Tim Cavanaugh Talks Musical Economy on WQXR, 4pm Eastern Sometime in the Future

Correction: This is a taping, not a live broadcast. When I know the air time I will update.

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman says America has "too many resident theaters."

Symphony orchstras are going dickey-up all over the country.

Musicians are mad at conductors and audiences are ignoring both.

Is America become a no-class[ical] country?

Reason Senior Editor Tim Cavanaugh discusses the economics of music on WQXR, FM 105.9, today at 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific.

You can listen in New York at 105.9 on your FM dial, or listen live at wqxr.org.

Comments

[Concerned Citizen]

I was semi interested in classical until I bought the DVD of Deep Purple with the London Symphony Orchestra. Now I get it. At least some of the time.

[Isaac Bartram]

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman says America has "too many resident theaters."

Well, maybe if the NEA stopped subsidizing theaters people could decide how much they valued them and we'd get to having just the right number.

[Brandybuck]

Reading the article, it sounds like they're all having shitfits over the thought that market forces might influence their art. The unstated assumption is that the general public is a bunch of philistines that deserve to be taxed to pay for the entertainment of the enlightened.

[Aresen]

To which the proper reply is: "So you think that people who like hamburgers should pay for the meals of those who like filet mignon?"

[db]

LOVE the alt-text. That was my first thought on seeing the picture.

[Paul]

Me too. Must of my knowledge of culture came from Bugs Bunny, Looney Tunes and Bullwinkle and Rocky anyway...

[ClubMedSux]

I used to serve on the board of directors of a not-for-profit organization of new music composers (and that's new music the genre; not literally all new music) and while it doesn't represent all non-popular music I was shocked by the sense of entitlement that the composers had. Other than those on the board, the member composers had no interest in taking any active role in the organization. They wouldn't attend performances by their fellow composers and they wouldn't even promote their own shows. I eventually had to step down because I thought it was immoral to take money from corporations and government funds to support a bunch of egotistical composers making esoteric music that nobody really wanted to hear.

[Aresen]

I thought it was immoral to take money from corporations and government funds to support a bunch of egotistical composers making esoteric music that nobody really wanted to hear.

Some people like to listen to Bono.

[robc]

new music the genre

Is that like modern art the genre? Is there post-new music?

[robc]

Or would that be neo-new music?

[ClubMedSux]

I would actually equate it to the musical equivalent of literary post-modernism, so I'm sure there will some day be a post-new music but I'm not sure what it will be. Maybe music people actually like?

[Aresen]

I prefer classical music; whatever reasons I may have for my preference, they don't justify reaching into someone else's pocket to pay for my preference.

[Tman]

"Symphony orchstras are going dickey-up"

+1.

[robc]

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman says America has "too many resident theaters."

Probably true. The way to find out is to end subsidies and see how many survive. Maybe we dont have enough.

[Oma's Favorite Grandson]

Shades of Gore Vidal's suggestion for teaching art and music in the public schools: cut it all out--those with the burning desire and talent will become artists and musicians, and we can save money not trying to make artists and musicians out of the others.

[Brian from Texas]

Maybe they'll end up blaming Steve Jobs. Jon Bon Jovi is currrrently accusing him of killing the music industry with his itunes.

[Jersey Patriot]

iTunes is the only thing keeping the music industry alive.

[Paul]

What music industry?

[DNS]

Jon Bon Jovi is currrrently accusing him of killing the music industry with his itunes.

JBJ should be the one offering a mea culpa for his hand in diluting musical taste. JBJ is just mad because few take him seriously as a politico.

[Robert]

I don't hear you on the stream. You sure you don't mean WQXR-AM? Oh no, that's Radio Disney now.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Sorry about that. I misunderstood: This is a taping, not a live broadcast. I'll let you know when the show is live.

[R C Dean]

I misunderstood: This is a taping, not a live broadcast.

So all your f-bombs got bleeped? Bummer.

[Paul]

So now we're supposed to save the culture of Dead White Men? I'm sore confused.

[Jeffrey Sweet]

Rocco's comments have been simplified to the point of idiocy.

Some areas have more theatres than they can sustain. Some areas don't have sufficient theatres. (For instance, it's astonishing that Savannah, GA doesn't have a resident professional company.)

Many of the comments posted here seem to willfully ignore the role of the arts in a community. It's NO ACCIDENT that the cities with thriving economies tend to be the cities where there's lots of theatre and music and dance and visual art. Corporations locate in towns where their employees are interested in living. You want to encourage corporations to set up shop in your town? Give the educated people in those outfits interesting places to go at night.

If I'm an executive with a taste for symphony orchestras and Shakespeare, why would I want to live in a town with neither? And if I don't want to live there and a big-time company needs my talents, why would the company want to locate there?

You may not enjoy the arts yourself, but maybe you'd like to have a thriving city so you could sell your products, charge decent rents, have a prosperous tax base. Not likely you're going to have these things without a significant arts presence.

Nobody says you have to go to the museum or the theatre or the concert hall, but you'd be smart to want these things to be in your town, unless you really want to live in a financial backwater.

[Franklin Harris]

Apropos of nothing, has anyone else noticed over the past couple of years that most "contemporary classical" music is very similar to what used to be called New Age, although with greater technical proficiency?

[puma pas cher]

OOO

[Mark Lambert]

What do you mean Americans don't have class and culture? We have BOTH kinds of music -- country AND western!!

[ed hardy]

good article