Stereotypes might have us believe that the classical audience is typically older, whiter and richer. How true is this?

According to research into the global distribution of classical music listeners conducted by 

 in 2018, 29% of audiences for live classical concerts worldwide were under the age of 35, with 4% aged 16 – 19. So, whilst it’s true that the majority of classical listeners were aged 55 and over, it might be pleasantly surprising to see that nearly a third of the global audience are – at least according to this study – ‘millennials’. A whopping third of the global classical audience were born after the invention of the World Wide Web. These numbers are reflected by several ensembles I’ve spoken with; 29% of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s mainstream concert audience are under 25, and nearly a quarter of attendees of the Manchester Collective’s recent tour, The Oracle, were under 35. Whilst most organisations tell me their core audience is indeed beyond 50 – as these numbers still illustrate – perhaps we should redefine our understanding of just how small a ‘minority’ youth might be within this. 

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - Photo credit: Gareth Jones

When it comes to overall audience size and growth, the numbers are not necessarily encouraging. Zooming in on the UK, the funding body 

 conducted a thorough survey of adult engagement with music in England in the 2014/15 season. ‘Taking Part’ found that there was a significant fall in attendance of classical concerts; just 8.3% of adults in England attended classical gigs in the 2005/6 season – an already alarmingly-low figure – and this had fallen to 7% by 2014/15. The proportion of English adults who attended an opera fell in the same period from 4.4% to 3.7%. Whilst other ‘specialist’ genres saw a decrease too, it was not as dramatic: jazz attendance dropped from 5.6% in 2005/6 to 5.2% in 2014/15. This suggests that not only is classical concertgoing a minority preference, but that it is in decline.

It’s not for want of trying. Look at English National Opera (ENO). They describe themselves as ‘the opera house for everyone’, and present a compelling range of community projects, youth discounts and broadcasts alongside their English-language stage productions. 156,000 people take part in their learning and participation programmes every year, whilst 2.2 million people saw their work through broadcasts in the 21/22 season. ENO are masters of presenting opera in unexpected ways and places, not simply expecting audiences to come to them. I think of ENO Breathe, where vocal lessons have been used to help 2000 people suffering from long COVID; the opera house now partners with 85 NHS (National Health Service) Trusts across England. I think of ENO’s drive-in productions during the pandemic, where audiences sat in their cars whilst enjoying Puccini. I think of their free tickets to under 21s, with more than 7000 given through the current season so far. This means many more – and many younger – people are trying opera for the first time; as of March 2023, more than 60% of their audiences were booking a ticket for an ENO production for the first time. That is massive: half of an entire audience had never been there before. Although classical audience attendance might be in overall decline, the story at ENO suggests people are more than willing to give opera a go. ENO proves the classical audience, will and invention remain as strong as ever. 

London Coliseum Auditorium - Photo Credit: Karla Gowlett

Is the age question even a problem? In mainland Europe, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra’s Numa Bischof Ullmann is not alarmed by the fact the majority of their audience is over 50: “there are clear reasons for this. Classical music has always been something you need to take time to grow in to. The more you know about it, the higher the degree of appreciation and fascination. Also, retired people have both the time and means. This has always been like that and will remain like that.” Whilst Bischof acknowledges that “the biggest challenge we face is dwindling understanding of classical music, which can be seen in education, politics, the corporate world and the family home”, he remains optimistic, since the fundamental power and importance of an orchestra is unchanged. “A quality orchestra makes everybody happy and proud. An orchestra is a social umbrella; there is space for everyone. Look at our orchestra, which contains more than 20 nationalities. The best of the best.” Orchestras increasingly reflect the multinational and multicultural world we live in, and it could be argued that the very existence of so many ensembles today suggests vibrancy and viability. 

What might keep an audience away from a classical performance? Cost is certainly prohibitive in learning an instrument, but perhaps not in sampling a live concert. 

 reported on classical audiences in England between 2014 and 2016, surveying 113 venues, orchestras and ensembles; they found that the average price paid for a ticket by one-time bookers was £19.41. Compare this to musical theatre: in 2022, 

found that the average lowest-priced ticket to a West End show was £22.56. One of my frustrations is the assumption that classical performances are uniformly expensive, when a.) there are countless discount schemes on offer, and b.) so many of the other cultural activities engaged with can be eye-wateringly pricey. The Stage research found that, by 2022, the price for top-tier tickets to see West End shows had risen by 21% since the pandemic, to an average highest ticket price of £140.85. Some tickets to Cabaret on the West End reached the dizzy heights of £303.80. A balcony seat to see Adele in Las Vegas last year set some people back £650; that was the ‘cheap’ option. Sure, the Royal Opera House has seats for its upcoming production of Aida priced at £230, but tickets start at £11. Every cultural event of any kind has a range of ticket options, and we must remember we are paying to see the best of the best. Whilst aspects of classical music are indeed depressingly pricey – think of the ridiculous £119 charged for an ABRSM Grade 8 exam – the idea that classical music is uniformly more expensive than other genres is not true.  

