Holly Mulcahy 
With the financial crisis taking its toll, many performing arts groups are finding they can save money by filling professional orchestras with free labor. One of the increasingly popular methods is to offer mentoring opportunities for talented conservatory students. Unpaid college students receive an opportunity to play in a professional situation, gain some experience, and get mentored by the professional musicians.
This is a very dangerous trend.
It was a combined effort of several orchestras and several conductors that helped raise money for the dead musicians’ families. Edward Elgar, Thomas Beecham, The London Symphony and The Philharmonic Orchestra were just some of the star players we’d recognize in this decade. In total, 500 musicians filled the stage at Royal Albert Hall, with an audience at capacity to hear the concert that May afternoon.
So touching was this concert, it made headlines in both Europe and the United States. The only thing to eclipse the concert’s sheer size was the funeral from the previous week. It was for the band leader of the musicians who perished. Aside from the packed funeral route and overflowing church, seven brass bands led the procession to the church (photo), making it seem grander than any parade for nobles or celebrities.
That old saying, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, applies to classical music audiences now more than ever. Everyone remotely involved in the orchestra business is already aware that audiences are looking older and it is becoming harder to get younger listeners into the hall. And not only is there difficulty of pulling in patrons under 40, there is the ongoing challenge of keeping children educated about classical music so we can have some idea that there will be an audience for future generations.
I’ve made a point to ask my non-concertgoing, under 40 friends what is keeping them from coming to a concert. Ticket price was one concern, but almost all of them mentioned the added bother of babysitting and parking expenses seemed to make the entire evening more of a huge inconvenience than not. Yet these same friends have no trouble going furniture shopping at IKEA for several hours with their kids in tow.
In the outrageously funny movie, Office Space, there is a scene where the main character Peter Gibbons, a lowly cubicle dwelling worker, has to meet with a pair of efficiency consultants the company has hired to recommend cutbacks to define what he does during an average work day. One of Peter’s co-workers accurately describes the process as “interviewing for your own job”.
It is a hilarious scene due to Peter’s honesty in telling the consultants (both named “Bob”) that in the course of any given week, he spends most of his time avoiding his multiple bosses and making it look like he’s actually working. He concludes by telling the Bobs that in the course of any given week, he only does about 15 minutes of actual work.
It seems to happening everywhere for symphony orchestras: low ticket sales to concerts. Unfortunately, this has become an all too familiar headline and the really surprising news is when an orchestra has a full house of paying patrons!
But if the New York Times article from December 28th has any merit the ticket sales decline could be connected, in part, to something in our human nature. The author of the article explains how humans tend to procrastinate pleasure.
