In today’s music world, rap, alternative, pop and rock genres are no doubt dominating the popular music charts, and one may wonder what relevance classical music holds. This is a topic that could lead to endless arguments, but the truth of the matter is that classical music is still essential today.
It may not enjoy a lot of radio play, but classical music provides a portal transporting us into history, not to mention the fact that it is the foundation on which contemporary entertainment is built. We might even go into the benefits of classical music as a tool for brain power.
During the 90s, classical music sales got a boost from suggestions that exposure to this type of music could enhance spatial reasoning and memory in humans. It’s during this period that the ‘Mozart effect’ came to be.
To date, the link between classical music and benefits such as boosted intelligence and lower stress levels continue to be proven scientifically. However, this tends to blind many of us to the fact that such music was actually created for enjoyment as an art form and not for therapeutic purposes. What we call ‘classical’ was once the latest and most popular hits at the time.
Despite the gloom and doom predictions claiming that classical music is facing imminent death, a report by the American National Endowment for the Arts revealed that the total number of adults attending classical music performances annually had only dropped by 2.8 percent between 1982 and 2012. Young and vibrant music students today tell how classical music and arts relate to their lives in many different ways.
Classical music enthusiasts may be the minority, but they exist and are nowhere near dying out. Jonathan Crow and Joseph Johnson, for instance, are two musicians that have made it their life’s mission to secure the survival of classical music. While they recognize the challenge this presents, they are also very optimistic.
And Crow and Johnson are a new breed of classical musician, helping the traditional symphony orchestra articulate a future as well as a past. Both just flirting with 40, they are savvy, modern musicians who might just drag the cultural heritage of their chosen art into a snazzy, relevant dialogue with the 21st century. To them, it’s vital to do so.
Violinist Jonathan Crow and cellist Joseph Johnson rehearse at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. (Kevin Van Paassen for The Globe and Mail)
“Everybody here understands what it’s like to be in an orchestra in the 2000s,” Crow says. “This isn’t the seventies any more, where you could just show up, play your Brahms and say to management: Sell us. Where people would routinely buy their subscription concerts at the beginning of the season and that would be that. The world is different now. We play to people with lots of entertainment choices. We have to understand how the modern world works.”
“We know we have to do more than just show up and play in the concert hall,” Johnson adds in counterpoint. “We need to interact with the community, do pop-up concerts, collaborate with other institutions [the TSO just acted as the house band for the Polaris prize announcement], be part of people’s lives. It’s necessary for our survival. But it’s also fun.” Via Globe and Mail
Classic FM is yet another ambassador for classical music. Recently, they introduced a 22 year old pop diehard to pieces from some of the classical music heavyweights – Beethoven, Verdi, Stravinsky and Rachmaninov. The results were quite surprising – but not so surprising to those that appreciate this timeless music.
At Classic FM we’re always keen to spread the classical music word – so we took one pop-mad 22 year old and played him Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem, Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. Cue: all the emotions
Meet Ryan
Ryan is 22 and knows everything there is to know about pop culture. He even knows how to use Snapchat for crying out loud (like, properly, not just to send selfies to siblings).
But Mozart? May as well be a kind of pasta
So we decided to take him in hand and introduce him to some of the greatest music ever written.
First up: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
We played him the last movement. Only after he’d listened to the whole thing did we tell him that Beethoven was deaf. And his head kind of exploded… Via Classic FM
I Thought He Was Going To Play Classical Music. When He Does This Instead? Unbelievable!
The 18-year-old will be attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music in the fall. Although his instrument is classic, that doesnt mean that his tastes are, too at least not completely. I choose songs based not only on their popularity but on their meaning, Green told A Plus. Via littlethings.com
Key Igor Stravinsky work found after 100 years | Music | The Guardian
An important early orchestral work by one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, thought for more than 100 years to have been irretrievably lost, has turned up at last in a pile of old manuscripts in a back room of the St Petersburg Conservatoire. The 12-minute work was performed only once, in a Russian symphony concert conducted by Felix Blumenfeld in the Conservatoire in January 1909, but was always thought to have been destroyed in the 1917 revolutions or the civil war that followed. Stravinsky recalled it as one of his best early works, but could not remember the actual music. Via theguardian.com
With ‘Stereotypes,’ A Duo Raised On Hip-Hop And Classical Has It Both Ways : NPR
Lisa Leone/Courtesy of the artist Kevin Sylvester says that when most people see a 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound black man, they don’t expect him to also be a classically trained violinist. A recent exchange with a woman in an elevator, when he happened to have his instrument with him in its case, drove that point home. It’s the latest release by their duo Black Violin, whose seeds were planted years ago when the two met as high school students in Florida. Via npr.org
In today’s music world, rap, alternative, pop and rock genres are no doubt dominating the popular music charts, and one may wonder what relevance classical music holds. This is a topic that could lead to endless arguments, but the truth of the matter is that classical music is still essential today.
Despite the gloom and doom predictions claiming that classical music is facing imminent death, a report by the American National Endowment for the Arts revealed that the total number of adults attending classical music performances annually had only dropped by 2.8 percent between 1982 and 2012. Young and vibrant music students today tell how classical music and arts relate to their lives in many different ways.
The 18-year-old will be attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music in the fall. Although his instrument is classic, that doesnt mean that his tastes are, too at least not completely. I choose songs based not only on their popularity but on their meaning, Green told A Plus. Via littlethings.com
An important early orchestral work by one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, thought for more than 100 years to have been irretrievably lost, has turned up at last in a pile of old manuscripts in a back room of the St Petersburg Conservatoire. The 12-minute work was performed only once, in a Russian symphony concert conducted by Felix Blumenfeld in the Conservatoire in January 1909, but was always thought to have been destroyed in the 1917 revolutions or the civil war that followed. Stravinsky recalled it as one of his best early works, but could not remember the actual music. Via theguardian.com
Lisa Leone/Courtesy of the artist Kevin Sylvester says that when most people see a 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound black man, they don’t expect him to also be a classically trained violinist. A recent exchange with a woman in an elevator, when he happened to have his instrument with him in its case, drove that point home. It’s the latest release by their duo Black Violin, whose seeds were planted years ago when the two met as high school students in Florida. Via npr.org