Royal Opera House - Photo Credits: Sim Canetty-Clarke

This does, however, point to another major challenge: competition. We live in a noisy world with free time that’s increasingly full of options. Indeed, when classical music is not enjoying the mainstream visibility it used to – with newspaper column inches cut and social media algorithms targeting what you already know and love – it’s little wonder audiences might be declining. 

Then there’s the elephant in the room: music education. I attended a state school in South London that, whilst encouraging my own musical interests, simply did not have the resources to develop this more extensively themselves: for a school of nearly 2000 pupils, there were just 2 full-time music teachers. All too often, the onus is on the students themselves to pursue their musical passion and make it into a career, or on wealthy parents who can subsidise their child’s musical studies outside of school hours. 

But all is not lost. My gateway into classical music was a series of free-to-enter initiatives run by British ensembles. My first experience of composing for an orchestra came thanks to the ROH Fanfare project, where ten state school students wrote a fanfare that was recorded by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Sir Antonio Pappano. My piece was piped through the House to call audience members to their seats throughout the season, and it spurred me on to continue writing for orchestras; within two years I had composed for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony. Encouragement is priceless. It can be seen everywhere; the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra welcomes over 17,000 children and teachers from 250 schools annually as part of the In Harmony programme. Since 2007, New York’s Metropolitan Opera has run its 

, transmitting opera in real time and in high definition to schools across America; it now reaches 66 districts in all 50 states, with their operas seen by 175,000 young Americans.  The will – and the young people – are there.

The Metropolitan Opera - HD Live in Schools

Classical music is, in many ways, booming right now. As those live streams demonstrate, there are plenty of opportunities to come across the genre in unexpected places. This season, the Met will broadcast ten live performances to over 2000 cinemas across more than 70 countries. Elsewhere, California’s Vitamin String Quartet brought the chamber music sound to a mass audience when their recordings were featured in the Netflix hit, Bridgerton; the ensemble have clocked up over one billion streams and 1 million physical unit sales. Likewise, consider the cross-genre collaborations taking place on an-ever-increasing scale: pianist Lang Lang’s latest album sees him reimagine hit songs from Disney films; six-time Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter and film composer Terence Blanchard has made his Met Opera debut, becoming the first black composer to have an opera played there; classical composer Judith Weir, musicals master Andrew Lloyd Webber and film regular Patrick Doyle are all contributing new music to the Coronation of Britain’s King Charles III in May. Minds and doors have arguably never been more open to classical music.

Perhaps we need to redefine ‘classical audience’. After all, we don’t talk about a ‘pop audience’; these genre labels are broad umbrella terms for such a range of music, and nor can we define an audience so easily. Colleagues tell me the bulk of their audiences stick to what they know; those who attend ‘mainstream’ orchestral concerts – a Rachmaninov concerto, say – won’t be found in the contemporary music gig, nor the early music scene. Just as ‘classical’ and ‘pop’ are catch-all terms, so is the word ‘audience’. 

With my radio presenter hat on, the classical audience is broad. In 2019, Bauer Media – a company whose portfolio of radio stations and magazines reaches over 22 million UK adults – launched a brand new national classical music station, Scala Radio. The fact that a major European media organisation willingly ploughed huge resources into launching a new classical station speaks volumes about the predicted audience for classical music. Look at Classic FM, Scala’s commercial competitor; in February 2023, they recorded 5 million weekly UK listeners, consistently enjoying the ninth or tenth highest reach of any UK radio station (pop and rock ones included). 

We shouldn’t be disheartened. From vocal-medical programmes to cinema relays and new radio stations, classical music remains as inventive and relevant as ever. The challenge is and always has been communication, visibility and education; to normalise classical music so that it is a part of everyday life. This is already happening in cinemas, streaming, in community projects and beyond… But how much of this is news even to those who work within the profession? I’m constantly surprised to learn about ticket discount schemes, competitions, digital offerings and charities. This proves the dots are not always joined. Can we ever shout loud enough? 

There is always more to discover, but perhaps that’s the reason why I remain highly optimistic for the future of classical. When something is so vast, so broad, so international, it can only mean opportunity. There’s something for everyone, and there can and will always be more. We have the ultimate treasure trove to share and shout about, but must never be passive; classical music has been created out of ingenuity and tenacity, and that same spirit will inform its future.

Jack Pepper (b.1999) is a British composer, broadcaster and writer. 

Distribution of classical music listeners worldwide as of the 4th quarter of 2018, by age group.

National Classical Music Audiences | An analysis of Audience Finder box office data for classical music events 2014-2016. 

The Stage ticketing survey 2022: top prices surge 20% from pre-pandemic levels.  

Who’s Listening?

Jack Pepper explores the classical music audience of the past, present and future, and how to bring in a new generation…

As musicians, we are trying everyday to acquire competences by facing the process of acquiring information and translating them on our instruments. In general when an individual decides to learn a new skill, he needs to face a four phase transition to acquire it. We all know how long, slow and sometimes stressful the process can be but what seems to be a standardised process has been identified during the 70’s in psychology as a ladder scheme of knowledge and understanding that can definitely be applied also to the music field. 

