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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?

 
#2 ·
Sounds like a generalization to me. I mean the crowds going to concerts in my city are pretty diverse, with the expected majority being white.

I guess it's just the author trying to point to whatever he can to explain the decrease in ticket sales. I think a better reason is economic, and that younger generations aren't as interested in classical as older ones [oh look, now I'm making generalizations]
 
#9 ·
I know that trying to defend Lebrecht is a mug's game, but I think the thread title "Why do critics think that American minorities are causing the death of orchestras?" is doing him a big disservice. His reference to minorities was just one aspect of what he thought the problem was, and actually because he also says "managers were stubbornly white", a much stronger case can be made that he sees the fault not in minorities but in orchestras' failure to engage with minorities.

That said, the word "resented" is a very odd choice; assuming that by "European culture" he means "high culture of European origin", I could understand if he'd said minorities were uninterested in it. That would make sense to me: if my cultural background is one that isn't European, and now I'm engaging with an American culture that, let's face it, by and large has no interest in high culture, then there's no particular reason why I should be interested in the world of classical music. Sure, maybe I will be, because of course there will be individual exceptions; but the point is that - actually regardless of whether we're talking about minorities - the assumption that people will naturally aspire to become classical music listeners is not a sound one any more (if it ever was).
 
#11 ·
But isn't that assuming that classical music is high culture?
 
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#13 ·
I suspect that appreciation for Western European arts (which is really what we are talking about here, and not really culture in its broader sense) has much more to do with income and education level than it does with race. It happens that minorities in general tend to be lower on the economic and educational scale, and thus likely have less interest in such things, as is also the case, in general, with "white" or European-heritage Americans, who are lower on the economic and educational scale. A white person with less than a high school education living in squalor in rural Appalachia is likely to have just as little interest in the latest staging of Wagner's Ring cycle at the Met as a black inner-city high school dropout.
 
#14 · (Edited)
The American culture I know about tends to be popular culture, and it may work vice versa. We don't always explore what isn't thrown handily across our path - or I don't, I'm ashamed to say. :eek:

But America is so vast it contains large numbers representing every viewpoint. When looking into some abstruse point of cultural interest, I often find that the experts are either American or German. I am very interested in the folk culture of Britain and Ireland, and it was a nineteenth century American scholar, Francis Child, who took the trouble to collect the Traditional Ballads:


I can't think that the death of orchestras can be blamed on the lack of interest of any particular group. Economic reasons and the availability of classical music via the media and internet seem more likely.
 
#15 ·
Also why is Norman singling out minorities? Why specifically those guys?
 
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#16 ·
Americans of European ancestry, in spite of their American heritage and culture, do still count their European roots as part of their inherited culture. I am very much interested in German and English culture, in no small part due to the fact that my ancestors came from those areas. I also am interested in my genealogy, and so that also gets to those same issues.

I suspect that Europeans probably show less interest in American culture than vice versa, partly due to some prejudices against Americans, but also partly due to the fact that while most Americans have European culture in their heritage, even if you have to go back several centuries, while likely very few Europeans have any American heritage in their ancestry, and so feel no particular affinity toward it, other than perhaps some distant relation packed up their belongings and moved to America over 100 years ago.
 
#18 ·
Hi, Albert7.

I can't answer you directly on Lebrecht's statement, but I will refer to the history of the Pulitzer Prize in music.
Consider, especially, that there was no award in 1965 over the Duke Ellington issue ... and also over the past 20 years or so (from the mid-1990s onward) that certain African American parties (that's my understanding, anyway) exerted pressure on the Pulitzer board members to widen the category of "American" to incorporate jazz and other aspects of African American popular music. Symphonies, concertos, operas, string quartets, etc. are forms of Western music which are deemed (by some minorities) as too European or too Caucasian to represent the American music scene.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Contra Lebrecht, last year I read an analysis of concert-going audiences. Certainly they have been shrinking for some years. But the shrinkage is being slowed as many of the older listeners of European heritage, as they die off, are being replaced by listeners of Asian heritage. So in this case, at least, a minority group is helping preserve the orchestral tradition.

But Lebrecht may have been thinking only of certain minorities and was too polite to say so. :devil:
 
#22 ·
#24 ·
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.
People often forget about Asian-Americans when they're discussing 'minorities' -- look at affirmative action, college admissions, etc. And anyone who's spent time in the world of classical music knows full well that people of Asian descent are well-represented.

But anyone who spends time at classical-music concerts knows that audiences are mostly white and mostly old. I'd be worried too, if my livelihood depended on people who seem to be disappearing....
 
#25 ·
It's probably like Scottish Country Dancing - people take it up later in life (have the money & time to go to events, & have a lifetime of learning & relevant experience to appreciate the art form). So as the mostly white & mostly old people fall off the tree, they're replaced with other mostly white & mostly old people. :devil:
 
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#27 ·
Jazz is America's classical music and it's largely going the same route. Younger blacks today couldn't give a shyte about jazz. last week I was at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit--supposedly the oldest operating jazz club in the world and considered a historical heritage site--and the audience was almost entirely older blacks. When younger blacks stop in it's only because they've heard of the place and so stop in just to be able to say they've been there. You can tell by the clueless, totally unengaged expressions they wear while staring at the band that they don't get it.

I was on a Facebook page populated almost entirely by Detroit-area blacks and did a few experiments. I posted a poll between Kanye West and Jay Z and 2 weeks later people were still responding. I posted one "Lester Young or Charlie Parker?" and NOBODY responded--NOBODY. I posted a Beyonce vs Rihanna (and admittedly I don't know a single song by either of these two) and again I received hundreds of responses. I then did a "Odetta or Mahalia?" poll and received 10 responses total--all of them from women. Polls posted by others were virtually always rap---raprapraprapraprap rap. That's all they care about these days--rap. A couple of polls forced them to dig back in their memories to the early days of Prince and Morris Day. That's about as far back as you can go or you lose them completely.

