Music and Changing Cultural Landscape
In the few weeks between Christmas and Chinese New Year I have come across a couple of interesting articles from different sources, which I would like to share:
“The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur”- The Atlantic
This article is probably the best analysis of what is happening to arts as a profession in our society that I have come across in a while.
Another interesting short piece questioning attempts to win over new audiences for classical music from a blog by Pliable at overgrownpath.com: http://www.overgrownpath.com/search?q=Stop+trying+to+serve+everybody
Both of these articles are pointing to the fact that influence of artistic achievement has greatly diminished in recent decades and with that a potential for a truly great artist to achieve financial success on the scale even remotely comparable to success in other professional fields. In some ways this seem to be a return to the times when artists survived on combination of private patronage, lessons and performing, which, of course hasn’t prevented Haydn, Mozart, Schubert or Brahms from creating some of the best music that exists. I wonder if diminished prospects of fame and fortune will deter some of the really gifted young people from pursuing art, or if only those with truly pure motives will continue to dedicate their lives to it. Time will tell, of course, but it is my hope that the type of people who make art for the intrinsic reward of making it will not disappear from our world completely, and that the capacity for consuming sophisticated, emotionally rich and stimulating art will not atrophy in the society.