Let’s find out in detail, what the four stages are:

This basic stage is the one where the individual is not aware about a certain aspect and doesn’t know how to proceed to reach the next step. Translated to the music field, this is the real blank page, the starting point of a musical journey on the instrument when the student is not able to recognize what is lacking to improve his ability. Once having acknowledged that some aspects could be useful, the aspiring musician can proceed to the next stage but the length of time spent in this stage depends on the willpower to learn and on the inputs given by the teacher .

The next level refers to a musician who doesn’t understand or know how to play a piece but recognizes the deficit. He accepts the knowledge of an existing gap and, to progress, he must recognize the value of the aspect he/she is trying to learn. This passage may be a little uncomfortable for some but the motivational learning aspect is crucial to know that mistakes are part of the learning process.

The third learning stage is the one where musicians understand and know how to play a piece but it requires a good amount of concentration and discipline. At this level all senses are involved in a conscious way during the performance, with very little room for errors in order to execute a piece in the proper way. It doesn’t come spontaneously then but it’s a work towards skills acquisition where the ‘trial and error’ method is the right way to achieve continuous improvement. 

The last level is the one that all musicians aim for the most. To reach this level much practice is needed to reach something that comes “naturally” when executing it. It still demands a learning process but the musician at this stage has a strong foundation and confidence in his abilities. This level is the only one that allows a potential teacher to transfer his knowledge to others.

With this system being applicable to every field, it can be used during the learning music process to analyse your own stage and be aware of what should be done to reach the next one. It should be especially used when self-doubt takes over during difficult times, reassuring yourself during conscious phases that results will improve in the future through hard work and perseverance.

Four levels of music understanding

ClasseekLink brings together musicians and professionals to better promote talent in the digital age. 

- Launch of a digital platform dedicated to the professional classical music community that allows artists to present themselves in a dynamic and interactive way

- Music professionals have unprecedented access to young artists around the world

- Innovative digital tools help professionals and artists guide their choices

- ClasseekLink signs a partnership with HEMU Haute École de Musique, Switzerland and counts many prestigious ambassadors

How to enable young classical music artists to better blossom and develop the best artistic opportunities? How can professionals be helped to acutely find talent? How to give access to all those who would like to be discovered and live far from the main world stages? How can technology help bring tomorrow's virtuosos into the digital age? Launched by the technology company Classeek, the ClasseekLink platform brings together artists, presenters and other classical music professionals under one roof, with the common goal of connecting the right people at the right time, and creating the ideal opportunities for the development of their respective careers. A godsend at a time when society is becoming increasingly digital, and the music scene needs to reinvent itself.

ClasseekLink acts as a real platform for exchange and interactive presentation for the classical world scene. The profiles allow artists to present themselves, increase their visibility, facilitate exchanges, share their news and achievements and stay in touch with the professional circuit. The platform includes various tools, such as a digital press kit that provides in one click all the necessary and complete information, ready for distribution or printing - biographies, videos and high-resolution photos. For all professionals, ClasseekLink provides unprecedented global access to emerging artists from around the world.

The ClasseekLink platform also gives access to Classeek Analytics, a data analysis tool developed by Classeek. Compiling a large database and a sharp analysis of global trends in classical music, this tool offers a practical mapping that serves as a decision support for artists and other professionals. In a world hitherto more driven by instinct, Classeek Analytics allows, for example, a foundation, that lends instruments, to examine emerging talent, an agent to detail the career of an artist she or he is considering hiring, and an artist to make a rational analysis of her or his choices. Classeek opens up new opportunities for young classical music talents in an era of digitalization of society and their professional environment.

ClasseekLink is also developing a partnership with HEMU - Haute École de Musique Vaud Valais Fribourg, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Bachelor and Master students of HEMU register and create their Premium account on the platform free of charge. They create their digital press kit and publish it on the platform in order to become visible and accessible.

The prestigious ambassadors of Classeek, among them the pianist Sir András Schiff, the flutist Emmanuel Pahud, and the brothers Gautier and Renaud Capuçon (cello and violin) actively support this initiative.

Catarina Amon, founder and CEO of Classeek, said "With ClasseekLink, we want to help young classical music talents find their way to success and professionals find the best. Above all, we want to give the same chance to all those who aspire to a career in classical music, wherever they live, on all five continents. ClasseekLink wants to bring all talents under one roof, accessible and interconnected, creating more opportunities for everyone. We want to give all artists a new breath, a new life, using the technologies of today and tomorrow."

ClasseekLink launch

Promoting talent in the digital age

Many sectors are impacted by the COVID crisis. Some of them express louder than others the economic disaster it is leading to.

The sudden urgency to adapt to the new rules, had a tremendous percussion on priorities and turned lives upside-down. In these circumstances, consumers tend to go back to their basic needs of survival and sometimes forget about spiritual health.

The Classical music community is one of the sectors which remains relatively discrete about what it is going through at this moment. All concerts and festivals being cancelled, many young and even established and internationally renown musicians are facing open ended uncertainty…

One of the best known and most respected artist managers in the international field of classical music R. Douglas Sheldon recently reflected 

“The pandemic is likely to cause a shift in the public’s attitude and habits about attending live music events”.

