CBSO adds grime stars to its roster
OrchestrasFrom the Times newspaper today:
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is teaming up with the city’s grime and hip-hop artists for workshops and a concert next year as it attempts to create a “new type of concert performance” and lure new audiences to orchestral music….
Emma Stenning, the chief executive of the CBSO, said it was launching a “listening project” in 2025 that would, among other things, establish the extent of the desire among potential audiences to relax rules and allow widespread use of phones in the concert hall.
You may think that. We couldn’t possibly comment.
Oh Ye Gods… Not again. Has she learnt nothing? I am wondering how much CBSO patrons’ patience will last…
They just go from strength to strength, don’t they?
Ms Stenning is so right with the idea of “luring new audiences”… and never keeping them to revisit again after a single concert, unfortunately. Don’t forget the loss of older and devouted public.
For crying out loud! Classical music is a wonderful thing. You don’t have to like it; you might grow to like it if you give it a go with a truly open mind. This is just nonsense. I happen not to like grime at all and am indifferent to hip hop. The opposite to their intentions certainly wouldn’t apply I’m sure. The loyal audience won’t be going off to experience grime so why should the opposite apply?
I’m beginning to despair of the whole thing. It’s like putting samples of Michelin starred chefs’ work in KFC. Pointless!
Instead of stooping-down to the level of the uninformed, a symphony orchestra should create educational programmes, so that new generations begin to understand the value of a cultural heritage of which they are the beneficiaries.
One of these values is the very obvious understanding that this ‘old’ music is young forever and universally accessible after getting used to its language. And this latter process is not hard at all.
What is wrong with the minds of well-meaning people who think that transferring valuable knowledge to kids can only be done by taking the kinds’ own underdeveloped interests and tastes as a standard?
In the background of such thinking is the idea that cultural artefacts obtain their meaning and relevance exclusively in their relationship to their temporary environment, that they are locked-up in their history, and that relevance is only possible if inferred from outside the work of art. So: hiphop is very meaningful not in itself but as an expression of our time. So, Mozart has no meaning and no relevance because his times are definitely over, and rightly so becasue it was a bad time. Ergo: ‘that music’ has nothing to tell us. Etc. etc. etc…..
This is innovative, progressive thinking! Orchestras need newcomers and new ideas to stay relevant. Bravo to them.