Posted on 03/08/2017 7:45:45 PM PST by brucedickinson
While organizations in other artistic fields — theater, literature, the visual arts — attempt, however haltingly and imperfectly, to broaden the scope of their activities to include a range of creative voices and life experiences, the leadership in classical music keeps on ignoring the whole subject. The field is just as committed now to the work of white men as it was 100 years ago or more. That’s a very bad look for any cultural organization in 2017. And it’s a particularly bad look for a field that needs to be thinking seriously about how far the traditional models can be relied on in a rapidly changing artistic landscape.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
It's late and there is so much to say but I'll just follow up on your post.
In my humble opinion, good, if not great orchestral music is entering a golden age due to the ability of just about anybody who has the desire to make orchestral music to have access to the necessary tools available to them via the PC. I myself have whole sampled orchestras at my disposal along with the ability to write musical scores that these samplers can play as well as a very capable multitrack digital recording studio. In the past a small percentage of musicians were able to take advantage of such a wealth of technologies and many took the path of popular music from the jazz age to big band to the rock era. All these genres were relatively diversely represented.
Classical music, on the other hand requires a massive investment of time and effort to become proficient enough to play as a professional and the job openings are minuscule compared to other genres. My favorite musical genres include Vocaloid, ProgRock, FolkRock, Opera Metal/Orchestral Metal, EDM/Dubstep/Chillstep, Experimental Electronic, Polka, Hot Jazz from the early 1900’s to about 1940, and Big Band from the 30’s and 40’s, along with Classical.
I have created a number of experimental electronic pieces that are the sonic equivalent of abstract visual art. It's relatively easy with the right gear and maybe 1 in 100 people who hear it actually appreciate it. I've also done a handful or orchestral pieces and the effort needed to come up with something even just halfway decent is at least an order of magnitude greater, however, even I can make music that sounds nice and if I were to devote a much greater portion of my time I could do much more. Many civilians do.
What I have seen over the last decade or so is classical music becoming orchestral music, a musical form using traditional instruments in pieces that depart from traditional structure, short pieces that typically run from four to ten or so minutes long as well as film music. In fact I think you will find that yesterday's great composers have become today's film soundtrack composers, John Williams and Hans Zimmer amongst others. Google Epic Orchestral music and you will find a wealth of talent on Youtube.
One last point. Out of all the examples I've cited I do not know not do I care what race the musician who made the music belonged to. If it's good music I'll listen to it, if it's bad music I won't, but I'm sure somebody else will. I'm also sure that The Cleveland Orchestra will never perform RapCrap no matter how much A.A whining comes their way.
Kristen Michelle Wilson doesn’t sound like a very Hispanic name. The circus announced it was closing only two days after she started as ringmaster, so I’m not sure those things are related. Apparently the final shows are in May.
Yes, by all means, diversity - it’s so much more modern to listen to noise and watch sh*t.
My initial thought too - not to mention Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Charley Pride, Lena Horne, Whitney Houston, Michael (the weirdo) Jackson, Tina Turner, Fats Domino, Count Basie, Bo Diddley, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Thelonious Monk, Supremes, Charley Parker, Nat King Cole, how about Sammy Davis Jr., Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Little Richard, Aretha (no last name needed), Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Bob Marley, Chuck Berry, Miles Davis, James Brown, Duke Ellington and Satchmo (Hello Dolly!)........to name a few non-whites.
Although she had only been performing in shows for a couple of days when the circus announced they were closing, it looks like they named her ringmaster about a month earlier.
I know but still...
Basquiat profited greatly from Emperor’s Syndrome.
Good un. Go with the Rockwell, right?
Yup. Just like anyone would pick hip hop if the guy holding the gun to your head told you to choose between writing a hip hop song and an orchestral piece.
Freegards
Classical music could not have come from anywhere else other than an inspired creativity born from a highly precise and structured society. It is unfortunate that other societies couldn’t achieve the same level of accomplishment in the same time span. But it is sheer idiocy to penalize or criticize westerners for having achieved a higher social model, or to think it can be co-opted effortlessly by more fractured societies. One Tin Soldier, haters.
The mean IQ of Ghana is supposedly around 70!
In My Music Appreciation course, I assign composers to students for their presentations. A few terms back, I got the idea of adding Dimitri Tiomkin and Maurice Jarre to the list, in part to promote the idea that film scores have become one of classical music's genres. It's actually worked out quite well; I'm sorry I didn't think of it sooner in my teaching career.
FRiend, you just exploded my brain right there. I now have a lot of material to cover.
In my small world, classical music ranges from Cinderella to Poison.
Hip Hop. Quite a descriptive term there. When is that crap going to d!e? For 20 years the exact same tune with different foul words.
Oh yea right, let’s condemn something in spite if its immense creativity, ingenuity, and dazzling demonstrations of the range, diversity, and intricacies possible in music, just because of the “race” of the musical geniuses who wrote so much of it.
Don’t need to be smart to pound on s**t.
That will be indeed interesting, nestled between Beethoven, Haydn, and Schubert.
Classic Movie! LOL.
I get no kick from Champagne.
First of all, I find it rather comical that that they claim there is a lack of minority diversity, apparently they feel that Asians are somehow not a minority. The level of hypocrisy is stunning.
To use their mental model with regards to the definition of "minority", no matter how illogical and disingenuous, minorities would perceive participating in the art of classical musica performance or composition as being "white" and unacceptable from their cultural point of view. The foul stench of bullshit permeates everything this article attempts to bloviate.
Furthermore, much of today's "modern" classical music compositionally has sucked balls since Frank Zappa's death.
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