Three Lessons Learned from a CNN article on the Orchestral Crisis

Last Friday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to log onto CNN.com and find a feature photo of orchestral musicians in its upper righthand corner, linking to an extensive article entitled “Orchestral musicians fight to maintain ‘artistic excellence.'” While focusing primarily on the current plight of the Minnesota Orchestra, the article also included a substantive discussion about the myriad of contract negotiations and financial troubles currently being endured by American orchestras, including quotes from a variety of prominent performers. While the information it presents is nothing new to us musicians, the context of its publication and the subsequent responses contributed by its readers provide some intriguing insights into the popular perceptions of orchestras and classical music in general. Here are three lessons we can learn from this veritable cultural artifact:
 
1. There really is an orchestral crisis
As a music student, I’ve encountered a variety of viewpoints regarding the state of American orchestras. One view is that there is a crisis and that it’s unsolvable, and that the symphony orchestra as we know it is no longer a viable art form. I like to think of these sentiments as the “Sympocalypse” variety (google “Sympocalypse” for further descriptions of this viewpoint). The opposing view is that there really isn’t a crisis and that the problems we’re currently experiencing are somewhat normal, exacerbated by the still fragile economy.  The bloggers can moan all they want about the end of the orchestra, but it’s all academic, all theoretical. Just practice your excerpts and you’ll be fine. Then there’s the people who fall in the middle, recognizing that yes, there is a crisis, but there’s certainly a solution as long as we are cognizant of the direction things are going and adapt accordingly. The fact that this article has been published on CNN is, in my opinion, a strong indicator that the “middle” viewpoint is correct. A story on orchestral finances isn’t exactly the best draw if you want someone to choose your article over the latest news about what quote from the presidential campaign is now a twitter hashtag; the fact that this has been considered enough of a news story to write about and publish is evidence enough that something significant is going on. At the same time, however, the tone of the article is optimistic, and it’s certainly not of the doom-and-gloom sympocalyptic variety, emanating a welcome sense of hopefulness.
 
2. Classical music is fundamentally misunderstood by the average American
But while the mood of the piece looks to sunnier skies, its comments seemed to have spawned from Eeyore’s raincloud. Some of the more disheartening ones include:
“Classical music is like lederhosen. Cute for the holidays, but just as bad as an itchy sweater for everyday use.”
 
“Classical music is white music. Liberals in Minnesota kept pushing multiculturalism, and now no one wants to listen to music composed by white people from Europe.”
 
“Fund all the orchestras you want. It will not increase audience size. It is a small niche market like those who still want coffee from a percolator.”
 
Comments like these only re-enforce the truth that the average American does not understand the value or meaning of classical music or the symphony. This is a particularly important insight to be gleaned from this article, because similar articles posted on music-related blogs are generally read only by people who are musicians themselves or supporters of classical music and orchestras. With the subject brought up in a non-musical setting, we can catch a glimpse of how the orchestral crisis we’ve discussed ad nauseum is viewed in popular culture–and the reality is that the majority of people don’t really know about it, nor is it really that significant to them.
 
Which brings me to lesson #3:
 
3. Acknowledging that there is an orchestral crisis, and that in reality the average person does not fully appreciate the value of the orchestra, we need to migrate to the middle.
Only if we are able to collectively agree on the direction the orchestra should go in the present day will we be able to solve our problems and reach out to those people who harbor the misconception that classical music is outdated or part of an upper class social agenda. Of course, we can’t expect to please everybody–after all, everyone has different artistic tastes and preferences–but we can certainly enrich the lives of a lot more people than we would if we continue on the same rocky path that we seem to have been taking lately. Music is all about bringing people together, and it’s certainly not about prolonged negotiations, critical pessimism, and a guy having to take a gig in Cleveland because the management has locked him out in Minnesota. That, at least, we all can agree on.