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Why do critics think that American minorities are causing the death of orchestras?

29K views 97 replies 39 participants last post by  DavidA 
#1 ·
I was skimming over this article by Lebrecht here: http://standpointmag.co.uk/music-july-august-2015-norman-lebrecht-cleveland-orchestra-philharmonic

And I caught wind of the following statement: "America's growing minorities resented European culture and shunned the concert hall. Programming got safe and stale, managers were stubbornly white, and musicians, fearful of a shrinking future, demanded greater security. In 2000, the Chicago Symphony broke the bank with a $100,000 starting wage for new players, fresh out of college."

What threw me off is that there is a assumption that minorities in America don't like European culture?!?

Interestingly enough, being Asian-American, I find this to be pretty absurd and a huge assumption. In fact, my personal experience enjoys both Western and Eastern cultures.

So I'm trying to figure out where Lebrecht got that idea he states from? Clues? Ideas?

 
#43 · (Edited)
Please bear in mind that in America, when "minorities" are mentioned, there is often a specific minority that is meant. I spent most of my working life negotiating contracts for government services with minority set-asides and learned this lesson quite well (if it was ever a mystery to begin with).
 
#44 · (Edited)
"Why do critics think that American minorities are causing the death of orchestras?"

I think the problem is bigger than that. Cultural trends run in cycles... and it seems obvious that the dominant interest in CM is moving East from Europe and US, as the Asian economic and military power is on the rise, plus the power of the billions of their population. If the orchestras here don't receive financial support in the community and education in the schools, through one means or another, including gov't support and funding of the arts even as a token gesture, the arts will continue to move East and the Asians will eventually reign supreme... We have no one to blame but ourselves when the obscene military spending with no direct benefits to society continue to exist and drain funds, and this is not to suggest having a weak national defense. But really, the waste on useless hardware and billion dollar bombers that could fund something beneficial to society has to be reexamined if Western culture and society is going to begin thriving again.
 
#46 · (Edited)
"Why do critics think that American minorities are causing the death of orchestras?"

Cultural trends run in cycles... and it seems obvious that the dominant interest in CM is moving East from Europe and US, as the Asain economic and military power is on the rise, plus the power of the billions of their population. If the orchestras here don't receive financial support in the community and education in the schools, through one means or another, including gov't support and funding of the arts even as a token gesture, the arts will continue to move East the Asians will eventually reign supreme... We have no one to blame but ourselves when the obscene military spending with no direct benefits to society continue to exist, and this is not to suggest having a weak national defense. But really, the waste on useless hardware and billion dollar bombers that could fund something beneficial to society has to be reexamined if society is going to begin thriving again.
Of course, one could argue that the rise of Asia (which you correctly observe) is justifying such military expenditure, particularly in terms of, oh, I don't know, the South China Sea and other areas where a Certain Country is flagrantly violating the international law upon which the nations of the world have agreed and threatening international peace and security. The fact that certain countries in Asia are ramping up military expenditure at alarming rates doesn't seem to concern you as much as the West striving to maintain the status quo (Trump's recent increase in military expenditure excepted).

The case of Asia, and China in particular, in fact shows that claiming that military expenditure can be linked to the decline of classical music is flawed - China now spends well over US$100Bn per year on its military, which while less than America's, is growing at a far greater rate than any developed nation's. All the while, the numbers of people attending Chinese classical music performances has risen. Go figure. As I said earlier, I think the reason that Asian concertgoers are on the rise has less to do with the number of supersonic jets purchased by a national government and more to do with the rise of the moneyed middle classes who privilege concerns such as status, which a ticket to an orchestral performance may go some way towards buying.

As to why orchestras are 'dying'- well, that's surely got to be linked with the failure of current and past audiences to replenish themselves (i.e. whites) rather than anything to do with Blacks or Asian Americans. Young whites don't seem to have any interest in classical music with the black domination of most American youth culture now as seen through the rise of rap as an increasingly white concern. Nor do middle-aged whites with their focus upon the rock-and-roll of yesteryear. To this social phenomenon must be apportioned the blame for the decline of audiences - black audiences were never very substantial anyway, and so if black youth don't engage in classical music then it's a great shame but it should not logically lead to a decline in orchestral music, surely. The decline of white audiences is instead the cause.
 
#45 · (Edited)
American orchestras and classical music have survived quite well without government subsidies for many years. I'm not sure why you think cutting military spending in favor of the arts would gain anything.

As for the Asians, I'm quite happy to see them replacing the dwindling ranks of elderly Caucasians in our orchestra halls and gaining a larger footprint among star performers. We have always been and remain a diverse nation.
 
