BSO Reaches Out to Younger Crowds

On a characteristic Friday evening at Symphony Hall, a curious phenomenon occurs. Ten minutes before the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) strikes its first note, a predominantly white-haired throng of season subscribers makes its way through the ornate doors of the hall, down the lighted aisles and fills the seats of the auditorium. Moments later, moving virtually unnoticed, a small number of unbefitting young people shuffle through the mobs of veteran classical music connoisseurs, finding their seats in the shadows of the older crowd.

But Symphony Hall wasn’t always this way. In recent years, orchestras across the country have faced an emerging problem in the classical music world: a diminishing number of young people in the audience.

And now, as the BSO hits the midway point in its 124th year, it has stepped up its efforts to attract new members to Symphony Hall. By the end of this season, the BSO will have performed 126 different concerts, debuted a new music director and offered multiple events to reach out to the public—all in hopes of recruiting a new audience.

“We have definitely made more efforts to bring younger audiences here,” says Alexander H. Steinbeis, assistant artistic administrator for the BSO.

A major part of the effort has focused on sparking interest in classical music in the community—the Harvard community, in particular.

In November, the BSO collaborated with Harvard in presenting a conference to celebrate the work of 95-year-old composer Elliott Carter, whose works the BSO will perform this season.

And last week the maestro himself, James Levine, took part in a question-and-answer session in Paine Hall with Music Department Chair Thomas F. Kelly.

“We try to incorporate events intended for the academic community and also to appeal to students,” says Steinbeis, who has worked with the BSO for five years.

Levine’s appearance was part of an effort to get people excited about classical music and to introduce the community to the BSO’s new conductor, Steinbeis says.

Levine’s tenure as music director was greeted this year with a large amount of buzz in classical music circles. A renowned conductor and pianist, Levine is credited with bringing the Metropolitan Opera (which he still conducts) to new heights. Critics worldwide predict that he will live up to his reputation and raise the caliber of the BSO as well.

“I’m very excited the BSO and I got together at the time that we did,” Levine said at the Harvard talk.

In March, Levine will return to Harvard for a symposium on Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman, which the BSO will perform later that month. The event will feature scholars from around the world and soloists performing with the symphony.

But Loeb Professor of the Humanities Joshua N. Fineberg says that the BSO’s success in recruiting youth will rely largely on the number of unconventional pieces they play, not necessarily the events they hold in the community. He says the orchestra has shown noticeable improvement in this area since Levine gained the conductor’s podium.

“We used to joke that orchestras play the same ten or so pieces over and over,” Fineberg says. “You can’t say that about this year’s BSO program.”

Levine says he has made it a priority to add more contemporary music to the orchestra’s repertoire, something not always popular with the average symphony audience. He says the tendency of new concertgoers to immediately search for meaning in a piece has led to the relative unpopularity of contemporary music.

“Each concert is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle,” Levine says. “You can’t get it in one hearing.”

Fineberg says that many students he sees at Harvard are reluctant to go to classical music concerts because they feel they are unable to fully understand the type of music being performed.

“Harvard students are so into proving everything…there’s not always a message to be extracted,” Fineberg says. “Get over the conception that there is something to get when you hear a piece.”

He says that an adventurous crowd, coupled with interesting programming by orchestras, could lead to a renewal in the popularity of classical music.

“Classical music used to be about status, class…now, there are so many opportunities for entertainment that it is about competition,” he says. “It has to be like when you go to a club—you don’t know what you’ll hear but there’s this sense of discovery that is so important.”

The BSO is also trying to draw in young people with discounts and other incentives.

Boston-area college students can purchase a $25 “College Card” that gives them access to 14 concerts over the symphony’s season. The concerts include open rehearsals during the day as well as regular weekend concerts.

For concertgoers between the ages of 21 and 38, the BSO offers a program entitled “Repartee” that offers subscribers discounted concert passes. And if the discount isn’t enough to convince young people, the BSO throws in pre-concert cocktail parties with hors d’oeuvres and private, pre-concert lectures with BSO performers and conductors.

With these combined endeavors, officials at the BSO remain optimistic and say that their efforts are seeing some results.

“I’m often positively surprised,” Steinbeis says. “We are getting a lot of young people.”