The truth is that live events are less relevant to pop artists who are omnipresent by other means like albums, movie soundtracks, Music TV clips, TV shows etc…and sometimes are even more successful without live interaction with the public. But what about classical music performers where the soul of the performance is their physical and spiritual presence?

There is an overwhelming amount of classical music concerts streamed at this moment. Most of them for free. Artists are sharing their virtuosity and emotions unconditionally with the public.

Public embracing of the artists solidarity movement has been remarkable, the question is: is it sustainable post crisis and what’s the best way to support artists?

Again, Lady Gaga can perform online for free without much financial uncertainty, but what about young and talented pianists, cellists or opera singers?'

"Without leaving the comfort of home a violinist or an actor must be able to give a recital on the other side of the world and be paid for it. This implies the use of technologies that are available or will soon be available. There are already pioneers in the field such as the online platform Classeek." — Jacques Attali, author

At Classeek, our main mission is to Discover, Follow and Support talented artists. In the middle of this unprecedented crisis, we wish to make sure that they do not get discouraged and abandon their field by a simple lack of sustainability. Now that we are all adjusting to the social distancing but thrive for culture, beauty, comfort and connection it’s an unique opportunity for artists to show their ease to adapt and experiment new ways to create an audience.Since April this year, Classeek moved our Showroom in a virtual mode and we started to propose an innovative concept of a live performance: Virtual Recitals. It is not a fancy streaming or a TV show, but a live interaction with your classic performer, via Zoom, where the musician plays from his or her living room for a small group of people where an interactive Q&A session follows the performance. The success of this concept lies in the intimate character of such an event, where you feel closer to an artist than in any most prestigious concert hall. We do our best to optimise the sound quality, but the most important feature remains the human interaction and the unique possibility to get to know these artists personally.

At the beginning, we proposed these recitals to private clients whom we call our “Classeek community” for friends and family events. Today, we are also launching this concept for corporate clients who are searching for new ways of boosting their team’s motivation, awakening creativity or simply spending some quality time with co-workers after intensive brainstorming on “how to survive the crisis”.

“Humanity needs art to thrive, not to survive but to thrive” – R. Douglas Sheldon

Classeek online recitals

Joining efforts to support classical musicians in post lockdown disarray

This is probably the question of questions. Or actually, there are two important issues to consider: how far might the sponsor exert his influence on the work of art, and in what way should he benefit from it?

Concerning the first, I think that the sponsor or patron should have the right to outline what he is prepared to pay for and be informed as to use of his money as well as the design of the work.

He should however not interfere with the actual form or content, nor must he put the artist under pressure. Should van Gogh decide to paint sunflowers, the sponsor should not oblige him to paint water lilies. Should Beethoven choose to write a great symphony with soloists and orchestra, the sponsor should not demand a ballet instead. Svyatoslav Richter did presumably not require your advice as to how to employ the pedal in a Chopin prelude.

And of course there is always the difference between commissioning and sponsoring a work of art. To sponsor means to generously provide means that enable a project or a talent to emerge.

I suppose this requires a great amount of knowledge and common trust between the partners. It might be advisable to outline wishes, or even conditions of the sponsor before the work is actually commissioned or the artist begins to work. Maybe the sponsor needs some guidance in order to formulate his ideas and to find something that will give him pleasure to fund. True sponsorship is something very personal and involves not only finances but also enthusiasm, interest and an emotional attachment. This, by the way, is one of the ideas Classeek stands for: if you feel the urge to support the arts but do not know how to go about it or what to sponsor, we will try and give you individual advice. For one thing, on this platform you can find artists and projects that are recommended by experienced specialists and which you might normally not be aware of.

Many young talents simply require sponsorship for the great investment they need to make into their profession: make photos and create a website, buy a decent concert dress or an instrument, travel to auditions or take part in masterclasses. More often than not, they simply need to cover their living costs while studying, practising and rehearsing. In short, there are countless ways of sponsoring artists and new works of art, and any kind of sponsorship is always welcomed with deep gratitude.

How much you yourself might expect to benefit from your sponsorship is another philosophical question that will become the topic of another blog.

How much will you get out of it?

Sponsoring the arts

The funny thing about social networks is that they are an oxymoron as ever there was one: They are totally unsocial because you communicate with a machine, not real people and therefore cut yourself off from interaction with the real world. And many of them no longer function as structures where communication works in two directions – between yourself and your partners. Social networks are becoming one-way channels for powerful advertisers while you turn into a helpless recipient, or an outlet for weirdos dumping their personal trash.

But the good news is that this is why we are here on Classeek, and yes, I do have a facebook page, and I am on linkedin and twitter.

Social networks are wonderful means of learning new things and keeping in touch, especially for those whose friends and families are far away. Naturally, this applies to musicians who have different working hours from most people, who travel and need to be alone a lot. Or to keep updated with what their artistic and business partners all over the world are doing. Or maybe you are a music student on a distant continent and would like to keep in touch with what goes on in, say, Europe.

