Young musicians today are eager to shake up the world of classical music. Not only do they see the traditional outlets of classical music drying up but many of them also feel a sense of mission around creating new possibilities for the music world. It is exciting to see what today's music entrepreneurs are up to. Read on to see what is on their minds!
In my capacity as a coach and workshop leader, I have the pleasure of interacting with many talented young musicians who are eager to shake up the world of classical music. Not only do they see the traditional outlets of classical music drying up but many of them also feel a sense of mission around creating new possibilities for the music world.
This is what I am hearing.
In my workshops, for example, I help conservatory students to set goals and create career plans. I advocate setting inspiring career goals that reflect one’s passions, values and strengths in order to achieve authentic success. It is one of the first steps in becoming a music entrepreneur. So my first question to my students is:
What aspects of a music career are you passionate about?
These days, most students are excited by one or more of the following:
• Ensemble performing
• Collaborating with other artists
• New Creations
• Teaching (both institutional and private)
What thrills them is making music with other people and coming up with new structures and ways to connect with and engage audiences. Teaching is also very important as a way of passing along the knowledge to the next generation of artists and musicians. For many of them, “same old” is just plain boring. They aspire to something new.
Notice that solo performing is not at the top of the list. My informal surveys of musicians show that this is a big change from what students at the top conservatories aspired to 10 or more years ago.
I hear the same things from my private coaching clients. And I am encouraged to hear that so many young musicians are looking for opportunities to make music in a way that makes sense in the 21st century--another hallmark of being a music entrepreneur.
So what does “shaking up the world of classical music” look like in practical terms?
• Performances at new venues like Le Poisson Rouge
• Concerts with lots of audience interaction where the performer talks about the music and engages the audience both on an emotional and an intellectual level
• Master Classes that focus not only on performance techniques but also include psychology and practices from other fields
• Performers who commission composers to write for them in order to create a unique body of work
• Composers who write for particular artists in order to showcase the gifts of this performer, as well as present the authentic voice of the composer
• Composers who are committed to creating a new music vocabulary
• Arrangements for unusual ensembles to create new repertoire for these instruments.
These dedicated talented young people give me hope that there is a place for great music in our culture.
What’s your way of shaking up the music world? I would love to hear your ideas!
© Astrid Baumgardner 2010
We are now in an age of extreme specialization. Each person is expected to have the market "cornered" on an extremely focused aspect of one thing. The era of the hero soloist who has mastered "the repertoire" is over. On the other hand, however, a soloistic self-sufficiency is the key to survival. We are required to be entrepreneurs of our trade to the extent that we must be able to turn on a dime in our ability to adapt and be creative about our survival and the survival of our art-- it is a bit like any living organism in an environment that becomes inimical: we adapt and become incredibly tenacious. This is both a good and a bad thing for the soloist. On the good side, we are all self-produced, self-starters, with hearty immune systems and healthy adaptive strategies. On the not-so-positive side, there is no demand for the soloist as such. He/she is no longer a character the audience can believe in. The audience who once did is fast becoming extinct, or at the very least, skeptical--even apathetic.
And yet, back to me and my harp-- my training was incredibly traditional. I learned all the repertoire from one of the last "soloists" in my field. I looked up to her, and wanted to emulate her stage presence, her playing, her bowing technique-- everything. In some ways, it felt like having a bucket of cold water thrown on my face when I discovered that solo harpists are just simply not in demand.
Does this mean that our educational methods need to change? I think they are probably in the process of doing so, but I'm wondering whether this is one of the many reasons why coming of age for most musicians, whether composers or performers, feels like an uphill battle. We aren't really prepared for the "real world" in our cozy conservatory life where our friends applaud our Bach and Beethoven-- or even if they don't, we are still required to play these war-horses in recitals and juries-- a requirement that gives us the impression that these canons in our repertoire are inviolably necessary to our survival as musicians.
As a composer, I feel torn between the idea of clinging to a more traditional education, and embracing a more fluid and perhaps less traditional modus operandi. I know a few composers who have had so much success because of their extraordinary ability to connect with an audience's pulse-- they seem able to understand the current climate in which listeners live to the extent that they can meet the demand and even begin to create a new demand for what they do. Some of those composers are folks who have a really a-traditional background, coming to their music via very disparate paths; they are often not of the the conservatory crowd. This is wonderful, and exciting, but definitely not where I am coming from. And I start to wonder, have I got it all wrong? With my 25 years of classical musical training and my soon-to-be 5 academic degrees, am I obsoleting myself?
So-- I wonder how it will be that the young musicians just coming out of conservatory or training will find their ways into the professional world if they have really become enthralled with a slightly older career model. As you are helping me do, they must be able to find a way to be as authentic as they are adaptive.