Sam Bergman has a great post (he describes it as a rant) about the numerous self-styled experts and their prescriptions for what they think ails the modern symphony experience. Here’s his opening description of the various points of view:
Basically, to hear the self-styled experts tell it, orchestras are utterly doomed to eventual extinction (or not) because we don’t play enough new music; because we play too much new music; because we wear tuxes and have formal concert rituals; because we dumb down the concert experience and try too hard to be casual; because we don’t talk to the audience; because we insist on talking to the audience; because we fail to put our music in context; because we force context no one asked for on our audiences; because no one under 60 cares about what we do; because we’re far too focused on attracting younger audiences; because we’re too market driven; because we stubbornly refuse to give our customers what they want; because the musicians are paid too much; because we’re too incompetent to properly capitalize ourselves and pay our employees a reasonable wage; because ticket prices are too high; because ticket prices aren’t high enough to pay our overhead costs; because we haven’t figured out how to use the internet properly; because we’re more focused on our websites than we are on getting people into the concert hall; because our CEOs and music directors are grossly overpaid; and because we’re too provincial and small-minded here in City X to realize that the salaries of our CEOs and music directors are set by what the market will bear in what is, truly, a global industry.
Read it all here.