Jazz like classical is in its twilight. Sure there are young people still getting into it, there always will be, but as a vibrant music on the edge of culture that edge has long ago dulled and blunted into obscurity and non-relevancy. Young whites treat classical the same way.

As far as minorities in classical music, ask yourself how many orchestras there would be in America without Asians and Asian-Americans to fill the billets. In truth, Asian-Americans should be stepping up to lead America--they have the education, the talent and the money but not the numbers so it's not happening.
 
#38 ·
yeah, most of america's younger culture since 2006 or so has been increasing in hiphop, EDM, Country, and rap. You also cannot forget that they also prefer listening to it with car subs and such. While the middle aged folk tend to be more inclined to listen to rock. You can than shows like American Idol and the Voice for this change.

But here, although it is rare, i have only known a handful of people who like classical. Most of which are teachers whom either teach it, one of which was an influence on me. She shown us a documentry movie on Beethoven, although i barely remember it, all i remember was the funeral scene and they played the fourth movement of his Ninth. But, she also taught us some non-curicular music theory. (which the school did not allow... she was quite the rebel when it came to these things.)

Another teacher whom was a fan of Debussy had a similar outlook. (from elementry school) Almost as she predicted how the kids of the upcoming generations would slowly ween away from classical and the only attempt that we would learn some music. I recognized this, due to a lot of the kids (who were not in the school band) would be doing random things while trying to learn... (like they would disturb a few folk who were intensly trying to learn how to learn to read music...

Another is my grandpa, although his prefered music is 50's era music. He has more of a Baroque leaning after seeing the collection of vinyls and (very few) cds. I don't think he ever got any tapes.

And then there is me, whom is probably more outragious on studying than the above. I like certain composers from most epochs... primarily modern.
 
#28 · (Edited)
I suspect that appreciation for Western European arts (which is really what we are talking about here, and not really culture in its broader sense) has much more to do with income and education level than it does with race. It happens that minorities in general tend to be lower on the economic and educational scale, and thus likely have less interest in such things, as is also the case, in general, with "white" or European-heritage Americans, who are lower on the economic and educational scale. A white person with less than a high school education living in squalor in rural Appalachia is likely to have just as little interest in the latest staging of Wagner's Ring cycle at the Met as a black inner-city high school dropout.
Lebrecht is absolutely correct and I think Dr. Mike has got part of it, but in addition, there is an academic movement (mostly in Colleges/Universities, but now bleeding down to many public High Schools as well) here in the US to shun and denounce almost everything that has to do with "Western Culture." The 1960's had a slogan, "Ho Ho, Western Civ[ilization] has got to go!"

They are being taught that our country was founded by Rich White Men who owned slaves (regardless of the fact that slavery was the norm all over the world back then). So they were rich and racist. Where were they from? Europe! So therefore we must throw the baby out with the bath water and reject EVERYTHING that comes from that culture.

In the University of California (I think at Davis) one can now get a degree in "English" and never have to read a word of Shakespeare. Why? He's just another "Dead White European." Screw him!

If I had the time, I could sit here and site example after example after example. It's sad, but it's what's being taught nowadays here in the US.

V
 
#31 ·
It was destined and was used for the masses for centuries and was one of the greatest educations one could get. Now it is being rejected for idiotic reasons. As KenOC smartly notices that the Asians have no problem with much of western culture especially the arts and music. Ask most of them in Asia what the greatest music ever written was and most of then will talk about composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, et al. They don't take foolish offense as if one is making a statement that the music of their own culture is not as good. They know it, and they agree with it. That's why Asia is the only market in the world where classical music is still thriving.

V
 
#30 ·
I take it that "minorities" here is some kind of codeword. It has been observed many times over the past few years that as Caucasian US concertgoers die off, they're being replaced largely by new ones of the Oriental persuasion. I believe they're still a racial minority in these parts.
 
#33 ·
The absence of African Americans/Hispanics from orchestras may have something to do with it. The ethno-social atmosphere in America is very tenuous. According to certain social movements, something is "racist" if it does not meet a proper quota of African-Americans or other "marginalized" minorities. Orchestras, then, are fair game. The Chicago Symphony, for example, did not hire a black musician until about 14 years ago (I believe that was Tage Larsen, a utility trumpet player who is incredible, by the way) and if I'm not mistaken, he remains the only black member of the orchestra. This is why orchestras are destined to be labeled old-rich-white-dudes-only clubs who only play the music of old-rich-white-dudes. (Okay, lots of composers were poor, but still.)
I've yet to hear the American media make an outright attack on orchestras for their supposed racism, but I think it's bound to happen. Regardless, I think that if Lebrecht is right here, it's because minority groups have already decided that orchestras are only for white people. A ridiculous notion, but if you have the vaguest idea how the American media works, they will perpetuate anything that minority social movements believe, sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Even if orchestras haven't been specifically targeted yet, they still fall under the umbrella of "not enough non-whites, therefore racist and bad."
 
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#34 ·
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?!?
The mistake here is in thinking that 'resent' necessarily means 'don't like'. I don't know what evidence Lebrecht has that American minorities resent European culture, but I'd could understand why any minority might resent the dominance of another culture. I resented the dominance of American Culture on our (UK) TV screens in the 70s, but that didn't mean I didn't like what was on.
 
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