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[UK] Not me but my partner—classical music. Almost everyone is freelance, and everyone has had all their gigs cancelled for the next few months, leaving a lot o

[UK] Not me but my partner—classical music. Almost everyone is freelance, and everyone has had all their gigs cancelled for the next few months, leaving a lot of people for whom strings were tight to begin with in complete limbo. Performers obviously but also all the events, management, publicity, everything. The scale of it is almost incomprehensible, unless massive investment is made in the sector to keep it alive, it will just... die.

H8crilA 7y ago
Or severely deflate. The instruments and people and equipment will still be there, just much much cheaper to get. Companies will be owned by defaulted bonds rather than stocks.
- fredley 7y ago
  These aren't companies. Most are charities. The Royal Opera House will be fine, the hundreds of smaller music organisations will not.
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    I see. My point is they'll be different, regardless of the "incorporation format". I.e. the instruments and the people will still be there. Unless people stop going to concerts/performances, well then the equipment goes to the basement.
    - closeparen 7y ago
      I like Ben Folds's perspective on the institution of the symphony orchestra as a celebration of civilization itself. The performing arts are all about groups of people coming together to pull off something greater than the sum of its parts. But the unfortunate corollary is that you cannot just stack up the parts and have a successful production by magic. It takes a lot more than that. The institutions and structures currently doing it season after season have a kind of life of their own, and it's absolutely subject to decay and death. The ecological niche they occupy is extraordinarily harsh, so they're not easily replaced either. Practically speaking: you need space and equipment. You need artistic direction with taste and vision to hire the right performers and designers and communicate it to them. You need skilled craftsmen to implement the designs, quick-thinking managers to wrangle the logistics, ambitious 2nd assistants to make the coffee. You'll need all this for months before you turn a dollar of revenue. Then you need marketers to bring in an audience, front of house staff to deal with it, professional schmoozers to pry open the rich ones' checkbooks (ticket sales are never enough). If it turns out the creative vision was too safe, it'll be panned as boring and derivative. If you take a risk and fail, you'll also get eaten alive. So you have to take a real risk, and have it go your way, every time. At any point, one of the key people who held it all together by the seat of her pants could retire to take care of her sick mother. Or a crucial benefactor (public or private) could have a change of heart. Or Walgreens could snatch up the lease on your performance space. Or an influential critic could be in a bad mood. Any one of these things could be the end. Please do not take performing arts organizations for granted. There are many once-grand theaters and concert halls in this country abandoned and rotting away. Even more that were simply erased. These things hang on to life by a thread in the best of times.
    - megous 7y ago
      People will sell their instruments if they'll depserately need money.
sandinmyjoints 7y ago
Yeah, I've seen this too from the perspective of some friends in classical music. I don't think it will die in the sense that noone will put on or attend classical music performances anymore, but longtime institutions that were homes for it will go away, and performers will go into other work, so when all's said and done I imagine it will quite a smaller field than it was, fewer people in it, less money in it for anyone to make a living off of, fewer opportunities and performances. But who knows.
mabbo 7y ago
> my partner—classical music > a lot of people for whom strings were tight There's a bad joke in there about tuning a little more flat, but I'll leave well enough alone and instead send my sympathies. I have an acquaintance who was nominated for Juno[0], Canada's highest music award, and the entire award process is apparently dead now, no certainly no awards show. This should be her possibly hitting a new high point in her career- a big award can mean future opportunities- and instead it's all just on hold. [0]https://junoawards.ca/2020-juno-award-nominees/ https://junoawards.ca/2020-juno-award-nominees/

H8crilA 7y ago

Or severely deflate. The instruments and people and equipment will still be there, just much much cheaper to get. Companies will be owned by defaulted bonds rather than stocks.

fredley 7y ago
These aren't companies. Most are charities. The Royal Opera House will be fine, the hundreds of smaller music organisations will not.
- H8crilA 7y ago
  I see. My point is they'll be different, regardless of the "incorporation format". I.e. the instruments and the people will still be there. Unless people stop going to concerts/performances, well then the equipment goes to the basement.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    I like Ben Folds's perspective on the institution of the symphony orchestra as a celebration of civilization itself. The performing arts are all about groups of people coming together to pull off something greater than the sum of its parts. But the unfortunate corollary is that you cannot just stack up the parts and have a successful production by magic. It takes a lot more than that. The institutions and structures currently doing it season after season have a kind of life of their own, and it's absolutely subject to decay and death. The ecological niche they occupy is extraordinarily harsh, so they're not easily replaced either. Practically speaking: you need space and equipment. You need artistic direction with taste and vision to hire the right performers and designers and communicate it to them. You need skilled craftsmen to implement the designs, quick-thinking managers to wrangle the logistics, ambitious 2nd assistants to make the coffee. You'll need all this for months before you turn a dollar of revenue. Then you need marketers to bring in an audience, front of house staff to deal with it, professional schmoozers to pry open the rich ones' checkbooks (ticket sales are never enough). If it turns out the creative vision was too safe, it'll be panned as boring and derivative. If you take a risk and fail, you'll also get eaten alive. So you have to take a real risk, and have it go your way, every time. At any point, one of the key people who held it all together by the seat of her pants could retire to take care of her sick mother. Or a crucial benefactor (public or private) could have a change of heart. Or Walgreens could snatch up the lease on your performance space. Or an influential critic could be in a bad mood. Any one of these things could be the end. Please do not take performing arts organizations for granted. There are many once-grand theaters and concert halls in this country abandoned and rotting away. Even more that were simply erased. These things hang on to life by a thread in the best of times.
  - megous 7y ago
    People will sell their instruments if they'll depserately need money.

sandinmyjoints 7y ago

Yeah, I've seen this too from the perspective of some friends in classical music. I don't think it will die in the sense that noone will put on or attend classical music performances anymore, but longtime institutions that were homes for it will go away, and performers will go into other work, so when all's said and done I imagine it will quite a smaller field than it was, fewer people in it, less money in it for anyone to make a living off of, fewer opportunities and performances. But who knows.

mabbo 7y ago

> my partner—classical music > a lot of people for whom strings were tight There's a bad joke in there about tuning a little more flat, but I'll leave well enough alone and instead send my sympathies. I have an acquaintance who was nominated for Juno[0], Canada's highest music award, and the entire award process is apparently dead now, no certainly no awards show. This should be her possibly hitting a new high point in her career- a big award can mean future opportunities- and instead it's all just on hold. [0]https://junoawards.ca/2020-juno-award-nominees/ https://junoawards.ca/2020-juno-award-nominees/