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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;AncientJoe, post: 2232026, member: 44357&quot;]Fantastic points - I&#039;ve encountered several instances of this myself, in a somewhat different capacity, and your view has added some context I was previously missing. I&#039;m on the board of an orchestra in which I also play (cello) and have seen similar disconnects in orchestral preparation as in the professional world (the software industry).</p><p><br /></p><p>There appears to be some carryover from historic teaching which has resulted in longer term influence in music preference from a performer&#039;s perspective, not necessarily aligning with an audience&#039;s desires. We (like most orchestras) have been struggling with falling and aging attendance, and I don&#039;t see it as solvable in the current model.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many of the conductors with whom I&#039;ve worked hold the Baroque period reverentially, perhaps because their teachers also were deeply enthusiastic about it. I had a conductor who I&#039;d describe as a &quot;Bach Elitist&quot;: anything non-Bach was unacceptable and he frequently scoffed at it. Yet, audiences don&#039;t respond to Baroque music nearly as much as the more accessible Romantic period and as a result, ticket sales tend to be considerably lower. </p><p><br /></p><p>However, proposing alternate repertoire is tantamount to musical mutiny. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we had an all-atonal concert and it was a disaster, with audience members vocal in their irritation with it. A middle ground would be much more palatable to an audience; intermixing various periods will allow the Symphony to reach a broader base and introduce concepts that may have been previously overlooked by more narrowly focused audience members. It also makes the overall experience much more interesting to the musicians (I&#039;ll admit it: I don&#039;t enjoy endless ostinato passages <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ).</p><p><br /></p><p>On a tangential topic, new musicians, many of whom have just completed performance Masters degrees, find themselves in their first &quot;real&quot; symphony experience and fail to recognize the broader context and purpose of an orchestra. I&#039;ve sat next to a disappointing number of cellists who, on their first day at rehearsal, find the need to prove their technical abilities by blatantly playing excerpts of Barber&#039;s Cello concerto or a Paganini Caprice instead of the music in front of them which will be played at the rehearsal.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve had some stern conversations with these types of self-aggrandizing musicians in the past but they never seem to be as effective as one would hope. I worry about classical music in general and would hate to see it fall further from the public&#039;s eye. For all of its failings, Youtube has made &quot;classical crossover&quot; much more accessible to the general public and is hopefully making an impact. I just hate seeing disappointed faces of audience members who come to concerts expecting &quot;The Piano Guys&quot; and receive formulaic Haydn.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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