But as I watched, it just struck me, as you see the BBC SO and Beyonce juxtaposed in a fairly unusual way, that the video perfectly illustrates why classical music struggles with younger audiences. Beyonce is sassy, sexy, full of energy and just very now. The BBC SO are static, wearing totally outmoded dress. They might be playing their hearts out but the presentation does nothing to show this. No wonder younger people don’t get so excited about classical music. I know who I’d rather see in concert on the basis of this…

I remember being in some sort of branding workshop a couple of years ago, where the facilitator asked us to do a kind of elevator pitch for our organisations – sum our our aims, what we do, our selling point, as succinctly as possible.

Someone started talking about how their organisation put on the biggest events, the most events, was the busiest, the most world-renowned etc. The facilitator responded, saying that it made the organisation sound rather arrogant. Size and scale are not in themselves interesting. Which is why I think this campaign for the National Maritime Organisation is so misguided. It really gives me no reason to visit. The museum is bigger. So what? Why would that make me want to go?

As I’ve said before, when you advertise on the tube you’re advertising to a very broad cross section of people – it’s mass media. Most of them are not going to be aware of your (cultural) product, so you have to assume very little knowledge. So if they weren’t already interested in visiting the National Maritime Museum then this poster is not going to persuade them at all. Why would I want to go to a bigger version of something that I haven’t been persuaded to visit yet?

They could have spent the space telling us about how much more exciting the museum is now, what the new galleries are about etc. But no, they got caught up in their ego and concentrated on size.

Of course, there are lessons here for classical music too…

Ok, you might not have any huge names in your festival (though I’d counter that the London Sinfonietta is a *slightly* bigger name), but given that why not just go for a really fantastic, arresting image instead? If it doesn’t matter who the person is, then be led by the strength of the image.

Of course sleeping in concerts is nothing new and is often jokily remarked upon. I’ve done it myself on occasion. People will often talk about the age of the audience, the effects of a drink before the concert, the conducive effects of a dark warm room, or perhaps it’s just showing just how chilling-out classical music can be.

People don’t generally think “maybe this just isn’t very interesting”. Seriously, can you think of another entertainment (for this is what classical music is) business being happy with maybe 10% of the audience being asleep within ten minutes of the event starting? Can you imagine that happening at a Madonna gig? A comedy show? Jazz? It’s even rare in cinema. No – people have paid money for their tickets, are looking forward to it and generally have a good time. Why on earth is it acceptable in classical music? Shouldn’t we really be saying – look this concert clearly isn’t that great. It’s not engaging the audience – look it’s SO dull they’re falling asleep.

No, because classical music is a rather defensive world, so we tend not to ask difficult questions. I go to a lot of concerts and I can honestly say that quite a few are very humdrum. If we want classical music to thrive it MUST be engaging, entertaining – and keep people, even Ken Clarke (maybe he could be the litmus test of an engaging concert), awake.

Here’s the latest campaign from the Old Vic.

Now, I regard myself as fairly average theatre goer. I maybe go 5-6 times a year. I usually enjoy it, but am in no way an expert. Though I regard myself as an average attender, if my attendance record were to applied to classical music norms I would be regarded as very much a core booker (though, somewhat promiscuous, as I have no theatre allegiance).

Anyway, I looked this tube ad and realised that it gave me no reason to go. Ok, I have heard of Rattigan, but I have no idea what his style is, what he is known for, what genre he is – anything. He’s just a name I have heard of.
Likewise with the actors mentions. I haven’t heard of them. Well, maybe one, vaguely. But still, no reason to make me go. No other information about the play is offered.

As with the LPO campaign mentioned below this is a huge waste. A mass media campaign, exposed to a broad audience, but with information that will only appeal to a tiny elite. If I, a fairly regular theatre attender, doesn’t get inspired by this, then who is? Is it beyond the Old Vic’s team to include just a teaser line about the subject of the play on the poster? Even a film poster with HUGE stars will usually include something like this. As it is this campaign gives me no reason to see this play. What a missed opportunity.

And of course there is a relevance back to classical music. My lack of knowledge of Rattigan and the actors is similar to even regular classical attenders knowledge of composers and artists. Something to ponder…

As far as classical music goes however the day wasn’t as dramatic as might have been expected. There were percentage cuts to most organisations, with no big names losing out, at least among performing bodies. The seismic shift didn’t happen, and the salami slicing did – the one thing we were told wouldn’t happen.

There were some winners though – the Britten Sinfonia got a boost and the Academy of Ancient Music, English Concert and Aurora Orchestra all got funded for the first time, and it was good to see that the innovative Manchester Camerata clung onto most of its funding. These good news stories perhaps make up for the fact that the City of London Sinfonia and London Mozart Players lost all their funding a while back.

