2023-09-29 04:00:45
The musical course that is now beginning has very important challenges before it as far as symphonic music is concerned. Spanish orchestras face a season full of questions, after a few years in which they have not been able to make a decisive comeback in attendance at auditoriums. The crisis itself that the sector had been dragging on for more than a decade has been greatly amplified by the pandemic and, now, the emergence of the enormous wound left by the entire process derived from it means that they have not even remotely recovered. previous attendance levels in orchestral subscription seasons.
A huge public hole has opened between the deaths that have occurred and the loss of cultural habits that has been very pronounced among the older public. Furthermore, since the restoration, in the field of heritage music, is slow, it is not being able to recover previous levels as quickly as initially planned.
Faced with this, Spanish orchestras are trying to offer new formats in order to gain other audiences. The challenge is enormous and requires an enormous collective effort, both professional and economic, and I do not know if the administrations are willing to face it decisively.
The subscription seasons, with a fixed weekly day, are suffering significantly. To give an example, the Navarra orchestra, which had a two-day subscription to the Baluarte de Pamplona, has reduced contact with the capital’s public to one weekly session. It won’t be the only one. In many auditoriums in which the resident orchestra offers a double function, the problems in achieving acceptable occupancy are tremendous and, in the short term, it will be extremely difficult to reverse the situation.
Faced with this panorama, orchestral formations are betting on new formats in locations that are as diverse as possible to break the stagnation of auditoriums. These new spaces do not always have adequate acoustics, but it is preferred to sacrifice the quality of the offer in order to reach younger spectators, not accustomed to the usual standards of concert halls, but who, on the other hand, They value positively that an orchestra leaves its comfort zone and works with artists from other fields.
The problem is, after the fact, getting the newcomers hooked on the usual programming. May they be able to delve into the beauty of an infinite musical journey such as that of the symphonic world. Here the collaboration of the educational sector is essential. Without effective cooperation from the teaching community as a whole, the result can be frustrating.
Let’s hope that the collective work that the sector is carrying out with balanced formulas between traditional formats and other more innovative ones will bear fruit. This year will be the first of a new stage for which we must give time in some orchestras that, also in these years, are managing their first major generational change within their staff, due to the retirement of the first generation of musicians who made up the foundation of most of them in the eighties and nineties of the last century.
#slow #awakening #Spain