Tonight at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall, Peter Oundjian will conduct the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) in a performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. It promises to be powerful, stirring, expertly rendered and well-received by an appreciative and knowledgeable audience. But how many will that audience number? At the time of writing there were tickets left in all areas.
Five thousand miles away in Los Angeles, conductor Gustavo Dudamel is also preparing for an evening of classical music. He led his own Los Angeles Philharmonic through Beethoven's Fifth Symphony yesterday and tonight he conducts the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra in a performance of numbers six and seven. Dudamel is one of the most famous conductors in the world and a product of El Sistema, the internationally-recognised music education programme founded in 1975. It reached our shores in 2008.
Because of that reputation, the Walt Disney Concert Hall will likely be rammed this evening. But the Philharmonic, like the RSNO and many other orchestras, has a problem: audiences for live classical music are ageing and dwindling. Or, as last week's edition of The Economist put it, becoming “greyer and rarer”. A recent American study found that attendance has fallen a quarter since 2002 and today fewer than one in ten adults say they've been to a classical music event. Of those who have, a third came from families earning more than $100,000 (£65,000, well over twice the average annual UK salary).
I can relate to this. In August I took my kids, nine and seven, to hear the London Symphony Orchestra in the Usher Hall. As an Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) performance it was a near sell-out, so “rare” the audience was not. But “grey”? Definitely. My kids lowered the average age by about half a century.
Some say price is an issue. Not necessarily. Thanks to the EIF's Young Musicians Passport scheme, my kids' tickets were free and you can buy a child's ticket for tonight's RSNO concert for £6. Adults, meanwhile, can bag a pretty good seat in the stalls for £27, a pound less than they'd pay if they rolled up to Easter Road next month to watch Hibs play Rangers in the Scottish Championship. (You can insert your own joke here about the relative quality of the playing).
The LA Phil, as it's known, is taking a novel approach to addressing these problems. Using a bright yellow truck called Van Beethoven and some hi-tech gadgetry - specifically a virtual reality headset employing the same Oculus technology revolutionising the world of gaming - it's giving classical music newbies the chance to experience a performance as a principal violinist might. “I’m so close to the concertmaster, I could reach out to shake his hand,” wrote one excited journalist who reviewed the technology.
Don't expect a roll-out in Scotland any time soon. But those who understand the importance of exposing children and teenagers to live classical music shouldn't despair, either. Beethoven's 10th symphony will never be finished - but the same's true for our concert halls and orchestras if they can continue to innovate, re-imagine and enthuse. Virtual reality headsets are one way: there are bound to be others.
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