What can we learn from this? Perhaps that (with the exception of the English Concert) the Arts Council is looking for fleet-footed, smaller organisations who do things differently, and who are looking afresh at the classical world? The CLS and LMP most certainly did none of these things. Both continue to cling on, unfunded.

Overall though the story is of a missed opportunity. The result of everyone getting a little cut is that everyone will be able to do things a little less well, or do a little less work. No brave decisions were taken. There are undoubtedly too many orchestras in London. You’d be hard pressed to distinguish them – and in most cases the Orchestras themselves have made little or no effort to differentiate themselves from each other. A brave thing to do would have been to cut one, maybe two, and fund the others and some of the more interesting smaller ensembles really well.

Easy to say – but who would I cut? Well, the easy first target is the RPO -for many years the runt of London’s Orchestras, performing safe dull programmes when doing something decent – or performing symphonic rock or the like when earning cash. They were also responsible for one of the worst classical concerts I have ever been to in my life a while back – a barely rehearsed, badly amplified and simply awful concert at the Indigo2 a couple of years ago, a performance so bad that I felt it was actually damaging to the art form. It’s hard to see what the RPO adds to London’s cultural life. I’m aware this sounds harsh – but if the Arts Council is really about funding excellence, it has to stick to its guns.

Who else? Well, if you were to get really radical, you’d cut another. Are the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia really that different from each other? These ensembles have had YEARS to do something a bit different, to find a niche, to experiment, but they seem content to tread the middle ground, performing often excellent concerts, but nothing to really set the pulse racing, no big ideas. If anything the LPO has regressed, scrapping its distinctive branded series and just presenting an amorphous 40 concerts a year. If asked, I am sure they would point to some innovative programmes, distinctive projects – but none of these has been sustained enough or thought-through enough to really make the ensemble distinctive. The Philharmonia has made efforts in recent years with its brilliant digital innovations – but its concert repertoire is still some of the safest and most predictable in town.

I haven’t mentioned the LSO, and to be honest they are usually as samey as the others, and, to my ears, often play in a rather less passionate and overly-polished way – but rightly or wrongly they’re seen as the leading UK orchestra and as such are pretty much untouchable.

Of course if London doesn’t need quite so many Orchestras then there are perhaps parts of the UK crying out for more. Funding touring doesn’t always quite work – with London based ensembles often making somewhat grudging trips out to the ‘provinces’. Should a London Orchestra ‘do a BBC’ and be moved lock stock and barrel to Leeds or Sheffield?

Lastly – what of opera? The Royal Opera House and ENO both received cuts, with the ROH’s being larger – but one might argue that the ROH should have borne a larger share of the pain. Lots of what they do is excellent, but ticket prices remain high and it often seems marooned from reality, spending huge amounts on marketing campaigns for operas which will sell out anyway (Aida being the current case in point), or blowing a fortune on ill conceived initiatives such as Danny Knows Best. For my money ENO ticks a lot more of the Arts Council’s boxes.

So – perhaps today was just a start. An exciting future for classical music would be the emergence of a new tier of well funded, fresh-thinking, nimble and innovative organisations, and today is perhaps a first step towards this. Next time though the Arts Council needs to be a lot bolder.

Here are a few quotes from their hot-off-the-press 2011 brochure:

“the renowned Belgian conductor”
“One of Britain’s finest living composers”
“fellow Argentinian Nelson Goerner”
“Renowned German mezzo soprano”
“Czech born Magdalena Kozena”
“young Russian Alina Ibragimova”
“American soprano Meagan Miller”
“one of Scotland’s most prominent artists”
“Dutch virtuoso violinist Janine Jansen”
“award-winning Finnish soprano”

I could go on, but you get the picture.
Why are they so obsessed with telling you where people come from? Does it tell you something about the performance, persuade you to come?

Not really, no. It’s just lazy copy-writing, a filler. Of course, it’s not unique to the Edinburgh Festival, most classical brochures will contain a few instances of ‘nationality obsession’. I was just struck by the *constant* references in Edinburgh’s brochure.

Another particularly prime example was in the Royal Opera House’s recent press release: “Russian conductor Kirill Petrenko has regrettably had to withdraw from conducting all performances of Fidelio”. Again, why the need to tell us he is Russian? Are they particularly prone to canceling?

Maybe this isn’t very important, perhaps it’s just a little something that annoys me. Or maybe it’s symptomatic of lazy classical copy-writing that too often relies on convention and cliché, rather than thinking afresh and telling the reader something useful.

First impressions:

You open the cover and:
Get a long and boring introduction from the CEO. *yawn*. I can’t be arsed to read it all but it appears to just name check all the artists that are appearing at the Wigmore Hall. He’s obviously not been reading my blog.

Delving Deeper
After this there’s a simple to read calendar, divided into genres. Bravo. Sadly it only lists lists artists, not repertoire. The Wigmore Hall is lucky,  lots of these names WILL sell tickets to its knowledgeable core audience. However there are still lot of unknown names here, where repertoire would be more of a selling point.

