| That's where your youth symphony and school programs come in. They have to be at a high enough level to accomplish two things:
1) The kids that are going to go on to one day play need a place to work their skills today playing ferociously difficult repertoire
2) The ones who aren't going on need to learn to love this stuff so much that they can't do without it when they're adults.
In Minneapolis we have a huge number of young people that come to our concerts and I'm happy to say that I see college students like Jimi and the younger high school kids from my youth orchestra going to concerts on a regular basis. When they go off to school and come back on vacation they always fit a concert into their schedules!
I have to toot the MO's horn because they do so much right here. The outreach is neverending, Target is a huge presence as a corporate donor as are General Mills, Marshall Field's, Honeywell, 3M, and many, many others, and we play new music all the time. In fact, the American Composers Forum is based here! So, if I view things with rose colored glasses I suppose it's because of what I see around me.
ML |