But please remember to partake of the real world from time to time: go and talk to real people, give someone a call to hear their voice, go outside and look at the wonders of nature, take a book or a real score into your hands (have you ever touched an 18th century manuscript? Have you ever seen Bach’s, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s handwriting?? NOT in the internet but in the British Library, for instance).

Use the social networks, by all means, but do not clog them up with millions of holiday photos and the croissants you are just having for breakfast. Or at least decide which network you use for what: Instagram for croissants, Classeek for your music!

Most people have no time and patience… are you actually still reading this…? You see! Nowadays, we want to be sure to find the information we are looking for quickly!

Be well aware of what you post. Nowadays, many employers skim the web and look in what shape they find you there before they think about giving you a job. It is not going to help if you argue that they tracked down only a digital, momentary print and not the real you. They might not know the difference…

Social networks

More than just croissants and beach photos

The crowd hums with expectation. A sea of grey covers the terrain of the stalls, whilst a bell tolls, signaling the imminent downbeat. The lights dim - the ever so mildly restless crowd hushes. It’s time.

‘please ensure your mobile phones are turned off’

The Maestro emerges to loud, rapturous applause. Or perhaps the orchestra emerges first, followed by the designated tuner, then followed by the Maestro. Either way, a lot of applause happens to signify appreciation for something that hasn’t yet occurred.

Silence again, and boom goes the orchestra.

What follows is a period of silence from you, the audience member, which is more all-encompassing than that found in the most sacrosanct spaces - as if any innocuous sound would drown out the rather large and exceptional sound coming from the stage.In fact, any form of enjoyment is strictly forbidden, except that which exists between your ears. Please refrain and stifle any outburst - physical or audible - that may overcome you; it’s disrespectful to show your appreciation in this way.

Clap when told - but definitely not before. Clap enthusiastically, but again, not too vociferously. Even if you didn’t enjoy the performance, you need to join in (who knows when you’ll be able to make noise again, so make the most of it). God forbid you from uttering any other noise except 

 - don’t even think of the petty and common ‘woo’.

When the concert finishes, clap even longer. Three curtain-calls equals encore. Sometimes if you’re lucky, the performer will start going through their secondary programme without even being asked for it. Actually, going back to a previous thought, why are we even saying

? The etymology of the word suggests it could mean anything from ‘brave’ to ‘hired, untamed mercenary’. Weird.

Shuffle out whilst congratulating yourself on the musical meditation/medication you’ve just received; follow the crowd, maybe grab a drink on the way home, and it’s bed before 11:30pm.

Why is traditional concert etiquette so damned restrictive? Current audiences would suggest that it is in order to appreciate the music fully - to hear every nuance, absorb the content almost subconsciously as it envelopes your entire, meditative body. And fair point, this is an extremely valid reason - both as a performer and audience member, I have experienced a perfect moment of contemplation interrupted by the shuffling of an uncomfortable listener or the rustle of programme notes. The paying public demand complete attention and silence, and this is very reasonable - in this particular setting.

Certainly it wasn’t the case in the early days of classical music; aside from church services, music by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven - really, anyone up until Liszt invented the proto-recital - was generally composed as light entertainment for the enjoyment of the über rich. There is a great scene in 

 where the Count actually enjoys a meal, hatches a plan, and eventually gets challenged to a duel - all during the performance of an Opera. And this was normal behaviour! People would routinely clap between symphony or sonata movements - historically, clapping after the first movement signaled that the audience wanted to hear the rest, hence the huge endings of most first movements. Bach’s dance suites were… gasp, for actual dancing.

So, quiet contemplation of the music is a relatively new beast that developed in the early 20th Century, and performances have more and more begun to resemble a series of nightly funeral processions, sans the programming of a good Requiem. And this is fantastic, because that’s exactly what a lot of (but not all) great classical music requires to engage with fully.

Though, it’s hardly the most welcoming symposium for a new listener to enter. For an industry that constantly paces back and forth saying 

, we’re awfully quick to limit how these new listeners will engage with us. No one is suggesting we go back to the classical era and start vocalising our displeasure with performers (tempting as it may be), but there are plenty of options out there which would allow the musicians to reach this crowd of patrons. They’re young, interested, and eager to experience something new - but not so eager to receive a forceful silent lecture from the glare of a particularly irritable octogenarian.

Konzerthaus Berlin does a concert where all music is performed twice in order to fully absorb it; Cafe Oto in Dalston, London, combines bar space and contemporary classical venue (and somehow doesn’t go broke); and the Royal Opera House does free screenings in public spaces such as Trafalgar Square - wine, cheese, and smoking allowed throughout. There are countless other initiatives out there, but they’re still the outliers. These concerts aren’t trying to pander to a seemingly lower level of consciousness, or patronising newcomers with easy-listening programmes, and nor should they.It isn’t about ‘dumbing down’ the product in order to trick new listeners into enjoying it, it isn’t about bastardising the music to make it more accessible, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be about programming pop music with an orchestra and trying to pass it off as classical - that’s insulting to both genres. 

It’s about creating a welcoming atmosphere - and we, the audience and performers, are responsible for creating an atmosphere that allows us to share one of the greatest experiences we are lucky enough to already be acquainted with.

