Charismatic San Francisco Symphony director Michael Tilson Thomas stars in the organization's "Keeping Score" multimedia project that's meant to reel in younger audiences. (AP Photo/Susan Ragan)

Ah, those were the days. This concert at Carnegie Hall in 1935 doesn't seem to be lacking an audience. (AP Photo)

If gloomy words could kill, classical music would have keeled over long ago. When it comes to high culture's official soundtrack, pessimism dominates.

Oh, there's a small band of optimists -- critics and fans who argue that a secret renaissance of sorts is under way. They proudly note that classical accounts for a healthy 12 percent of sales on Apple's iTunes service. They see talented young musicians and composers everywhere and concerts jamming events calendars nationwide. New York Times writer Allan Kozinn even gave a recent essay the bold headline "This is the Golden Age."

Doom-sayers, however, have raw numbers on their side. Classical's core audience -- the people who support big-time downtown symphonies with their season-ticket checks and donations -- is getting older and smaller.

In 1997, a National Endowment for the Arts study found that classical's audience was grayer than that of any other major art form. A more recent NEA chart profiling classical fans by age shows that 18-to-24-year-olds make up less than 10 percent of the audience; the graph spikes up to show that almost two-thirds of the Classical Nation is over 45. Similar studies suggest that as these AARP-certified fans inexorably die off, fewer and fewer members of Gens X, Y and Z take their places in the concert hall.

SPLASHY, COSTLY

The classical world isn't ignoring the demographic meltdown; just about every symphony is trying something to lure new audiences. This fall, the San Francisco Symphony rolls out arguably the splashiest, costliest effort yet. "Keeping Score," a TV/radio/Internet/DVD/school classroom onslaught, backed by deep-pocketed donors and focus-group tested, will try to convince rookie audiences that classical has something for them.

Three TV specials hosted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the SFS's charismatic music director, will delve into Beethoven's "Eroica," "Stravinsky's Rite of Spring" and Aaron Copland's populist, all-American style. Meanwhile, Keepingscore.org will offer a deep interactive breakdown of each composer's work, dissecting its historical, emotional and artistic ingredients in the full glory of Flash animation.

Early indications are hopeful: a 2004 TV pilot on Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony attracted 1 million households; focus groups in three cities all said seeing the show made them actually want to listen to the composer's work.

"This definitely not typical for us," says John Kieser, the Symphony's electronic-media czar. "We sat down to talk about ways we could bring more people into the music, and break down the misconception that you need a doctorate in musicology to enjoy it.

"That's not what it's about at all -- but how do we get that across? How do we communicate that Beethoven isn't a god, he's a human like everybody else? That's what we're trying to do."

SMACKS FAINTLY OF DESPERATION

Can a high-tech extravaganza -- no matter how convincing -- actually boost ticket sales for the costly, formal flesh-and-blood ritual of live performance? "We're hoping to see a trend," Kieser says. "In the end, music is a social phenomenon. No matter how good your technology is, you can't replace the live experience."

"Keeping Score" certainly looks more ambitious and substantial than more typical efforts to recruit The Kids to classical's cause. Across the country, symphonies try all sorts of tactics. Many, good intentions aside, smack faintly of desperation.

The New York Philharmonic, for instance, tricks its Web site out with a "kid zone" featuring animated games with tiles like "Minuet Mixer!" and "Percussion Showdown!" Momentary good times for the five-to-six set, maybe; a gateway drug leading to lifelong addiction, probably not.

Further up the age scale, many symphonies try to position themselves as hot-date options for twenty-and thirtysomethings. The Seattle Symphony's "WolfGang" subscription, for example, packages concerts with cocktail receptions and food from hip restaurants.

YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC

But what all these efforts, including perhaps "Keeping Score," miss is the purely visceral thrill that lies at the heart of all music fandom. The big-time classical world's strenuous marketing efforts can, at best, hope to get a few people through the door so the first violins can go to work on the real sales job.

"You can't talk people into liking one kind of music or disliking another," says Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist at Montreal's McGill University and author of the new book "This Is Your Brain on Music." "But you can tell someone what you like about it. I used to hate Steely Dan, but a friend of mine kept insisting that I should just concentrate on the guitar solos. That finally worked. You could do the same for Mahler.

"If you convince someone to give it some time and attention, maybe they only get a small piece of it, but it's a way to start exploring."

And there's the rub with all these major institutions' efforts to, in the words of the mission statement of "Keeping Score:" "Instill a lifelong love of music." People -- especially young people -- already love music. The recording industry complains that evil downloading is killing it, but still sells over 600 million CDs a year in the United States. When download sales more than double in a single year and even a relative acquired taste such as Canadian indie band the Arcade Fire can ship over 500,000 album copies, "love of music" isn't in question.

The question for classical music is whether it makes more sense to try to coax reluctant listeners into the symphony's natural habitat -- or to hunt new audiences in the natural habitat of the music fan, i.e., nightclubs and rock festivals. Better to bring the Kids to the Music, or the Music to the Kids? To get on the Internet, or get in the van? Read the next story to meet some musicians who've decided to take the latter route to classical's future.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.