Copy Check
Lunchtime Concert:
“John Mark Ainsley is now arguably the doyen of British tenors and a natural successor in repertoire associated with Peter Pears. This recital pairs some of the earliest music from his partnership with Benjamin Britten with the mature Winter Words and music by their great friend Francis Poulenc, written for his vocal partner Pierre Bernac”

Does this make you want to go and see the concert? Depends how much you know about music. It assumes a high level of knowledge about Britten and Pears, and makes no reference really to the music at all. It doesn’t give you a sense of what is like and only talks about dry features (facts about the music’s history) rather than benefits (This concert is the perfect antidote to your boring lunchtime sandwich, or something about how the music will make you feel).

The Guts
It’s all gone downhill after the promising cover. Acres of dull standard artist shots supplied by agents and seen in countless brochures. No sense of the venue, atmosphere or performance. All the headlines are artist names, even when they’re unknowns and the repertoire would be much more of a sales driver.

Navigation
Poor. Everything is lumped together chronologically. That’s fine if it were just classical but there are some interesting jazz and family events hidden in there. These audiences may well not bother wading through all the classical stuff to find them. Likewise with their late-night series. I hope these series have their own print, as they will need it. They are listed separately in the calendar however.

How do I book?
Easy, listed on almost every page.

In conclusion
Not dreadful. Not brilliant. Not exciting, but does the job for core bookers. 6/10

Firstly though – why are brochures and leaflets still important? Well, as we all know, classical music has an older audience, less likely to be on the internet or email. For many venues a majority of sales are still through phone and in person bookings. Direct mailings still generate significant sales. And, for substantial classical seasons, flipping through a brochure can still be much easier than navigating through a website. Lastly, for younger audiences, perhaps there is a ‘specialness’ in getting a well designed flyer though the post? Anyway, if young people weren’t interested in flyers why do clubs still use them so extensively?

This is all an extensive preamble to the the first of my ‘print in review’ postings, which will be with you tomorrow…

Many people pointed to these sold out events as evidence that classical music is in rude health. I’d disagree – not that classical music is in good health, but that these sorts of ‘events’ are good for classical music as a whole.

Of course, its exciting that the Berlin Phil are in town, and there have always been these big visiting Orchestras. But it seems to be that in recent years more emphasis has been given to these real blockbuster concerts, and I’m not convinced it’s a good thing.

Why not?

1) They’re bloody expensive
OK, I know it costs a LOT to bring an Orchestra like the Berlin Phil to London but the prices being charged are astronomical – up to £75 in the Royal Festival Hall. Next seasons big concerts go up to £85. At the lower end of the scale tickets which usually cost £6 or £9 with the Southbank Residents go up to £24 for a star Orchestra. The Southbank seems to have embarked on a programme of squeezing as much as they can from customers with little regard for their duty as a publicly funded organisation.

2) They exclude anyone but the hardcore
Because the concerts are marketed as ‘events’ they sell out pretty much straight away. Great. But – this means that only your hardcore classical attenders get tickets. Anyone with a more casual interest doesn’t get a look in as they wont really look at buying something 12+ months ahead. Of course, you could hold seats back for sale later on, have day seats etc – but the venues would rather get the cash in asap – again, losing sight of their public duty.

3) They make us suspend our critical faculties
After having shelled out a small fortune for your ticket, and waited 12+ months for it to come around the concert had better to be good. And you’ll tell yourself it has been AMAZING even if it hasn’t been. No one is going to turn around and say ‘meh, it was ok’, after all that money and time. So these blockbuster concerts really neuter people’s critical judgement of concerts. It HAS to be good because it’s expensive and sold out.

4) They make people ignore home grown talent
Because the concerts are so expensive and so sold out, that means they’re a LOT better than London-based bands, right? I mean, if a ticket that usually costs £6 now costs £24, that’s four times as good? No, and though lots of these visiting bands are very very good, the home-based London Orchestras can be just as good, for less money. That gets ignored though as people start to just crave star names. Is there a danger we start to ignore local talent, and the amazing musical riches that London offers all the time, often for bargain prices?

As I said above, there have always been popular, big name concerts. My fear is that they are becoming more of a cult, and the Southbank Centre’s and Barbican’s extreme pricing strategies only serve to reinforce this. Interestingly, there may well be another way. At the recent Association of British Orchestras conference the St Paul Chamber Orchestra talked about how they actually cut their ticket prices. The aim was to make the orchestra into a ’cause’ rather than be perceived as a business charging as much as it possibly can. The policy led to a wider donor base and increased revenue from donations, in time. I do wonder if the London venues short term cash grab on ticket income could be damaging in the longer term. Certainly it does seem to narrow the audience, leading to only those in the know, with the time and money, being able to secure tickets.