Classical music etiquette for audiences

Please ensure your mobile phones are turned off

Artists feed themselves at all times with technological innovations; sometimes these are determinant and disrupt art. Especially when they come at the right time, like the apparently modest development in 1841, by the American painter John Goffe Rand, of the soft metal tube of paint, collapsible, hermetically closed with a clamp, which will enable artists to paint outside, leading thirty years later to the first impressionist exhibition.

Today, everybody talks, undiscerningly, about artificial intelligence. Without understanding anything about it, some see in it an absolute intelligence, able to free men from boring tasks and even to create works of art; others see in it a monstrous intelligence, which will distrust men and which, as soon as it can, will get rid of them.

Hence the urge, say some of them, to master it before it destroys us. And for others, at least, to decrypt what would be an “artistic intelligence”. And to use it to enhance the creative process.

AI already knows how to learn by experience, recognize faces, drive a car, play Go better than men, write a press review or compose a simple melody. Some people are using AI to predict the nature of works of art that the market would want to acquire, or to protect intellectual property by the interplay of AI and blockchain. Some also approach the reality and the complexity of artistic intelligence by the use of virtual reality in order to put ourselves in other person’s shoes, to see the world differently or to wander in the brain’s labyrinth.

But we are very far from seeing AI master what constitutes the basis of human artistic intelligence. For example, whereas a five-year-old child recognizes what is a dog once he saw one, thousands of attempts are needed for a device to learn how to recognize such an animal. And a lot more will be needed for AI to possibly be able to create original pieces of art.

Let’s check the facts: there is in our cortex about one hundred billion of neurons, all connected, and each of them connected by thousands of synapses; which makes billions and billions of connections. Excluding those which are elsewhere in our body. The main part of intelligence plays out in the mutual relations between the neurons and synapses. It is not in the ability to organize causalities, but to anticipate, by retroactive loops, later perceptions: a tennis player can’t send the ball back after a serve if he only trusts what he sees, a slalom skier doesn’t pass the gates if he doesn’t anticipate the movements of his body.This anticipation is peculiar to the human creative intelligence. For example, it is an essential part of aesthetic feelings, as Francis Wolff demonstrates so well about music in his book “Why Music ?” (Fayard éd.).

Therefore, we are very far from seeing AI taking part in the creative process. By chance, by random and serendipity, pieces of art may appear for the inform matter. But to link that with an artistic conscience and process, more is to be found.

In the long run, AI may lead us to new avenues of creation, new continents of creativity, new dimensions of human means.

Can Artificial intelligence become a help to artistic intelligence?

How far can it take us?

The other day I was talking to the colleagues at Classeek about what a CV should look like. I like to tell myself that over the years, I have become the master of masters over all CVs. I have indeed seen practically all imaginable CVs and have probably written most of them - at Zurich Opera between 10 and 40 per week for more than a decade, whereas I still translate, edit, rewrite and write dozens of them for my various projects – earlier this year around 90 for the Trans-Siberian Art Festival...

Sometimes I am quite proud of my abilities as a writer of CVs. For the Trans-Siberian Art Festival last Spring, for instance, I had to edit and translate from Russian into English a CV of a leading Tuvan overtone singer who excels in five styles of throat-singing. Apart from being puzzled by the fact that no one could tell me for sure what was the gentleman’s first and what his last name was, it took me some time to research the intricacies of overtone singing and how to translate them. In the end I discovered that most of the Tuvan names of the different styles are simply transliterated when written in English, so this particular problem was resolved quite easily.

In general, I have noticed one particular thing: a curriculum is a living organism and changes its shape all the time – like Barbapapa…! It starts with practically a few lines at the beginning of your career when you have nothing much to tell. As your career develops, your CV grows and grows accordingly: you gradually fill in every master class you attended, every city and country you played in, every foundation that gave you money, every recording you made (labels, musical partners and detailed programme included), every radio and TV programme that featured you, every award you won (and what for). And of course all orchestras, conductors and chamber music partners you ever played with, preferably in alphabetical order so that noone can get offended and bar your future career.

One day you realize that most people stopped reading your CV and that you yourself can no longer keep the inventory of orchestras, conductors, festivals and awards in order, that even you have lost count by now.

So you start reducing. You cut it down, summarize, focus on milestones and moments that truly meant something to you, cut out details – until it is about as short again as at the outset of your career...

For some reason, costume designers are masters in brevity. I remember a bunch of them whose CV consisted of one single sentence, maybe two. It was surprising but it worked.

The trouble about CVs is that you must constantly revise them, keep them up-to-date and make them appropriate for every individual occasion. Take your time to think about it – it is one of the small things that let audiences and organisers remember you favourably.

Think of what might be relevant to a particular country, hall or genre. If you are going to play chamber music, you might focus on that part of your work and shorten the part about orchestra concerts. If you play in a particular place, it will be appreciated if you elaborate on something relating to that area.

Try to write it up in a slightly different way and avoid endless (and totally boring) lists of names. However, do not try to be exaggeratedly funny and quirky – some promoters might not appreciate that and change your text completely.

