Can Young Audiences Be Lured To Classical Music?

“Studies done in past decades make clear that, up through the 1960s, the median age for classical music in the U.S. was around 30. … [Greg] Sandow doesn’t pretend he has any quick fixes for a complex socio-cultural problem, but he does believe part of the solution involves thoroughly overhauling the ways classical music is being packaged, marketed and presented.”

What Should Los Angeles Ask Of Eli Broad?

Broad hasn’t confirmed that a site near Disney Hall is where he wants to put his art museum, but let’s assume it is. “They could sensibly begin by asking how the museum’s construction might be leveraged to help produce truly meaningful improvements to the blocks surrounding it — and to help draw foot traffic and avoid the hidden-in-plain-sight quality of Arata Isozaki’s design for the MOCA building.”

NY Phil To Give NY Premiere Of Messiaen’s St.-Francois d’Assise

The Philharmonic presents its first fully-staged opera, Ligeti’s Grand Macabre, next month. And it’snot stopping there: “Though it hasn’t yet been announced, [Alan] Gilbert is planning to bring to the Phil the first complete New York production of Olivier Messiaen’s five-hour opera St. Francis of Assisi, … tentatively planned for 2013.”

Alastair Macaulay On The Reward And Risk In Ailey’s Choice Of Director

“When it came to picking an artistic director to succeed Judith Jamison, the Ailey company could have easily chosen to turn itself into a heritage troupe – or into one yet more heritage-oriented than it already is. … By naming Robert Battle, however, the company is allowing the recipe to change. … [But can] Mr. Battle – can anyone – emanate positive energy in the industrial quantities that Ms. Jamison delivers?”