Choirs
It's funny how people say classical music is dying, with concerts poorly attended etc. Last night I attended the Liverpool "Phil" to hear Beethoven 1 and 9, great stuff, the hall was not full, so you get thinking...
Personally, I put it all down to education. Society and the media seem to spoon feed children the "pop"culture, on TV, and at school even, with little,if any, musical education being given. Can we be surprised that we have a greying audience? But there is hope, hope with effort. At the church I am Organist to I have started a Choir from scratch, and to see boys teaching new boys, voluntarily with no prompting from me, what I taught them the last week, and to see the keenness to learn about the Choral traditions, and the Organ itself, well! it just makes you realise there IS hope. I have no solutions, only to get children interested in real music very young. It will hopefully stay with them all their lives. By contrast, my parents were totally dead to anything at all musical, so God only knows how I turned out like this!!
Personally, I put it all down to education. Society and the media seem to spoon feed children the "pop"culture, on TV, and at school even, with little,if any, musical education being given. Can we be surprised that we have a greying audience? But there is hope, hope with effort. At the church I am Organist to I have started a Choir from scratch, and to see boys teaching new boys, voluntarily with no prompting from me, what I taught them the last week, and to see the keenness to learn about the Choral traditions, and the Organ itself, well! it just makes you realise there IS hope. I have no solutions, only to get children interested in real music very young. It will hopefully stay with them all their lives. By contrast, my parents were totally dead to anything at all musical, so God only knows how I turned out like this!!