Classical Music and the Outside World, with Greg Sandow

Description:
If we're active in classical music, we see a lot going on — performances, entrepreneurship, outreach to the community, and much more. But outside the classical music world, how many people care? Very few, I think, and I hope that won't shock you. Classical music has been in crisis for many years, with an aging audience, falling ticket sales, and financial problems that, among other things, have led even some of the biggest orchestras to cut their musicians' pay.

How can we fix this? Classical music has been changing, and I'll suggest ways that it can change even more, to bring it back into the wider world. Which includes things you can do, even as students.

You might have ideas of your own, and I'd love to hear them.

About Greg Sandow:
Greg Sandow has been a composer, and also a critic, one of the few with a national reputation for writing about both classical music and pop. He’s been engaged for years with the future of classical music, writing about it, teaching about it, giving keynote talks in the U.S. and abroad, serving as a consultant, and doing projects with major orchestras. Next semester he'll teach a course here on classical music's future, called "Classical Music in an Age of Pop.”

Questions students could ask:

• What music should we program, to reach new people?
• Can we create a new classical music audience, by teaching about classical music in schools?
• How can we talk about classical music to our friends outside the field, and to our families?