A Case of Classical Ignorance

This week in Atlanta, Georgia, young fans of the rock band "Immature" crowded into a nightclub, filling it to almost twice its capacity. When the mob stormed the stage, 21 people were trampled or suffered heat exhaustion, the Associated Press reports.

Three weeks ago in San Diego, California, members of the city's symphony orchestra performed what could be their last concert ever. Because of pervasive financial troubles, the orchestra's board of directors will declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy if the organization does not raise more money soon--and money does not appear to be forthcoming.

Something is wrong when a rock band composed of three adolescent boys draws crowds whose enthusiasm dwarfs that of those who routinely attend symphony concerts in the nation's sixth-largest city. Something is wrong with a society which places more value on a band titled "Immature," than on Bach partitas or Mendelssohn songs without words. Something is deeply wrong, and if our generation does not act soon to draw listeners to the nation's echoing, empty concert halls, we will lose irreplaceable works of beauty.

San Diego's symphony is far from the first to capitulate to low and ever-graying attendance. In the last 10 years, orchestras in New Orleans, Oakland and Denver have also gone under, reappearing in less powerful forms. The cities may vary, but the litany remains the same: little financial support from audiences who say they have better things to do.

Admittedly, San Diego is a special case. Unlike Boston, the weather proves beach-going at least 300 days of the year; sporting events are rarely rained out; and the allure of hiking in the mountains and the desert is ever-present. Its mayor has decided to invest money in the Chargers rather than pull the symphony out of its $3 million debt.

Yet even in the summer, when one can combine listening to music with watching the sun set over the bay, the Summer Pops tables are rarely full. When they are, it is for "The Pops Goes to the Movies" rather than "The Pops Muses Upon Mozart" or "The Pops Goes Gershwin."

Even in Boston, a town with culture and history oozing from its cobblestone streets, the crowds are rarely enough to make the ornate Symphony Hall feel full. At a concert last mouth featuring the works of Bach and Vivaldi, the first and second balconies were woefully deserted. While the Boston Symphony will likely never declare bankruptcy, even here we must keep an eye out for shrinking crowds.

Cast your thoughts ahead to 30 years from now. Will our generation be the patrons of the symphony orchestras? I cannot imagine those who now listen exclusively to Nirvana and Live fixing a tie or donning a dress to attend a concert at an antiquated City Hall.

Maybe classical music is simply a losing cause. After all, many well-known composers wrote before this century, when music was one of the few things that could take you away from the mundanities of the world and fill your senses. Now, when we have television, movies and computers to assault our senses every day, maybe asking people to concentrate upon music is just too much. But its depth is too valuable to lose. We must do something to protect it.

The most sensible solution is education. Harvard is doing the right thing by requiring a Literature and Arts B class because that at least forces students to spend a semester considering one aspect of the fine arts. But the problem should be stemmed long before students arrive at Harvard or any other college. In order to instill a love of classical music in children, we must reinstitute the funding often cut from elementary school arts budgets. Playing classical music for children will give them the option of turning it down rather than never hearing it.

Only when our culture places as much of a focus upon teaching and enjoying music as it does upon teaching the multiplication tables will we produce a new generation of symphony-goers. And then, perhaps, the only thing "Immature" about music will be those who snub their noses at the classics.

Sarah J. Schaffer's column appears on alternate Fridays.