Is classical music really that relevant today?

In today's music world, rap, alternative, pop and rock genres are no doubt dominating the popular music charts, and one may wonder what relevance classical music holds. This is a topic that could lead to endless arguments, but the truth of the matter is that classical music is still essential today. It may not enjoy a lot of radio play, but classical music provides a portal transporting us into history, not to mention the fact that it is the foundation on which contemporary entertainment is built. We might even go into the benefits of classical music as a tool for brain power. During the 90s, classical music sales got a boost from suggestions that exposure to this type of music could enhance spatial reasoning and memory in humans. It's during this period that the 'Mozart effect' came to be. To date, the link between classical music and benefits such as boosted intelligence and lower stress levels continue to be proven scientifically. However, this tends to blind many of us to the fact that such music was actually created for enjoyment as an art form and not for therapeutic purposes. What we call 'classical' was once the latest and most popular hits at the time. Despite the gloom and doom predictions claiming that classical music is facing imminent death, a report by the American National Endowment for the Arts revealed that the total number of adults attending classical music performances annually had only dropped by 2.8 percent between 1982 and 2012. Young and vibrant music students today tell how classical music and arts relate to their lives in many different ways. Classical music enthusiasts may be the minority, but they exist and are nowhere near dying out. Jonathan Crow and Joseph Johnson, for instance, are two musicians that have made it their life's mission to secure the survival of classical music. While they recognize the challenge this presents, they are also very optimistic. And Crow and Johnson are a new breed of classical musician, helping the traditional symphony orchestra articulate a future as well as a past. Both just flirting with 40, they are savvy, modern musicians who might just drag the cultural heritage of their chosen art into a snazzy, relevant dialogue with the 21st century. To them, it’s vital to do so. “Everybody here understands what it’s like to be in an orchestra in the 2000s,” Crow says. “This isn’t the seventies any more, where you could just show up, play your Brahms and say to management: Sell us. Where people would routinely buy their subscription concerts at the beginning of the season and that would be that. The world is different now. We play to people with lots of entertainment choices. We have to understand how the modern world works.” “We know we have to do more than just show up and play in the concert hall,” Johnson adds in counterpoint. “We need to interact with the community, do pop-up concerts, collaborate with other institutions [the TSO just [...]

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