of this new technology. To penetrate the market in a significant way, symphonies and ensembles need to realize the full potential of the Internet. After all, it is the cheapest way to get publicity.
As long as people love music, there will always be an audience for classical music performances. But the nature of these performances, as well as who will listen to them, depends on the reaction of modern symphonies and directors to the changing world around them. , a TheSequitur.com Editorial Board Member-at-Large, is a senior editor at Educational Testing Service.
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