{"id":1787,"date":"2009-01-26T13:50:42","date_gmt":"2009-01-26T21:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:14:35","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T03:14:35","slug":"arts-cheap-alternative-in-hard-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/26\/arts-cheap-alternative-in-hard-times\/","title":{"rendered":"arts: cheap alternative in hard times?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"us-penny\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Alex Ross has an excellent article in the current issue<\/a> of The New Yorker, where he talks about the fine arts as a more reasonable alternative to other forms of entertainment in difficult economic times:<\/p>\n

The image of the classical concert hall as a playground for the rich is planted deep in the cultural psyche. When Hollywood filmmakers set a scene at the symphony, twits in evening wear fill the frame, their jaws tight and their noses held high. The monocle returns to fashion for the first time since the death of Erich von Stroheim. One day, an intrepid art director will come to a concert and discover that the classical audience is well populated by schoolteachers, proofreaders, students, retirees, and others with no entry in the Social Register<\/em>. They can afford to attend because classical events aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t nearly as expensive as most people assume, especially in comparison with the extravagant pricing schemes for \u00c3\u00a9lite pop acts. (Prince infamously charged more than three thousand dollars a seat for a series of shows in 2007; standing room was a mere three hundred.) The cheapest seats at the Metropolitan Opera are fifteen dollars, slightly more than the bleachers at Yankee Stadium. Chamber-music concerts at the Frick, the Met Museum, Tully Hall, and Bargemusic are in the twenty-to-fifty-dollar range; most new-music events go for ten to twenty. Concerts at churches and music schools are usually free. Students can get in to the New York Philharmonic for the price of a movie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then sets out to find out how much music one can hear live for a total of $100 or less.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s what he was able to see:<\/p>\n