I think you need to view Europe and the US quite differently. There are
very different value systems at play.
Most of the comments are factually correct. However, please look at the
following, for which I actually have some authoritative data from WFMT, the
fine-arts radio station in Chicago:
1) The average age of listeners to WFMT's classical broadcasting is 55 to 60
and is increasing.
2) The average age of listeners to WFMT's "folk" ("Midnight Special", a show
which has been broadcast for more than 50 years now) broadcasting is a bit
less -- it is "only" 50 to 55, but it too is increasing.
3) The average age of people who buy tickets to the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra is 65 and increasing. The average age of people who buy tickets
to the summer "Ravinia" (on the lawn...) concerts is less; it's between 40
and 50. But the Ravinia concerts include rock and pop as well as classical.
4) The average age of people who buy tickets to the Chicago Lyric Opera, is
"only" between 50 and 60. That average seems to be steady.
The ONLY thing which allows WFMT -- probably the finest station of its type
in the US -- to operate as it does is a uniqueness: unlike any other
"commercial" station in the US, they garner *over 50%* of their support from
listeners. Those listeners are willing to pay to have WFMT in its current
format. However, remember, they are mostly over 60. The anti-commercial,
anti-mainstream listener-lead revolution which caused this to happen, in the
1980s, did not happen anywhere else in the US.
Yes, James Levine makes "a fortune" (sort of), though nothing like a rock
star. In the US, there are perhaps another 25 or so people who make similar
"fortunes" in classical music. Another maybe five hundred or one thousand
people live on their salary as musicians. Everyone else teaches music for a
living.
The handwriting is clearly on the wall for these kinds of fine arts in the
United States.
I recommend reading Brooks Jensen's current article in Lenswork on the value
of photographic prints. It's an eye-opener.
Don Feinberg ducque@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Quoting Matthew Gaylen <mgaylen@xxxxxxx>:
In terms of art and Fine Art, I don't think black and white wet photography
has much hope of surviving in the mainstream too much longer.
Unless you have been living in a village in an undeveloped country B&W has
long been hardly "mainstream" but an aesthetic choice for the few. Most all
of the billions of photographs processed in central Europe each year are
colour. TVs are colour. Computer displays and even cellular phones are colour.
The print you get as a result of hours and hours of painstaking work in the
darkroom isn't generally perceived as valuable to mainstream consumers.
We now need to divide up the mainstream consumers into market segments..
The mainstream, for instance, in many markets demands highly corrected
and "beautiful" wedding portraits. Its either "painstaking" corrective
work with knives, dyes and brushes or "painstaking" corrective work with
digital models of knives, dyes, brushes in a war chest of image processing
tools. The means to an end is not relevant to that market but the result is.
In other areas of "commercial" photography the means is all that matters and
not really the results. I call this the "fine art silver gelatine" market.
Its not "mainstream" but given that there are galleries on some of the best
addresses in most major urban financial centers in Europe and North America
it can be hardly called "underground".
Look at classical music, despite the fact that it costs $75 to see the
Chicago Symphony and almost $50 to see the Champaign-Urbana Symphony their
concert seasons are short and the number of people who participate is very
small compared to the people who participate in pop music.
Pop music events are hardly about music but about "events"-- and to be more
acurate its spelled (following Reich) "s-e-x". The same divide between
what it is and what it is about can often be said of the symphony or opera
but for different segments of the population and, of course, for different
"causes". Here in Munich (a city with around 1.3 million) we have quite
a few symphonic orchestras, many theatres, operas (including a well visited
opera festival each summer that is typically well sold out to deep pocket
international "culture tourists" who tend to hit Munich alongside Salzburg
and Bayreuth) and a wide assortment of cultural events.
There are 10-50 depending on market size, 10-50 pop music stations to ever
one classical music station on the radio. There are many television channels
devoted to pop music but none that I can think of devoted to classical music.
The most classical music you're going to get on TV is an occasional program
on PBS.
Pop music is a large market but there is more than just pop music to be found
when I turn the radio dial.. I don't know where you are living but the same
could be said in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York.. Sure not everywhere
in the United States and I recall driving about in parts of the country where
I would have been more than happy to be able to hear ANY pop tune, the radio
spectrum seemingly filled with either what seemed like country songs about
Jesus, evangalists or radical right talk radio programs..
If you devote your whole life to playing the violin and spend 20 years
playing for a major orchestra - say in Pittsburgh... the most you can hope
for is moderate wages while dufus guitar players with bizarre tattoos and no
music education are making 100s of millions of dollars.
Its about entertainment and willingness to pay. Look at the 3 clowns tour
(Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti) a few years ago! Notice the marketing of
Nigel Kennedy, Vanessa-Mae and Charlotte Church... And its nothing new..
I refer one to some of the earliest marketing of an infant recording industry..
Enrico Caruso.. I guess its always been about pop.. Just what pop is.. has
changed over the years..
And some of the musicians, singers and conductors here--- while perhaps not
quite up to the stellar levels of pop kings and queens-- have been paid quite
well.. James Levine, for example, was hardly handed small change for his
stint here conducting the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra..
Ballet is even worse... despite the fact that it costs a fortune to attend
the ballet, almost nobody has the opportunity to attend, because they're
Maybe "nobody" has the opportunity to attend since as you say "it costs a fortune to attend"..
never performing. You most dance you're gonna see is on the sidelines of the
football field and at half-time at basketball games.
Here in Munich we, of course, have ballet and one of the world's leading ballet
foundations (Heinz-Bosl Stiftung) is just around the corner from where I live.
Its also quite common (not just here but throughout the world) for middle class
parents to send their small children to ballet schools.. and to maybe get
instruction in song (for example via youth choirs) and learn some instruments..
--
--
Edward C. Zimmermann, Basis Systeme netzwerk, Munich
Office Leo (R&D):
Leopoldstrasse 53-55, D-80802 Munich,
Federal Republic of Germany
Telephone: Voice:= +49 (89) 385-47074 Corp.Fax:= +49 (89) 692-8150
Nomadic (SMS/MMS/Fax):= +49 (176) 100-360-55 Alt.Mobile:= +49 (179) 205-0539
http://www.nonmonotonic.net
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