I often wonder about the state of classical music.

As a tradition it is set on replication rather than innovation. If you go to a symphony concert they will likely play a “classic,” meaning a piece that you could just as easily listen to on a record player. And honestly, the playing is very likely better on the recording than in person.

Albeit, going to the symphony is an experience. Which, I think, if you’re going for the experience of going to a symphony concert than it is a totally different thing already.

It feels like a missed opportunity… in classical music culture we claim creativity, but is it truly creative to learn how to play notes off a page exactly how everyone else plays them? (it feels like the delineating factor between two artists is often quite small.) What if instead we aspired to play entirely new repertoire all the time, and created different ways of playing*?

*some people are already doing this, and quite well… but as a whole CM culture is quite behind.