new blog of interest



The violinist Christina Fong has just started her own blog on the Sequenza21 site. It's good to see a performer of new music with a forum for herself. Interestingly, we've never actually met, even though she was kind enough to ask me to arrange something for a forthcoming album. In her blog, Christina argues that there is an audience for new music, but that orchestras often neglect this audience. I think some of the problem, aside from parochialism, is the business reality. Unlike Europe, most concert performances in the US are not subsidized by the state. Rather, subscribers foot much of the bill. As a result, orchestras tend to program what they think the subscribers want to hear. It's short sighted, since they're not attracting members of their future audiences. New music is often relegated to "token" status, and often near the end of the program so that people who don't want to hear it can leave and not feel too cheated.

While I really don't admire much of the benign programming that I see from many orchestras and other ensembles, I can't totally blame the performers. They have to cater to their revenue base. If the "typical" subscriber thinks that music written in 1909 by Schoenberg is radical and new, then why should the orchestra program much music written within the past five years? The whole idea that Stravinsky and Ives are "modern" drives me nuts-much of their work is over 60 years old now.

What we need is better sponsorship of the arts, including from the government. One problem is that when our government sponsors art, it finds itself having to control that funding, so that "objectionable" uses of taxpayer money won't take place. It's a strange conundrum, and I wish there were a better solution. Performances of a lot of different music is a much healthier situation than what we currently have, and the orchestra is in danger of being a relic if it doesn't broaden its horizons.

Posted: Mon - March 7, 2005 at 02:19 PM          

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