RE: schmaltz, pandering and Klezmatics

[parentheses <Sara.Marcus...>]

On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Dick Rosenberg wrote:

> I also think it's an interesting marketing problem. Where I leave, near
> Boston, there is a city called Newton with a sizeable Jewish population.
> The Newton Public Library has a small auditorium and has a free concert
> series. There is always at least one concert featuring some local
> Klezmer talent. The audience always seems to me to be not only over 60,
> but over 70! It always surprises me that there are not more younger
> people at these concerts. How do you reach them? (I think this is the
> problem that Bert ran into)

        I don't know what kind of advertising the library does (or the
Cleveland Workmen's Circle, for that matter) but here's my suggestion:
the local music scenes.  Flyers at rock clubs, jazz clubs, folk clubs,
cafes where the kids hang out (Somerville, in your case, would be a
great idea), college campuses, all the schools of music.  Contact
college newspapers, musicians' newspapers, "alternative" papers like
the Boston Phoenix. 

        Since we're talking about "how do we reach the youth?" I'll
mention that my impression, based on considerable experience, is that
the growth industry for klezmer among youth is in the set of youth who
are interested in and open to all kinds of music.  Among these people
there are lots of Jews, many of whom may feel alienated from a
tradition that doesn't seem to speak to them.  The Klezmatics were my
introduction to cultural Judaism, through which I've also started
hollowing myself out a place in the Jewish religion.  That's powerful
music, folks.

        Relevantly, Anthony Tommasini had a depressingly ignorant
review in the NY Times a couple weeks ago, about a Stravinsky festival
in San Francisco.  He spoke of symphony orchestras' declining cachet
among the under-30s, a trend every classical-music pundit laments. 
Then he MARVELED at the crowd of young folk at this Stravinsky show. 
How could it be, he wondered, that you can't pay most 25-year-olds to
go see Mozart's Jupiter symphony performed, but they'll shell out
bucks for newmusic?  Michael Tilsen Thomas, AT wrote astoundedly, has
"managed to *convince* young people" that 20th century music is worth
listening to.  HELLO???  You don't *have* to convince young people to
listen to new things!  It's the old things we've heard a hundred times
that tend to bore us. 

        If klezmer survives only as a regurgitation of century-old
tunes (no matter how creative and talented that regurgitation may be)
we will suffer a great loss -- both of the music that might have been,
and the youth it might have a)inspired, and b)brought to a fertile
interaction with Jewish culture.

Love,
Sara Marcus

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