Try to be short or ask beforehand how much space they foresee – otherwise your novel will be cut down to a short story or worse, mere snippets – and you might be disappointed with the editor’s work. For commodity on electronic devices brevity is also advisable.

Don’t invent things because you feel you have nothing of importance to say. The secret is to remain short, generic and sometimes vague enough to discreetly pass over some gaps in your career.

Check the proper spelling of people, orchestras and venues – out of respect for your colleagues. And do not trust presenters. They might not translate it properly or print your text one-to-one, without proofreading, and once published, your CV might turn out to be an embarrassment for you.Try to be generic and general – the text will age less quickly and spare you some rounds of revision.

Americans are in more of a hurry than Europeans, so they invented the system of writing the newest things first and facts like where you are from and where you studied at the very bottom. As you will have guessed I find this tiresome and annoying – I am always grudgingly scrolling down pages after pages in search for the one paragraph that tells me whether Mr N.N.-ov is in fact from Bulgaria, Moldavia, Russia or the U.S.A. and – since he is so brilliant – with whom and where he studied.Somehow I find this more interesting than to be told that he went on tour to Germany last month. And my brain feels far less hot when a text starts with the beginning and finishes with the end, rather than starting with the end and leaving the top waiting at the bottom.

Unfortunately, the writing of your cv is a task you cannot shun even though you might hate it. My basic advice is: be conscientious about your CV. First of all, it adds to the overall good impression you want to create (if you are taking your profession seriously) and secondly, you yourself will be pleased if what is written about you sounds decent and to your own liking.

And - as I mentioned before, in digital times things get spread around very quickly, so you are better off if the facts are right.

How to write a CV

What to include and what not to

Ok, so they’re usually biassed and certainly the methods of evaluation and marking always have their flaws. And the jurys end up in rows, while audiences are offended that their particular favourite was not given the prize they consider proper.

But I like to listen to my venerable great-aunt, Dame Fanny Waterman, founder and year-long chairman of the legendary Leeds International Piano Competition (prize winners include Rafael Orozco, Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, András Schiff, Louis Lortie, Boris Berezovsky, Lars Vogt). She has Yorkshire grass-roots and simply says "What’s the alternative?".

As a person who devoted most of her 97 years (and still is!!) to furthering piano playing and music on all levels and ages and who has seen the world’s greatest competitions from the inside for decades, she sees this business in a sober way: in her words, competitions are the best alternative to our modern age’s lack of wide-spread patronage by royalty or the church, who in olden times furthered talent and thus enabled a life in music.

If there weren’t competitions, how would you be able to draw attention to yourself, where would you be able to present yourself to a considerable number of leading performers, conductors, managers, promoters and eager listeners all sitting in one hall? Where indeed would you get a chance to perform a series of programmes, solo recitals and concertos, in front of a curious audience? Who would let you play with a renowned orchestra and conductor (without a generous bribe)?

Dame Fanny’s view is that "a competition reflects your decision that this is the moment when you are ready to take the risk. Have you got the courage? Are you prepared not to succeed where you had hoped and are you going to be put off completely by the result, or should your attitude be: I’ll show them…? The jury are not listening for mistakes. They’re listening, waiting and hoping for some magic, something that you are saying that is different from the competitor they have heard before."

I tend to agree with Dame Fanny, in spite of all shortcomings of competitions. See them as a unique showcase, see them as a moment of defiance, a moment when you test your nerves and stamina. By enrolling, you force yourself to learn a certain repertoire and bring it up to performance level within a defined period of time, you train yourself to go out on stage, to fight against many, if not all odds.

If you brave a competition, you can defy anything! Having regularly gotten through various stages of a competition lets you take adverse situations lightly: you will be able to play while feeling totally ill, when the lights unexpectedly go off (or mobile phones!!), when a patron in the audience collapses while you need to get to the end of a late Beethoven sonata, when your dress pops open on stage or when (what normally only happens in nightmares) you forget the music you are playing... Bad reviews or half-empty halls, creaking pianos and broken strings, insecure conductors and insensitive partners – nothing will prevent you from delivering an inspired, beautiful performance.

Having gone through the artificial set-up and heightened stress of competitions, you are practically shock-proof! And you needn’t win! I myself for instance prefer going to second rounds and semifinals and come to a decision of my own. And have made wonderful discoveries in the process. So even if you don’t win, people will hear you and who knows, some might be important and just make the difference.

But don’t forbear with that winning spirit…! Always go in with the conviction that only you are worthy of the First Prize and fight your way through to the end! Every time you go on stage you should feel the same kind of adrenalin and energy. You have to win your audience every single time you go out there.

Sense and nonsense of competitions

Winning the audience

I grew up in a world where one thought that if you practise enough you will have a career. And if you didn‘t have a career you simply hadn‘t practised enough, so sit down and practise!

However, after 25 years in the business (and mostly on the organiser’s side of things) I have understood that this is not the case, unfortunately. Also, I suspect that it was never how major careers actually got shaped but in pre-digital days and from the point-of-view of ordinary people it was very difficult to imagine that it could be otherwise. In many ways we were far more innocent then. After all, we believed what we read in the newspapers and what we saw on television.

