Setting Places at the Table

Abstract

A recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts found that only 2% of Americans listen to “Classical” music with regularity, and fewer practice or play art or historic music even once in a year. The rotating kaleidoscope of new technologies, repertories, interpretation, and cultural values can become not an ultimate bewilderment, a nail in the coffin of art and historic music, but a powerful tool for revitalizing how it engages persons of all age groups and how it can broaden its understanding. The table of musical places we set can respond to the narrative we carefully conceive for any condition at hand, for the student or scholar or layperson we address, for an intentional kaleidoscope of presentations. Such an attitude might let the other 98% discover art and historic music and see their lives mirrored and bettered.