At 11:42 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, Beth wrote:
>On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, James wrote:
>
> > One needs to decide whether "commercially successful" is the main
> > objective.  If so, in a nominally market economy, it behooves one to try to
> > understand the demographics of the market, and  to discover what that
> > market likes, and then produce something they like.  That leaves open the
> > educational function--to expose the market to unfamiliar things in an
> > appealing way.
>
>Well, I think in this case, the problem is how to get the public to pay
>attention to music that does not use huge forces, i.e. ffor vocal
>music, d'India is just as good a composer as Monteverdi, but since
>Monteverdi wrote operas and d'India didn't, more people know Monteverdi
>than d'India.


I agree completely!  That is exactly the point I have been trying to
make.  Same thing applies to Scottish Baroque popular music.  It's very
"user friendly," and small in scale, and it works well in small
venues.  And along with being enjoyable, it can help broaden the audience's
musical horizons.  Like most of the other small-scale events I have
attended recently.  Think "fringe events" at Berkeley, and I assume at
Boston.  The main festival in Berkely appears to have died a natural death,
but I wonder if the fringe events could continue.




>Beth