Alaya's post inspired me to explore the phenomenon of classical music and Asians/Asian-Americans.
I'm from the suburbs just outside Boston, where 10% of the population identifies as Asian and where New England Conservatory, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston University, Boston Conservatory are conveniently located. I began piano lessons when I was 7, and at every piano recital I played at or concert I went to, about half the crowd was Asian. Suffice to say, there was no shortage of interest in classical music, with high schoolers (and even middle schoolers) scrambling to get into one of the acclaimed youth orchestras-- and many of these musicians happened to be Asian.
Here's a cool article that explores some of what I'm talking about:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/02/can_asians_save_classical_music_.html
The Asians-and-classical-music is a cultural thing; maybe it's genuine interest and excitement about classical music; maybe it's about embracing the elite "high-art" ideal of Western art music; maybe it's only because everyone else is doing it. Whichever way it comes about, the good thing is that the Asian interest in classical music educates kids at an early age about classical music, and those kids grow up to be informed and interested musicians, audience members, and/or supporters of music. Although there are some aspects about the whole atmosphere I don't understand or agree with, I'm grateful that it exists because it exposed me to classical music which I didn't necessarily love in the beginning but which also kept me around it long enough for me to figure out that I really do adore classical music.
Very interesting article, and one that I hadn't seen before. It is quite interesting that there has been explosive growth in classical music in China, Korea, and Japan in particular, while in America and in some ways even in Europe it is struggling, especially in its traditional forms. We can connect this, I think, to some of Christopher Small's ideas about the relationships in musical performances and the values those relationships represent.
ReplyDeleteReading this, I thought about Alaya's comment in another thread about the low interest in the African American community in classical music. A major reason for that phenomenon is that in the United States there was a tremendous amount of resistance to black music, from ragtime to jazz to rock to