Inexperienced Audiences: A Love Hate Relationship

I recently watched the webcast of Gustavo Dudamel conducting Beethoven's 9th at the Hollywood Bowl. It was an wonderful performance by the conductor, musicians, and singers. Unfortunately, the performance by the audience was less than wonderful, although no less audible.

OK, it's a summer crowd. For many this was their first classical concert. One can overlook the clapping between movements, the whooping, and even the shouting out to Gustavo. But the applause in the middle of the fourth movement – ouch!

What's one to do? Kill the enthusiasm? Pass out cards with the etiquette of concert attendance printed on them? Perhaps ushers with cattle prods to keep the masses in line?

No, classical music lovers are already viewed as snobs in popular culture. We don't need to turn people off to the beauty of great music, we need to turn them on. The only real option is to accept and educate.

For a number of years at Taft High School our concert audiences were, shall I say, "inappropriately vocal" during performances. Eventually, I decided to make a little speech at the beginning of each concert reminding the audience of how hard the musicians work on their music and how important it is to hear every note. Anything distracting from the performance is inconsiderate of their effort. After a few concerts, this began to work, and now our audiences are relatively well behaved.

Of course, a professional concert is not the same as a high school concert. A similar speech just wouldn't cut it at Disney Hall or even the Hollywood Bowl.

We can only hope that many of those overly boisterous Hollywood Bowl audiences members fell in love with classical music that night. Let's hope that some of them will begin to go to other concerts and eventually learn why clapping in the middle of a movement might not be such a good thing. I even hope that a few of the audience members at my high school concerts begin to appreciate the importance of hearing every nuance in every note.