I just bought a ticket to hear Augustin Hadelich play a recital tomorrow night at Tanglewood. It cost $12.00, and since I'm going to watch it with Michael, that's $6.00 per person.
I haven't been to a concert at Tanglewood in nearly twenty years. It has been so long, in fact, that the hall that this concert is being broadcast from wasn't even built. After my father retired from the Boston Symphony, and no longer spent his summers at Tanglewood, our trips to Tanglewood ended.
This season nobody except the performers, the concert arrangers, and the people doing the filming will be at this concert. The audience of people from all over the world will be, like me and Michael, sitting in our homes. We can read the concert program by way of a PDF. We can also watch it again during the coming week.
People can make their own picnics and pre-concert dinners. Michael and I will be having leftover Thai food.
Musicians and concert organizations worry about whether the audiences for our concerts will return after the pandemic is over. With the likelihood of a serious economic collapse in our future (at least in America), we wonder if people will have money and time to actually go to concerts. We wonder, with lower-capacity seating in concert halls, if we will be able to bring in enough revenue from ticket sales to pay decent salaries for people who are performing, and pay decent salaries for the people in the concert-giving organizations to do the technical work, to run the organization, and to do the necessary publicity.
If there is an online concert option bundled into subscriptions, even for smaller and regional orchestras and chamber ensembles, musicians everywhere might be able to reach wider audiences--making it possible for people who don't live in a city where a particular performance is taking place to hear and see it live. If it is a premiere, all the better. And if this online option is successful, orchestras and chamber music ensembles might be able to do programming that is innovative, with music by lesser-known composers that should be programmed, rehearsed, and performed.
If there is enough revenue from online ticket sales and subscriptions, in-person ticket prices could be lowered enough to give people who normally can't afford to go to concerts the chance to go.
Who knows? There might even be a place for reviewers in this new musical world.
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