By Jim McCarthy Feb 5, 2010 5 comments

The Truth Hurts, but Also Sets You Free

Goldstar’s John Loken forwarded me a blurb from the New Yorker by Alex Ross that included the following graph:

From the League of Orchestras, via the New Yorker

From the League of Orchestras, via the New Yorker

So this graph shows the percentage of people of different generations level of participation in attending classical music as they age.

From the point of view of what it portends for the future, there’s one word I’d use to describe the picture:  bummer.  My group, Gen X, would historically be expected to turn upward in one of those big bumps you see for the rest of the generations at about age 40 to 50, but instead, there’s a clear downward kink at age 30 from which we haven’t picked up the slack.

But even if we do, we’re just not big enough.  Boomers outnumber us dramatically, so even if we returned to early boomers participation levels, it would still represent a drop off.

I feel like one of the TV networks at 8:01 on election night when it’s clear that one guy is going to win in a landslide:  I’m calling it early.  Gen X will not rise to the levels of previous generations participation, and Gen Y will be even worse.

What does it mean?  Only this: if the classical music institutions stay essentially as they are, many will fold in the next decade or so.   Essentially, the industry as we know it will be swept away.

What’s left?  Only this:  something else.

You can’t save what is currently out there.  All you can do if you want to see classical music as a live form continue to live (and hopefully even thrive) is create something else from the assets that currently exist.

There’s no more time to debate ‘if.’

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5 Comments

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    December 5th, 2010

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    December 6th, 2010

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  • Phil Johnson
    December 6th, 2010

    You may have seen this article already, but I thought it may be of interest to you. It’s called “Why do we hate modern classical music?” and it goes into some of the ways orchestras are bringing in a younger crowd and exposing them to modern works.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/28/alex-ross-modern-classical-music

    By the way, your contact form doesn’t have a submit button that I could find. :(

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    December 8th, 2010

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