Today, it is clear to me that to make a career – in music or elsewhere – you do indeed require the basics: talent, devotion, the ability to sit down and stay at it for endless hours, patience and endurance, favourable surroundings, encouragement.

But you must look beyond your music-making and keep your eyes open: You must be endowed with large portions of astuteness, independent thinking, self-confidence and… diplomacy. You should be organised, reliable, know languages and used to travelling through different countries and cultures. And you should not mind spending hours after hours on your own.Like a good friend of mine, excellent Spanish composer and pianist Antoni Parera Fons, says "I am never bored. I love being on my own thinking thoughts to myself. It is the most wonderful pastime."  Above all you should love music and your instrument, no matter what your career is doing. You should never force yourself to play only because somebody told you so. The audience can hear this. It immediately reacts to a musician that is not inspired. To put it bluntly: if you feel no vocation, you are not making real music. And you should not be making music professionally.

But you must also have the humility to understand and accept the fact that you might not be made for a professional career in music, for whatever reason. Or that you are maybe not made for a stellar career (who is?) but for „only“ an ordinary one that keeps you in the profession, lets you earn a living (more or less) and allows you to spend your days doing the thing you enjoy most.

Like in all aspects of life, you will unfortunately not be able to influence that crucial factor, luck: to find the right teachers, those who inspire you, those who can help you – those who will help you selflessly, those that will give you the right advice. And most importantly: the chance to be in the right place at the right time.

You can, however, work on things that might pave the way once you have indeed encountered a spell of luck, things that might help you unlock some doors that take you further on your way.

I would like to write about some of the things that in my experience have proven important and that are evidently often not taught to aspiring musicians. Or ignored by them. Many will be questions (me too, I like thinking my thoughts) rather than answers. But they might give you some helpful insights when thinking your own thoughts about music and your career.

Looking beyond the music making

Is practice enough?

Music has always been more than music. Not only it is what we all know and share: the ultimate expression of the specificity of mankind, its main differences with other animals (including those who sing); but it has always been, for those who can read those signs, the main way to predict some fundamental dimensions of the future.In fact, since the beginning of times, musical changes (in technological, sociological and economic patterns), anticipate the other changes in society as a whole.

For a very simple and profound reason: music explores the kingdom of signs. And it is easier, quicker, less painful and less expensive to manipulate signs than to manipulate material things. In theoretical language, we would say that information is infinite, while energy is limited. Matter is energy. Music is sign. And music explores the kingdom of possible much quicker than material fields. Even if, and it is essential, music needs matter (instrument or voice) in order to be heard by human ears.

(We could say the same about finance, also based on the language of signs; and there are fascinating analogies between the evolutions and historical roles of music and finance).

Many examples can be given of this capacity of music to anticipate the other dimensions of reality: non-religious concerts appear at the end of the 15th century, before the weakening of the power of churches. Tickets and concert halls are, in the middle of the 17th century, the pioneer of market economy. Symphonic orchestras are, in the middle of the 18th century, early signs of division of labor. The conductor is, at the beginning of the 19th century an early metaphor of the modern economic and political leader. In the middle of the 19th century, in France, with the creation of the SACEM, the dispute about music copyright opens the first fight about intellectual property; later, at the end of the 19th century, gramophones and records were the first examples of mass production, much before cars or washing machines. Discussion about allowing the broadcasting of music, around 1920, anticipates the acute recent discussion about free music on the Internet. Around 1930, the creation of hit parades open the road of ranking products by the number of their sales and not their specific qualities. Music was also the first product, before the end of the 20th century, to be delivered peer to peer, well in advance of Uber or of any other example of collaborative economy.

I could give a thousand of other examples from the surge of some ideology, to the balance of powers, and evolution of capitalism, through the evolution of opera or the birth of new music instruments. For example, the surge of atonal music was a gloomy prophecy of what the catastrophic 20th century was going to produce.

The domination of Africa on the rest of the world: Chinese music is not and never will be universal. This is a fact: no one listens to Chinese music abroad: its structure is too specific. And China has never tried to become an imperialistic nation beyond a narrow sphere of influence. The only universal music now, both as melodies and rhythms, is coming from Africa. And it is obvious that, for the best or the worse, Africa is going to be the main scene of mankind’s future: in 30 years, the population of this continent will have doubled!The development of live music is a sign that the only thing people are ready to pay for is to share an experience with artists and have good time. Time is the only scarce thing and everything will be made to free more time, by devices such as autonomous car.

More and more, people want to make music (play and compose), and not only to listen to it: it makes it easy to predict that people will want more and more to have control over their own life. DJs announce a world where the difference between consuming and producing will disappear. Where everyone will produce its consumption using 4D printing. Music is and will be everywhere, as a sign of fear of loneliness, need of reassurance and political mastering.

In this world of global music, as well as global society, things can go to the worst. If no one can make the difference between good musicians and nice amateurs anymore, the difference between good and bad will disappear. The quality of human condition is at stake. If we don’t raise the criteria of excellence, the worst will happen. If we raise it, then we can reach a noble world, of elegance, refinement, sophistication, creation, accomplishment and culture. For all.

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