#47 ·
Perhaps another way of looking at the situation is that finally music of minority populations in America is getting the representation it deserves, whether or not it's European-influenced. As their music transcends their population and becomes universally acclaimed and loved by many, there's bound to be a set-back for what has been considered generally white European music. American pop music, which will always be more popular than classical, is undeniably influenced by African-American culture, and Latino influence is on the rise. The proportions of attention are merely changing. The US Population is always growing and so the actual number of listeners to classical music is probably going to be stable, but relatively speaking will dwindle in comparison to what other people are preferring.

But there's no reason to fear the death of classical. We will measure ourselves not by numbers or relative proportions to society, but to the individuals who reach out to classical music and find solace and meaning in it, no matter their background.
 
#48 · (Edited)
Ironically, the very reason Asians began to take up classical music was that it was seen as a "modern" and fashionable thing to adopt Western customs since it gave them cultural cache with European hegemons by demonstrating their awareness of (then rather recent) European high culture. In much the same way, Japanese naval officers during World War II used to play the same card games that they saw British naval officers playing because that was the "modern" (that is, Western) thing to do. Now that white people are increasingly uninterested in classical music, the thought of Asians still trying to signal their sophisticated modernity by playing it seems more than faintly comic.
 
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#49 ·
Ironically, the very reason Asians began to take up classical music was that it was seen as a "modern" and fashionable thing to adopt Western customs since it gave them cultural cache with European hegemons by demonstrating their awareness of (then rather recent) European high culture. In much the same way, Japanese naval officers during World War II used to play the same card games that they saw British naval officers playing because that was the "modern" (that is, Western) thing to do. Now that white people are increasingly uninterested in classical music, the thought of Asians still trying to signal their sophisticated modernity by playing it seems more than faintly comic.
As compared to? Do you think that we are at an historically low-point in interest in classical music? As compared to, say, 100 or 200 years ago, where it was really only the wealthy who payed to attend a concert or operatic performance? Or could afford to have musicians come perform in their parlor? As compared to now, when people who historically had no access to such music can now turn on the radio and listen? Or buy any number of recordings of Beethoven's entire symphony cycle for a smaller amount than it would cost for 2 tickets to a performance of at most 2 of the symphonies?
 
#52 · (Edited)
Logos, your post #50 above again reflects the observation by Leonard Meyer, made in the 1960s but prefigured to some extent by Ortega y Gasset some 30 years earlier, that we are in the New Stasis in the Arts. The advent of the electronic age, with YouTube, etc. now making all art instantly accessible, means an art pie of colossal size that can be sliced into an almost infinite number of slices. There now is available literally something and everything for everybody, whether it is from the remote past (if preserved) or from an hour ago. Meyer's classic Music, the Arts, and Ideas laid out his thesis, and it remains even more cogent today.

Let's quote Leonard Meyer: "...change and variety are not incompatible with stasis. For stasis, as I intend the term, is not an absence of novelty and change--a total quiescence--but rather the absence of ordered sequential change. Like molecules rushing about haphazardly in a Brownian movement, a culture bustling with activity and change may nevertheless be static. Indeed, insofar as an active, conscious search for new techniques, new forms and materials, and new modes of sensibility (such as have marked our time) precludes the gradual accumulation of changes capable of producing a trend or series of connected mutations, it tends to create a steady-state, though perhaps one that is both vigorous and variegated. In short......a multiplicity of styles in each of the arts, coexisting in a balanced, yet competitive, cultural environment is producing a fluctuating stasis in contemporary culture."

Music is no longer evolving, or, alternately, it is evolving in every conceivable direction simultaneously, constantly. Not only is every niche occupied but new niches are being created all the time. What's old is still right here, rubbing shoulders with the eternal new. The universe is expanding. Dark Energy. The New Stasis.
 
#58 · (Edited)
Logos, your post #50 above again reflects the observation by Leonard Meyer, made in the 1960s but prefigured to some extent by Ortega y Gasset some 30 years earlier, that we are in the New Stasis in the Arts. The advent of the electronic age, with YouTube, etc. now making all art instantly accessible, means an art pie of colossal size that can be sliced into an almost infinite number of slices. There now is available literally something and everything for everybody, whether it is from the remote past (if preserved) or from an hour ago. Meyer's classic Music, the Arts, and Ideas laid out his thesis, and it remains even more cogent today.
I can agree with much of the gist of this argument, if I understand it correctly. Sometimes it seems to me that unlimited access to information has introduced as much confusion and chaos as it has real knowledge.
 
