I want to begin by again congratulating each and every one of you on your graduation from Peabody.\u00a0 We\u2019re proud of you.\u00a0 Your family and friends are proud of you.\u00a0 You worked hard to get here.\u00a0 The good news is that you were successful.\u00a0 The challenge is, OK, \u201cwhat\u2019s next?\u201d\u00a0 We asked that same question about classical music in our symposium this past fall.\u00a0 To talk about \u201cwhat\u2019s next\u201d for you, we should return to that same question, because what\u2019s next for you is inextricably linked with the future of your chosen art form.<\/p>\n
What does that future of classical music look like?\u00a0\u00a0 Better yet, what do we even mean by \u201cclassical\u201d music?\u00a0 The term is actually a convention of the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century.\u00a0 Before that, classical music was in large part the popular idiom.\u00a0 In the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0Century, Liszt and Paganini were \u201crock stars.\u201d\u00a0 Before that, Mozart\u2019s Magic Flute was for \u201cthe people.\u201d\u00a0 Not until the 20th century do we see the true bifurcation between Pop and so-called \u201chigh art.\u201d<\/p>\n Even earlier in the first half of the 20th century, there was an infusion of classical music in popular culture.\u00a0 This is way before your time, but think about the early days of television:\u00a0 Leonard Bernstein and his Young People\u2019s Concerts; the Bell Telephone Hour & Ed Sullivan where major classical artists were regular featured guests; How about Bugs Bunny in \u201cWhat\u2019s Opera Doc?\u201d, or \u201cThe Rabbit of Seville.\u201d\u00a0 Movies such as \u201cCarnegie Hall\u201d introduced classical artists to the public, and\u00a0Fantasia<\/em>\u00a0where Mickey Mouse stepped up to shake the hand of Leopold Stokowski.\u00a0 In fact, for a while, it seemed like classical music was consistently finding its way into popular culture.<\/p>\n So what happened?\u00a0 Was it the well documented and lamented decline of music education in schools?\u00a0 Life-style changes?\u00a0 The advent of new and different forms of communication and media?\u00a0 Did these all contribute to this decline in people attending classical concerts as demonstrated by a National Endowment for the Arts study which showed over the first decade of the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0Century a 25% decline in adults attending at least one classical event annually?\u00a0 Do I have your attention now?<\/p>\n What this means is that the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century \u201cclassical\u201d musician has to be more than a great pianist or violinist, more than a great performer.\u00a0 As you embark on your musical life after Peabody, you will need to relate, educate, spark interest and creativity, engage an audience, and yes, entertain.<\/p>\n I started to think about this 30 years ago as co-founder of Aequalis, a group dedicated to performing and advancing contemporary music.\u00a0 By necessity, we thought a lot about how to connect to audiences.\u00a0 To be sure, what we wanted to do was play the music really well, and introduce people to new sound worlds and the music of living composers.\u00a0 But we approached it from the perspective of how to create an audience for what we were doing through whatever means possible.<\/p>\n When I began to work with orchestras it had already become clear that we needed to do something different in our business.\u00a0 That meant offering new and different kinds of music.\u00a0 It entailed linking the orchestra with popular mediums including film and video game shows.\u00a0 It involved taking an active role in education, and embracing our communities in new ways.\u00a0 And most importantly, it meant finding new avenues to identify, interact with, and relate to audiences.<\/p>\n Because at the end of the day, people want to be on the \u201cinside\u201d; they want to relate; they want to interact; they want to be involved.\u00a0 Think about the fact that today anyone can participate in a very direct way in activities previously left to a few.\u00a0 Anyone can \u201cpublish\u201d a book.\u00a0 Anyone can be on \u201cTV\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s called YouTube.\u00a0 Anyone can be a columnist \u2013 start a blog.\u00a0 Anyone can be a celebrity \u2013 how many followers do YOU have on Twitter?\u00a0 People want to be involved, and in the know.<\/p>\n In the performing arts world, that means they want to be close to the artist.\u00a0 They want an intimate experience and a sense of participation.\u00a0 Examples of this are increasingly prevalent.\u00a0 Think about Le Poisson Rouge in NYC \u2013 a kind of night club for classical music.\u00a0 Or the You-Tube symphony which brought together artists from around the world for an internet premier of a new work.\u00a0 The Baltimore Symphony\u2019s \u201cRusty Musicians\u201d program lets amateur musicians sit side by side with BSO members in a kind of orchestra \u201cfantasy camp.\u201d\u00a0 Or the New World Symphony\u2019s \u201cEmotion Meter\u201d cell phone experiment, where audiences participated in a performance by registering via cellphone in real time the emotions they were experiencing through the music.<\/p>\n These are all examples of the classical music world you are entering.\u00a0 For the Peabody Institute, that means expanding our vision to make four pillars central:\u00a0 Excellence, Interdisciplinary focus, Innovation, and Community Connectivity.\u00a0 Excellence is essential \u2013 we should be as competitive as the most competitive schools at Johns Hopkins University.\u00a0 And as a school of Hopkins, we should own the notion of the interdisciplinary study of music \u2013 who could do this better?\u00a0 And we should innovate constantly \u2013 as the oldest conservatory in America, we should be on the cutting edge of 21st<\/sup>century music study.\u00a0 And with the geography we occupy, community connectivity is critical.\u00a0 Because that\u2019s where this notion of musicians not just being musicians but being advocates, educators and connectors becomes central.\u00a0 Yes, we need to educate artists that are at the top of their game as performers as a starting point; but we also need them to be smart, holistic, and creative.\u00a0 We need citizen artists.<\/p>\n As graduates, embrace this notion of experimentation.\u00a0 Never stop looking for ways to educate, advocate and connect.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know where your lives and careers will take you.\u00a0 Be open to anything; stay flexible, and follow your heart.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always found it ironic that in our country \u201cclassical\u201d music despite its challenges is where people often turn for emotional comfort and reassurance in times of distress.\u00a0 We were reminded of this and the importance of music in our communities with recent events here in Baltimore.\u00a0 Music is uniquely human in its expression of ourselves and how we see the world.<\/p>\n The exciting thing about all this is that while in some ways classical music has never been more challenged, in many ways there have never been more avenues to make connections through classical music.\u00a0 I\u2019m confident that now having survived over the centuries, the geniuses that populate music history will continue to be with us.\u00a0 And I look forward to watching you with your unique talents and abilities bring new energy and creativity to our art form that will build on and strengthen its history and serve the world in new and different ways.\u00a0 Again, congratulations to you all.\u00a0 Thank you and enjoy this very special moment in your lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May 22, 2015: Commencement Address I want to begin by again congratulating each and every one of you on your graduation from Peabody.\u00a0 We\u2019re proud of you.\u00a0 Your family and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":1389,"menu_order":78,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1457","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29400,"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1457\/revisions\/29400"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peabody.jhu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}