Beethoven on a Toothpick

Last week, I posted a refutation to the idea that classical music–or more specifically, the symphony orchestra–is no longer a relevant art form in contemporary culture, and pointed to the growing entrepreneurial musicianship movement as a solution to many of its current problems, such as dwindling audiences and unstable financial situations. This week, I am continuing the discussion with the thoughts of Greg Sandow, who recently published a great blog post exploring the various ways in which one might go about recruiting new audiences in the current cultural climate. Establishing from the beginning of his post that “the new audience we want to find isn’t a classical music audience,” he offers some creative and practical ideas that underline the effectiveness of active self-promotion. Putting up posters, posting blogs, or offering a ticket discount to the fiftieth person who “likes” your Facebook page will do absolutely nothing, Sandow claims. Instead, we need to reach out to prospective audiences by performing where they already are–in coffee shops, clubs, or art galleries–all while slowly accumulating a list of names and contacts that we can rely on for support in future endeavors.
Reading the post upon returning from my weekly grocery shopping expedition (not a small feat when one is a grad student without reliable access to a car), I was reminded of the workers who give out free food samples at the supermarket. They don’t assume that we’re going to be enticed by the signs in aisle five advertising their special store-brand desserts–they will actually dangle the dessert in front of us on a toothpick as we hurriedly pass between the produce section and the dairy aisle. And who can say no to a dessert on a toothpick?
If we reach out to potential audience members in the ways that Sandow describes, we are essentially replacing the dessert at the end of the toothpick with a rich, creamy sampling of classical music–a Beethoven string quartet, perhaps. We are just offering a sampler–but if we do it well, our potential audience base might like it enough to join us in the concert hall for the main course.
Follow the link below to read the full text of Sandow’s post and consider how you might implement his suggestions in your own endeavors.
http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2012/09/actively-finding-an-audience.html