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EXCESSIVE FORMALITY BLAMED AS YOUNG TURN BACKS ON LIVE CLASSICAL MUSIC
Classical music is in danger of losing whole generations of young people, who are turned off by the formality and elitism associated with its live performance, according to new research.
Concert attendance by those born after 1955 has fallen off sharply since the early 1990s, according to Bonita Kolb in a study of UK and US music habits for the new issue of Cultural Trends, published by the Policy Studies Institute. And the phenomenon is unlikely to improve with time, as the evidence also suggests that these younger generations are not picking up the habit as they grow older.
Classical music is also losing out to drama and the visual arts among ethnic minority audiences, despite rising levels of affluence and education. The findings suggest that although classical music is increasingly a preserve of the white, affluent and well educated, it is wrong to assume that interest in classical music will result automatically from education or prosperity.
Figures for the UK show that just over a third of the population has ever attended a classical music concert, and that only 12% of people did so in the last twelve months. This is a sharper fall-off rate than theatre, visual arts or festivals, suggesting that many people who have attended once did not like what they found.
The thirty-something generation is causing the greatest worries in the US. In the early 1990s, this generation constituted a quarter of the whole audience for classical music. Today, representation of this generation has dropped by 17%, and now makes up under 14% of the whole audience.
The audience for classical music concerts in the US has aged twice as fast as population as a whole, from 40 to 46, and now boasts an older average than jazz, ballet, theatre or opera.
There is a silver lining, however. Evidence from the UK suggests that the decline in attendance is not due to dislike of classical music, but to the concert setting itself. The formality and elitism of concerts, and their association with personal improvement, have principally been experienced in live performances. This has not stopped younger generations enjoying classical music on the radio – with nearly 40% of 18 – 24 year olds currently tuning in.
‘Classical music is in danger of becoming a fly trapped in amber – highly decorative but of interest only to an ageing part of society’ said Bonita Kolb. ‘It has become trapped in the sterile confines of the concert hall, and needs to rediscover its social purpose in order to recapture the imagination of the young.’
| PSI Communications Team | 020 7468 2201 |
| Neil Churchill | 07769 971851 |
Notes for Editors:
1. Cultural Trends is published by the Policy Studies Institute. Press review copies of Bonita Kolb’s chapter, The Effect of Generational Change on Classical Music Concert Attendance and Orchestras’ Responses in the UK and US, are available from the PSI Communications Team on 020 7468 0468. Cultural Trends 41 is available from Taylor and Francis on 01256 813000 priced £41;
2. Bonita M Kolb is associate professor and director of the MBA programme at Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University in New York. She also lectures at Pratt University and Portland State University in the US, and Trinity College of Music and the Sibelius Academy in Europe. She has published Marketing Cultural Organisations: new strategies for attracting audiences to classical music, dance, museums, theatre and opera.
3. PSI is a registered charity and has no association with any political party, pressure group or commercial interest.