CLASSICALLY UNTRAINED
The Symphony of New Orleans
Exploring the cultural, political, and artistic contexts of New Orlean’s THRIVING symphonic music scene
By David S. Lewis
New Orleans may be best known for its cutting edge jazz and vibrant funk or twerk-tastic bounce music, but for centuries, New Orleans has also been home to some of the most innovative art music in the country.
Art music is any composed, structured music, typically expressed within an artistic system or theory. Unsurprisingly, it often overlaps with its cousins, folk and popular music (after all, Brahms, Beethoven, and many other famous symphonic composers drew heavily from folk music, real or imagined, and opera was directed squarely at the masses, so its “popular” appeal is difficult to deny).
New Orleans was home to the first opera performed in the New World, in 1796. Our contributions to the world of art music extends from Joseph Arquier to Edmund Dede all the way through now, with artists like Courtney Bryan and Malcolm Parsons debuting significant works with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to Terrence Blanchard’s operas performed by the New York Metropolitan Opera.
The season for art music begins in the fall, with multiple chamber music festivals, three full symphony orchestras (including the Grammy-winning LPO, which is the only professional symphony between Houston and Tampa Bay.) The city is also home to a ballet troupe and two opera companies (one of which is the amazing Opera Creole, which debuted the earliest opera written by a Black composer only last year, to international plaudits), numerous composers of film and television, and have dozens of smaller ensembles playing in a variety of venues, musicians of all kinds, a ballet and an opera.
This column seeks to contextualize the city’s booming art music scene, and to introduce readers to the music, and perhaps to dispel longstanding misunderstandings about it. Some perhaps think they don’t like “classical music”...but that’s a weird term used to describe music that has existed in countless forms for hundreds of years. Also, you’ve been listening to it your entire life as the soundtrack to countless film and television productions.
A recent study by the Royal Philharmonic suggests that classical music of all kinds is, in fact, very much on the rise with listeners of all ages, as listeners use the power of social media and the internet to search for music that feels authentic.
Symphonic music is also protest music: Beethoven’s thundering denunciation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s appointment as Emperor in his 3rd Symphony (“Eroica”) is a great example, or Shostakovich’s satirical 9th Symphony, mocking the militarism of Stalinist Soviet government. Often it’s politically subversive less because of the intention of the composer and more the setting in which it’s played…and we’re living in a moment where censorship is on the rise. We’ll explore “forbidden composers” and artistic revolutionaries and their contexts in many of these columns.
Symphonic art music offers an alternative to the commercialism of much of the manufactured music that you hear on streaming platforms or the radio: algorithmically tailored to be popular, it is often so much of so many things that it becomes nearly nothing at all. Another song about how nice it is to sit in a field in a truckful of beer, or the difficulties of finding love while relatively rich and safe – these are the musical equivalent of a pneumatic bolt to your forehead. But experiencing art music in a performance space, whether a small bar or an enormous art-deco theater, involves coming together in community and sitting without the glowing screen telling you what to think. You can sit and listen, just as hard as you care to, for an hour and a half, and experience art for your ears, provided by real musicians playing instruments made of wood and brass and hair.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST 'CLASSICALLY UNTRAINED' FEATURES
New Orleans may be best known for its cutting edge jazz and vibrant funk or twerk-tastic bounce music, but for centuries, New Orleans has also been home to some of the most innovative art music in the country.
Art music is any composed, structured music, typically expressed within an artistic system or theory. Unsurprisingly, it often overlaps with its cousins, folk and popular music (after all, Brahms, Beethoven, and many other famous symphonic composers drew heavily from folk music, real or imagined, and opera was directed squarely at the masses, so its “popular” appeal is difficult to deny).
New Orleans was home to the first opera performed in the New World, in 1796. Our contributions to the world of art music extends from Joseph Arquier to Edmund Dede all the way through now, with artists like Courtney Bryan and Malcolm Parsons debuting significant works with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to Terrence Blanchard’s operas performed by the New York Metropolitan Opera.
The season for art music begins in the fall, with multiple chamber music festivals, three full symphony orchestras (including the Grammy-winning LPO, which is the only professional symphony between Houston and Tampa Bay.) The city is also home to a ballet troupe and two opera companies (one of which is the amazing Opera Creole, which debuted the earliest opera written by a Black composer only last year, to international plaudits), numerous composers of film and television, and have dozens of smaller ensembles playing in a variety of venues, musicians of all kinds, a ballet and an opera.
This column seeks to contextualize the city’s booming art music scene, and to introduce readers to the music, and perhaps to dispel longstanding misunderstandings about it. Some perhaps think they don’t like “classical music”...but that’s a weird term used to describe music that has existed in countless forms for hundreds of years. Also, you’ve been listening to it your entire life as the soundtrack to countless film and television productions.
A recent study by the Royal Philharmonic suggests that classical music of all kinds is, in fact, very much on the rise with listeners of all ages, as listeners use the power of social media and the internet to search for music that feels authentic.
Symphonic music is also protest music: Beethoven’s thundering denunciation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s appointment as Emperor in his 3rd Symphony (“Eroica”) is a great example, or Shostakovich’s satirical 9th Symphony, mocking the militarism of Stalinist Soviet government. Often it’s politically subversive less because of the intention of the composer and more the setting in which it’s played…and we’re living in a moment where censorship is on the rise. We’ll explore “forbidden composers” and artistic revolutionaries and their contexts in many of these columns.
Symphonic art music offers an alternative to the commercialism of much of the manufactured music that you hear on streaming platforms or the radio: algorithmically tailored to be popular, it is often so much of so many things that it becomes nearly nothing at all. Another song about how nice it is to sit in a field in a truckful of beer, or the difficulties of finding love while relatively rich and safe – these are the musical equivalent of a pneumatic bolt to your forehead. But experiencing art music in a performance space, whether a small bar or an enormous art-deco theater, involves coming together in community and sitting without the glowing screen telling you what to think. You can sit and listen, just as hard as you care to, for an hour and a half, and experience art for your ears, provided by real musicians playing instruments made of wood and brass and hair.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST 'CLASSICALLY UNTRAINED' FEATURES