I came across Shoshana Fanizza’s blog earlier today. In one of her recent posts, she mentions that she “went to a concert last night, a chamber music concert with Glass, Verdi and Wagner. It was a great mix of new and old pieces that are rarely performed.” She goes on, ” I looked around, and GenX me was the youngest one there! There were no millennials, except onstage.”
Confusingly, that’s both surprising and not. Not surprising because, it’s true, millennials have no time to be attending performances because they are out striving to gather an audience of their own. It’s a bittersweet tragedy, really.
Fanizza writes, “I remember asking a younger performer who was in town if he ever was able to be an audience member. He replied that he almost never had the time.”
I say it’s a tragedy for the same reason why it’s surprising to me. How can you know what an audience feels at an orchestra, how they interact with the composers and each other, how they listen to the music, if you’ve never been an audience member?
This is, more or less, a shout out to all the artists out there: you can’t be a successful businessperson without having ever been on the other side of a contract, you can’t be a composer if you’ve never sat in the audience of another composer, you can’t be a phenomenal writer if you’ve never read a book, and you will never truly connect with an audience member without first being one.
Consider being part of an audience like visiting family. At times, it may drive you crazy and you may other priorities and work to do, but you still visit, because, in the end, it’s in everyone’s best interest.
Stay Positive & Don’t Get Me Started On Standing Ovations
Garth E. Beyer
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