tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post8876795740948116512..comments2024-03-26T15:57:13.443+00:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Does classical music really understand its audiences?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-34127496070092055362013-11-12T20:36:58.105+00:002013-11-12T20:36:58.105+00:00I have attended concerts at the Southbank, recital...I have attended concerts at the Southbank, recitals and orchestral, since 1969. I can say the audience composition has changed little in terms of the preponderance of silver hair over that time. There seems to be slightly more foreign visitors, many following national compatriots performing. But the saddest thing is the decline in total audience size over the last few years in concerts of all types. I was surprised to see a concert with the Suisse Romande Orchestra and Berezovsky in the Grieg Concerto less than half full. Similarly, the recent Berio/Bernstein concert with Marin Alsop and the Sau Paulo Orchestra again, was less than half full. The Zimmermann Ecclesiastical Action concert in the Rest is Noise series was less than a third full. These are just a few examples of good ideas wrecked by poor acoustic conditions leading to lack of audience interest that spring to mind. <br />Of course, the astoundingly (STILL!) poor acoustic of the Festival Hall has EVERYTHING to do with this decline. The best seats in the stalls offer full frontal quite clear sound and some reflected from the overhead canopies, but there is NOTHING from the sides due to the architects' peculiar 1940s/1950s take on a grandiose West End Theatre design combined with cinematic pretensions. These are £45-60 seats for a classical concert, Rows WXYZ along the sides are all over the place in terms of balance and clarity. Again the sound is dead. The front rows of the circle give a commanding view, but again the sound is distant, unfocused, unclear and dead. The rear stalls is the Lost World of concert going. I am not kidding when I tell you I have been surrounded by people actually sleeping during a concert, one snoring quite audibly and not out of tune with the Schumann symphony that could be heard playing in the distance, like a phantom radio programme on the BBC World Service on long wave. <br />My ticket for Zimmermann's magnificent and overwhelming composition, a prelude for very large orchestra,Photoptosis (which I memorably heard like a huge slab of delicious sound in Paris's Cite de Musique, Parc de Villette, with the Ensemble Intercontemporain under Susanna Malkki) in The Rest is Noise series in 2014, is bought and paid for.in advance..but I am expecting a crushing evening of acoustic disappointment. Jurowski is a wonderful conductor who will one day conduct a top orchestra I think, and in a star auditorium. In London, now, despite adventurous programming and some risk taking, although blessed with good players, he is fighting lousy performance conditions on the South Bank. Give him Valencia’s Iturbi Hall, and watch how audiences pick up.<br />As for me, I have that ticket for the RFH and another this week for my beloved (Oh, how my heart breaks over what I see there now!) Elizabeth Hall, a scene of squalor: holed carpets, shabby seating, a destroyed, once excellent (see the 1968 reviews!) acoustic due to clutter around the stage accumulated from presenting any old tosh at the drop of a cash register; a once ice cool sixties foyer, now visually and stylistically degraded with cheap stud partitioning erected randomly around the floor - and a “team” of untidy ushers who look as if they just left the night shift at a 24hrs Tescos. <br />Well these are my LAST visits to this DUMP which is a disgrace to classical music lovers in London in the 21st century. So much for the idle debate about data, ticketing systems and classical audiences. The audiences, of course, are voting with their feet. I will be taking my classical music on the Continent from 2014 on, in plentiful modern and refurbished auditoriums. Lille has just reopened after a deep renovation – and Gunter Pichler of Alban Berg Quartet fame conducts there in 2014. Can't wait! And only 90 minutes away by (HS1) train. Might try the Bartok Concert Hall in Budapest next...or that fabulous music festival every June in Paris’s Saint Denis – now, does Brixton have a comparable classical music festival? Goethe’s aphorism that England was “Das Land ohne Musik” rings true today.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18155289086787825339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-66535300881868957802013-11-10T00:39:56.280+00:002013-11-10T00:39:56.280+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18155289086787825339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-36361913250489777452013-10-08T11:19:30.490+01:002013-10-08T11:19:30.490+01:00“You obviously don't know how the Southbank ti...“You obviously don't know how the Southbank ticketing account system actually works.”<br /><br />Oliver, no, I do not have a detailed knowledge of the Tessitura ticketing system. But I did, as recounted in the post, discuss this by email with the Southbank Centre and I have considerable professional experience of both classical music and IT. As recounted in post I also specifically asked the Southbank Centre about levels of noise in the stats, a question that the staff were unable to answer. <br /><br />You are overlooking the important point that almost all my readers and almost all those that read the Southbank Centre press release also do not know how the Tessitura ticketing system works. Which is why I wrote a post outlining how customer databases work and suggesting that the source used for the Southbank audience stats is fallible - a fallibility that you confirm when you say “there will be noise in the stats”.<br /><br />Your comment is made anonymously and regular readers will know I have a low tolerance level for anonymous comments. One of the problems is that they lead to speculation about the source of the comment and readers may come to the - I assume incorrect - conclusion that this comment has been added anonymously by Oliver Krug Press Manager, Contemporary Music & Visual Arts at the Southbank Centre.<br /><br />You acknowledge that there will be noise in the stats. As you seem to have a detailed knowledge of the Tessitura system it would have been more helpful if your comment had explained how that noise occurs and what the level of it is. Readers would then be able to form their own views on how reliable audience data from ticketing systems is.<br /><br />Despite received wisdom there is no unwritten law that says press releases coming from the Southbank Centre and elsewhere have to be taken as gospel, and, where appropriate, <i>On An Overgrown Path</i> will continue to challenge the all too frequent PR excesses. I am happy to continue this debate if information on the type and level of noise in the Tessitura ticketing system can be provided, and if further comments are attributed. Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-91661747743732607612013-10-08T09:45:32.934+01:002013-10-08T09:45:32.934+01:00You obviously don't know how the Southbank tic...You obviously don't know how the Southbank ticketing account system actually works. When you buy a ticket at the Southbank you, the user, create an account, which includes your name and contact details. If you change address, you change your contact details, you don't create a new account. Each account has a unique identification code. The user data from which the stats, e.g. about the percentage who are attending a contemporary music event for the first time, isn't derived from users' addresses, but from their account identifier.<br /><br />There will be noise in the stats, but this non-phenomenon is not a source of it.Oliverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14961099754096475607noreply@blogger.com