“We sing and play together, therefore I exist”

This article is a translation from an "Opinion" published on 1st October 2020 in the French ResMusica classical music magazine. It discusses the sanitary and generational threats which undermine the future of classical music, and highlights how the unique features of classical music can save our society from the increasing polarisation of opinions, short term public policies and cynicism of many leaders around the globe. 

In France, on 18 September, 46 orchestras and opera houses signed a press release calling on the public to return to concert halls. A few days later, an emergency call for support was made by French vocal and instrumental ensembles to the Minister of Culture. Before we get more positive, let's start with the observation that the COVID epidemic is adding to a process that has been at work since the early 1990s: the decline of an essential part of the classical music audience.*

Two phenomena converge: the most violent is sanitary, the most dangerous is generational. The first empties concert halls brutally and attacks the whole ecosystem of live music, the second empties the halls little by little. As long as there is the fear of going to a theatre despite the sanitary protocols in place, classical music concerts will lose their most numerous spectators, those known as "the grey lake" who buy tickets on the comfortable and expensive theatre floor. When the wave of the pandemic has passed, which audience will return to the theatres in large numbers? If our concerns go first and foremost for musicians who are losing their revenues and their reason for living, the long-term work needed to fill the halls in a post-COVID world must begin now.

What kind of audience after the pandemic?

The battle to renew the audience was complicated before the pandemic, but many encouraging signs were noticeable, and they must be highlighted because they are still relevant today. The Philharmonie de Paris demonstrated that the audience for vocal and instrumental music can be rejuvenated. If the price to pay is to bear applause between two movements of a symphony, let admit that the concession is acceptable given what is at stake. Venerable institutions such as the Orchestre de Paris bet on youth by choosing a young prodigy, the 24-year-old Klaus M?kel?. Film music concerts are a great success, and thematic programmes proliferate. Another example is the female conductor's competition "La Maestra", which has just awarded its first prize to Rebecca Tong, and works to dispel the old cliché that leadership is a man's business. Each of these initiatives contributes to making classical music more relevant to our contemporaries.

And what if the future of classical music depends on us living together in harmony?

Now, let's take a moment out of the question of classical music, and look at the world as it has been transformed: polarised, cynical, brutal, out of tune, with a loss of sense of community. Is it the fault of populist or autocratic leaders? Throughout the world they have indeed implemented a process of disintegration of the community for their direct and short-term benefit; but they have responded to a profound aspiration of a substantial part of their population, frightened by global change.

Isn't there a troubling parallel between the decline in the practice of classical music and the rise of violence, as well as the disconnection with the vibration of the world? A mere coincidence perhaps. But still: what essentially characterises classical music, and in particular vocal and instrumental ensembles, if not its capacity to create a sense of community from a diversity of people and sounds? Where collective sport attempts to sublimate violence by organising confrontation, music establishes the demonstration, which everyone can feel physically, that the most brilliant achievements are based on the ability to associate the most diverse colours and personalities. This is well known in France, or at least it should be, since this country is the homeland of Hector Berlioz, the composer who was able to recognise the individual beauty of each instrument and make them resound together in an orchestra with transfigured colours.

Another essential feature of classical music is that it requires a great deal of strength, is complex to assemble and organise, both logistically and interpretatively. Whether it is religious with choral singing since ancient times, theatrical or orchestral works funded by governments or private patrons, this music depends on a voluntarist policy. Without a collective and organised effort at the local and national level, there is no chance that outstanding individual talents, all the artists who amaze us, can emerge.

"We sing and play together, therefore I exist".

Singing and playing music together is about pushing personal boundaries, being recognised as an individual, and seeing the impact you create by being part of a larger and more lasting whole. The future of classical music lies not only in its cultural qualities but also in its political power: "we play together, therefore I exist".

This is the merit of the "choral plan" of the Ministries of Education and Culture launched in 2018**, and which aims at creating a choir in every school. Shouldn't this great project be extended to an orchestral component, so that the colossal public debt we are creating for ourselves is not swallowed up in our daily operations but serves to invest in our youth?

At such a time when public money is pouring in at scale, let's dare a utopia: what if political decision-makers and music professionals joined forces to set up a vast, long-term, grass-roots campaign to give young people a tomorrow that sings and plays an instrument? Wouldn't many endemic threats attack not only classical music but our society as a whole be solved by a sustainable and positive solution?

It is true that the notion of “living together in harmony” is very difficult to imagine in this early part of autumn 2020, when the time has come for more restrictive measures, and when performance cancellations are increasingly painful because they are imposed on musicians who are weakened and have no short-term prospects. But we will recover from this, as from all previous epidemics. Against our own discouragement of the moment and the systemic threats of tomorrow, it is possible today to restore our morale, by working on an action plan that will give the youngest people a taste for acting together and for the performing arts that bring us together. As soon as the pandemic is under control, we will be able to take off the masks, free ourselves from our screens (even if they have been of precious help to break the isolation during lockdown) and put the performing arts at the base of our society, for our youth, who is the audience of tomorrow.

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* The most current reference is the survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture published in July 2020 on cultural practices in France and carried out in 2018 among more than 9,200 people in metropolitan France.

** A choir in every school and college by 2019, Ministry of Education

*** Roselyne Bachelot presents the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Culture, Profession audiovisuel, Sept. 28, 2020