Laura Cress
Do you think that people have just bought into the idea of classical music not being for them and left it at that?
If they have, it’s because they haven’t been exposed to it enough – by exposed to it I don’t mean just having
heard it as part of a film soundtrack, but actually participated in it in some sense, by playing it or being part of it. It’s that lack of participation that allows that perception to grow. That perception doesn’t need to last – for example I talked to an indie pop band playing to an audience of 16 year olds in Camden a few months ago, and you’d think they would be people who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in classical music, but they were actually very engaged with it.
What is your opinion of classical music in film soundtracks?
I think their is a positive angle to that, as cinemas are where most people can hear classical music on some level. People in a way are unwittingly being exposed to classical music and I think in that way most people actually understand far more about it than they think they do.
Is it possible for classical music to be appreciated in the same way as popular music when for many from a young age it’s part of a mandatory education?
I think if you present people something in an educatory context they are not going to be as interested in it as for something which they could explore themselves. The way I discovered it, I was taken to a concert and that’s what first made me interested. In Music GCSE and A Level there is rightly a lot of pop, jazz and world music, so I don’t think if you teach someone it in that context it will have a negative association, as the same happens with other types of music too.
Should classical music have to appeal to the younger generation? Won’t this just dumb it down?
It depends how you go about it. There are millions of people who buy Andrea Bocelli and Russel Watson CDs which are marketed as classical music but they aren’t – that doesn’t it dumb it down, it’s just a different thing, it’s actually almost a different genre. I think the mistake a lot of promoters make when they’re trying to make classical music appeal to other people is dressing it up, for example thinking that you have to involve pop acts – you don’t. There’s an inherent amount of drama when watching a classical music concert and listening together amplifies the musical experience , which is something that you can’t get from a recording. However, most pop acts are not doing this in a trivial way, Radiohead, for example, are fantastic musicians who have learnt from contemporary composers and whose purpose is not a marketing one.