Introducing: What Happens Next?
A blog/newsletter/manifesto for the Reimagination of classical music
2020 was the single worst year for the performing arts in recent memory. Performance spaces were shut down, artists are largely out of work, and we don’t know yet when we it will be safe to share art in a room full of people again. Still, our desire to “return to normal” misses the bigger picture. A return to normal would be an abject failure to learn from this moment, a failure to imagine a better world for art, a failure to recognize our context in society and make art that truly enriches the lives of the people in our communities.
Let’s be honest: the pre-pandemic status quo wasn’t really working for classical music.
Our institutions have been facing financial trouble year after year, desperately clinging onto a sliver of relevance in a world that is all too ready to push classical music aside. Some companies operated “in the black” while many posted losses year after year or operated on razor-thin margins. A handful of artists had full performing calendars while many talented ones scraped together a basic living by balancing freelance careers, teaching, and part-time work in other fields. Now in the midst of the pandemic, classical musicians around the world are out of work, even at the very highest levels of the industry. Consequently, the number of performers considering leaving the field is unprecedented [evidenced by this data from the UK; I don’t know where to find it, but it would be interesting to see data from the US as well]. This financial precarity is the basic problem of classical music. Or at least we thought it was before 2020 rolled around.
Let’s be honest: the pre-pandemic status quo wasn’t really working for all people who wanted space in “classical music”.
Our institutions and musicians are predominately white, present works by predominately dead white men and serve a predominately white audience – all this despite the increasing diversity of liberal democracies around the world. While groups like the Sphinx Organization in Detroit or Chineke! Orchestra in the United Kingdom have taken up the mantle building diversity in the arts, the mainstream industry has limped behind their leadership with DEI initiatives that claim to champion underrepresented voices while still siloing them. This is simply untenable. In a post-#MeToo, post-#BlackLivesMatter society, we must do better.
If we really are to be an artform for all people, our programs, services, and labor infrastructures must reflect it. Beyond questioning as to whether is ethical for institutions that claim to serve the public good to exclusively present works by dead white European men (spoiler alert: it’s not), why would we resist the opportunity to reflect the broader community in our art? Why wouldn’t we want to build a space that is inclusive for all people in our community? Why wouldn’t we make art that is directly relevant to the people in our communities? Diversity isn’t some extramusical consideration that weighs down our institutions, it actually supports our missions, helps us to do more good for more people, and leads to better more relevant art.
Let’s be honest: the pre-pandemic status quo wasn’t really working for the presentation of classical music.
While virtually every other artform has progressed dramatically since the mid-20th century, classical musicians mostly stick to playing the same music in the same context that they did 100 years ago. While the worlds of visual art, theater, film, animation, and contemporary pop music embrace new creators year after year, we have clung to the stale act of recreating the “masterworks” according the vision of that one famous recording by Karajan, Solti, Bernstein, or whomever. We have systematically stifled the voices of composers, innovators, and experimentalists, and placed them the bottom of the artistic hierarchy in our legacy institutions. The cruel irony of this is that we desperately need artistic innovation in classical music.
To connect with 21st Century audiences who might rather spend their time watching a Marvel movie, we must embrace the technological and artistic advances of our time to build artful and engaging experiences that tell stories, either explicitly or aesthetically. Like any great production, we need writers, directors, lighting designers, visual artists, sound engineers, and dramaturgs committed to building the best shows we possibly can. This idea isn’t new; it’s been in our discourse for almost 200 years!*
While our friends in other arts industries have embraced the value of technology, innovation, collaboration, and multimedia storytelling, we have pushed it aside in favor of unthinkingly playing more Beethoven (whose music I love so much that I don’t want to hear it in a concert hall for the next 5 years). As a result, the classical music industry is trapped in a silo of its own making. This is a failure of imagination, a failure of our art form to truly make the artistic impact we aspire to. We must recognize this simple fact, take responsibility, and build better experiences for our audiences.
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And yet, this is greatest time for art in living memory. All we have to do is zoom out of our insular music sphere and see the larger context.
In a new era of cultural deconstruction, artists are breaking down barriers and questioning what it means to make art in 2021. Artists of all disciplines can share their work directly with their audiences through digital platforms. The TV networks have lost not only their monopoly on curating their medium but also a grip on the very form of television itself. The streaming boom has promulgated a Renaissance of the film industry and championed new formats, genres, and stories and by a diversity visionary creators. Through podcasts, creators can explore ideas in long-form and strip away the pretense of “legacy media” formats, baring their souls to the listener. And, in the wake of the compounding crises (pandemic, climate change, social justice, racism, income inequality, our fragile democracy, and a coordinated attack on Truth itself), artists have turned towards truly making a difference through making and sharing their art.
These transformations of medium, form, distribution, and social intention have increased both the power of art and its relevance to the people in our society. The good news is that this new artistic license has resulted phenomenally groundbreaking work. But we in classical music must ask: “will we commit to embracing the artistic power of our time?”
In 2020, alone in our homes, isolated from one another, we sure did turn to art. And though 2021 begins just as 2020 ended, there is light at the end of the tunnel. When we do emerge from our isolation, ready to share communal experiences once more, we must set our intentions on making the world a better, more humane, and more fulfilling place for all people. In order to do that, we must learn from this moment, then ask “What Happens Next?”
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*[An aside to those who click on links: I realize that Wagner’s legacy is so problematic, and it’s something I struggle with as a Jew. But it’s incontrovertible that his thesis of gesamtkunstwerk has been influential to the benefit of so many art forms, arguably more so than it has actually contributed to his own field of classical music. So, I’m still inspired by some of his artistic ideas. The anti-Semetism… much less so.]
Jacob Schnitzer is a conductor, composer, curator, producer, and interdisciplinary collaborator. He is Co-Artistic Director and Executive Director of Density512 in Austin, TX, and a Doctoral student at the UMKC Conservatory. Find him on social media @JacobSchnitzer or at jacobschnitzer.com.