US Orchestras and Large Ensembles

The Orchestra as an institution is constantly evolving and taking many different forms all around the world, but like the White Male Classical Music Canon, we tend to only see canonical ensemble types and treat them, like the repertoire canon, as universal and neutral.

Classical Music, Aging Audiences, and the Emerging Demographic Racial Gap

I had come across an old (May 17, 2007) New York Times piece by Sam Roberts yesterday while doing some searches for the Aging Audience of Classical Music issue. The piece, titled "New Demographic Racial Gap" is outlining the age gap between the dominant majority in the US and the [still growing] ethnic minorities. To …

The death of the cinematic industry…

So the last movie I went to, Thor, I was intrigued to see a table with fliers for a couple of upcoming "special events." The two fliers were slick promos for upcoming (one now past) live HD cast performances by the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Look at that blurb in the top …

“66,000 opera companies across America”

A lively discussion is happening at Tony Woodcock's blog, but what's intriguing me a bit are some of the things a poster with the username of Digoweli is saying.  In particular, this excerpt from the post linked: What has happened to us from 1900 when there were 66,000 opera companies across America with 1,300 Opera …

Changing US Demographics and Classical Music

Re-posting Ramon Ricker's blog about Changing US Demographics and Classical Music in full, just because it can never be said enough! Posted on November 9, 2009 at 5:00 am by Ramon Ricker in General Tags: concerts, opinion, orchestras Here’s a personal observation and some thoughts. When my wife and I visited the Netherlands a couple …