#57 · (Edited)
Divine right of Kings? Who even countenances that any more?
My point exactly. Divine right is dead as a cultural force, yet, in absolute numbers it is more studied and written about than ever before, and by a greater variety of people than ever before. Likewise, classical music as a living cultural force is largely no more, despite having more numerous and various listeners than ever before.
 
#63 · (Edited)
You were writing about Asians today, the authors you quote were not. They were writing in generalities about earlier generations. You derided contemporary Asians' musical aspirations as comically motivated by the attempt "to signal their sophisticated modernity" to (apparently) the white cultural elite. Once again, this is ridiculous, baseless, condescending, racist nonsense.
I said that Asians pursued classical music in order to gain cultural capital with white elites. I then cited, in support of this, Asian historians who explain that this did indeed motivate the Asian influx into classical music. Signalling modernity by adopting Western customs was, and is, a vital part of East Asian interactions with the West. We see that they still cultivate classical music in large numbers today, despite the fact that classical music is no longer of any particular interest to most white elites. This is an example of cultural irony. Now what exactly is the controversy, sir? It eludes me.

More on signalling modernity to the West:

Miti and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy published by Stanford University Press: "They also hoped to demonstrate their "modernity" to the West in order to hasten revision of the unequal treaties that had been forced on Japan."

Modern China published by Oxford University Press: "In the early 20th century the Nationalists in Canton tried to show their modernity by adapting globalized (that is, Western) urban planning..."

Environmental Psychology and Human Well-Being published by Elsevier: "Even places that were not colonized, like China, were influenced to adopt western systems to show their modernity."
 
#67 ·
We see that they still cultivate classical music in large numbers today, despite the fact that classical music is no longer of any particular interest to most white elites. This is an example of cultural irony. Now what exactly is the controversy, sir? It eludes me.
"
Why are the interests of white elites in any way relevant? Western classical music is of value to many peoples for aesthetic reasons. Why is a Chinese or Korean child wanting to play Germanic instrumental music any more ironic than an Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Polish, or Ukranian child doing the same? Your alleged irony is racist BS.
 
#65 · (Edited)
We know that it is studied by a more diverse body of persons because if even if only a few women or non-Europeans study it (and they do), that is more than ever did during in the 17th century. I don't think there were any women of color theorizing alongside Bossuet as to the privileges of anointed Bourbons.

As for absolute numbers, there were probably only about 10 million people in all of Europe who could even write during the palmiest days of Divine Right, and that's a generous estimate. Today, there are are between 15 and 20 million professors and graduate students in the world. It is almost mathematically impossible given the scale of modern research that any pre-industrial primary literature will outweigh the secondary literature that accumulates around it. However, given the puzzling scarcity of exact statistics on the number of treatises on Divine Right in the 17th century versus the 21st, I am content to resign this argument and rely on the other dozen or sixteen points I raised. But allow me to briefly return to a more easily supported assertion than that concering Divine Right: One can with little effort find testimonies confirming the decline of Shakespeare's cultural importance since the Victorians, although his audience is undeniably larger and more diverse than ever. I would direct you to Gary Taylor's essay The Incredible Shrinking Bard in Shakespeare and Appropriation published by Routledge, in which he documents the diminishing of Shakespeare's influence as his readership grows.

Chiefly, I'm saying that growth in absolute numbers and diversity in a field of study are not in themselves infallible indications of growing cultural weight because that growth is neutralized by overall population growth, specialization, and the fractured nature of the modern media landscape.
 
#69 · (Edited)
Why are the interests of white elites in any way relevant?
As the sources I cited attest, elite white interest in classical music is, in a real sense, a key part of the origin of Asian participation in that field: Taking up classical music was seen as a way to build cultural capital with white elites. This was a perfectly natural and intelligent thing for East Asians to do as they came within the Western sphere of influence.

Western classical music is of value to many peoples for aesthetic reasons. Why is a Chinese or Korean child wanting to play Germanic instrumental music any more ironic than an Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Polish, or Ukranian child doing the same? Your alleged irony is racist BS.
European participation in European classical music did not originate as an effort to build bourgeois respectability among an entirely foreign class of people that is for the most part no longer listening. Therein lie the differences.
 
#74 ·
As we continue to gradually move towards a more globalized economy and therefore culture, debates like this will (I hope) fade away. Asian and African music have already had a major impact on Western music as well as the other way around. Trying to parse which culture has more "objective value" seems more of a fool's errand than ever.
 
#77 · (Edited)
Oh yes, we should also be informed as to their religions, medical histories, party affiliations, occupation, and income. Your papers, please! Once we know all their demographic data, there will be no need for conversation since we will then be able to analyze and compare their true inner thoughts in absentia based on our perfect knowledge of their outward sociological identities.
 
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