Bunnyears
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2004
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Whenever I go to Carnegie Hall or Avery Fisher (very infrequently as I HATE that hall) or the Met. Opera I am always surprised by the number of Asian faces there. They are keen listeners and they really know the music. Here in the US there just seems to be a cultural bias against intellectualism! We routinely vote for the men who are closer to the class clown or class jock than the class valedictorian who we seem to imagine as an eyeglass wearing, calculator carrying nerd. The kid who reads books is the bookworm and is thought to be weird. There is no encouragement for academic accomplishment in most American families -- fathers would rather dream about their sons becoming quarterbacks than physicists and mothers dream of their daughters being supermodels rather than Supreme Court justices. How can anyone expect that such cultural biases will result in an audience that gravitates to classical as well as heavy metal? Ofcourse we all know of exceptions (right here at headfi, no less
), but by and large concerts given by Dave Matthews sell a lot better than concerts by any symphony orchestra. Thankfully Asia has stepped into the breach so that our greatest musical traditions will not die, and hopefully will be preserved so that a later generation will be able to rediscover these works and connect again.
| Originally Posted by mbhaub This is so true. It used to be that many of the musicians in Asian orchestras were from America and Europe, but no longer. Last year I heard the China Philharmonic on tour playing the daylights out the Brahm Quartet arrangement by Schoenberg -- the strings were dazzling. The winds less so. No one would mistake the orchestra for Cleveland, London, Pittsburgh or other top-notch ensembles, but when you consider how little time has elapsed since western music has been allowed in that country, the gains are remarkable. But even more important are the audiences in Asia: people there can't seem to get enough of western classical music. They pack the halls, buy recordings, and more importantly, they know and enjoy the music. They're passionate about it. Not so in the US, at least in most places, where orchestras often play to half-empty halls, and many audience members have no idea what they're hearing. It's a cultural thing. The Asian people work hard, and want to excell at everything. So many of the top new talent in violin, piano and even conducting are Asian. Is it possible that when the western classical tradition dies in the US and Europe, that it will be the Asian countries that keep it alive? |
Whenever I go to Carnegie Hall or Avery Fisher (very infrequently as I HATE that hall) or the Met. Opera I am always surprised by the number of Asian faces there. They are keen listeners and they really know the music. Here in the US there just seems to be a cultural bias against intellectualism! We routinely vote for the men who are closer to the class clown or class jock than the class valedictorian who we seem to imagine as an eyeglass wearing, calculator carrying nerd. The kid who reads books is the bookworm and is thought to be weird. There is no encouragement for academic accomplishment in most American families -- fathers would rather dream about their sons becoming quarterbacks than physicists and mothers dream of their daughters being supermodels rather than Supreme Court justices. How can anyone expect that such cultural biases will result in an audience that gravitates to classical as well as heavy metal? Ofcourse we all know of exceptions (right here at headfi, no less
