The Phoenix Symphony Illustrates Classical Music’s Toughest Wounds Tradition is bred out of a natural desire to preserve ideas among the threat of change. Yet, when the reaction to that threat imposes walls so thick, only the expert is capable of understanding, the practice does indeed become antiquated. Such is the situation for classical music, a genre stigmatized by an old-fashioned label.
This isn’t news to most people. However, after the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2012, the future for American orchestras took a dramatically tangible turn, condemning them to almost certain elimination if their programming and audience turnout didn’t change for the better.
Tito Muñoz, the young, emerging conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, seeks to alter this death sentence by introducing what he calls “the work of living composers” — an idea that, for an aging audience of patrons and supporters at Prescott’s Yavapai College Performing Arts Center on September 20, was literally laughable. And their chuckling revealed an inherent truth: classical music fears the future. …show more content…
He took this assertion even further, as he introduced the audience to his longtime friend, 34-year-old composer Adam Schoenberg (not to be confused with the rebellious king of tonal destruction, twelve-tone composer Arnold Schoenberg).
Muñoz gave this living Schoenberg his due, as the composer explained the inspiration behind the program’s American Symphony, which was an attempt to rebuild hope in the United States after the 2008 presidential election. Schoenberg, who claimed it was his “civic duty to bring beauty into the world,” aimed for change, using the writing styles of American composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and George Gershwin as his guiding
This isn’t news to most people. However, after the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2012, the future for American orchestras took a dramatically tangible turn, condemning them to almost certain elimination if their programming and audience turnout didn’t change for the better.
Tito Muñoz, the young, emerging conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, seeks to alter this death sentence by introducing what he calls “the work of living composers” — an idea that, for an aging audience of patrons and supporters at Prescott’s Yavapai College Performing Arts Center on September 20, was literally laughable. And their chuckling revealed an inherent truth: classical music fears the future. …show more content…
He took this assertion even further, as he introduced the audience to his longtime friend, 34-year-old composer Adam Schoenberg (not to be confused with the rebellious king of tonal destruction, twelve-tone composer Arnold Schoenberg).
Muñoz gave this living Schoenberg his due, as the composer explained the inspiration behind the program’s American Symphony, which was an attempt to rebuild hope in the United States after the 2008 presidential election. Schoenberg, who claimed it was his “civic duty to bring beauty into the world,” aimed for change, using the writing styles of American composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and George Gershwin as his guiding