In defense of relevance

I've said it many times and I'll say it again (I'm sure Sam has grown weary of this) - one of my favorite catchphrases - "If you don't like change, you'll like irrelevance even less."

I was thinking about the whole notion of relevance over the weekend, particularly of the naysayers who claim that "classical"/concert music (can't we come up with a better term for it??) has no place in contemporary culture. How is it possibly relevant to the 21st century? Who listens to an orchestra?

My riposte: Are you kidding me? Are you watching the Olympics?

First of all, did you notice the group of musicians that participated throughout the opening ceremonies? Uh-huh. Not a rock band; members of the Vancouver Symphony (although there was the requisite kerfluffle over live vs. Memorex).

And speaking of the opening ceremonies, yes, of course we had Sarah McLachlan and k.d. lang, but we also had Canadian opera singer Measha Brueggergosman, singing the all-important Olympic hymn.

Now, the medal ceremonies. National anthems; empty fauxchestra MIDI recordings? No way. All recorded by a very much real Vancouver Symphony:



And it goes beyond the Games themselves. I'm always fascinated by music choices for TV ads, and two GE ads stood out to me immediately. This one clearly banks on the universality of Beethoven:



And another ad by GE, this one using the slow movement of the Ravel Piano Concerto. Call me a sucker for sentimentalism, but it pulls at my heartstrings every time I've seen it (nearly a dozen viewings at this point). And it's very much the choice of music that creates the poignancy of this ad:



And of course, we can't discuss classical music in popular culture without talking about figure skating - here's a link to what I thought was the better of the two Scheherazade compilations heard in pairs finals. The orchestral music/figure skating pairing is very logical; symphonic music provides the kind of variety of moods, shifting colors, grandeur and drama that make a great skating program. Sure, sometimes you get slightly odd mishmashes of selections, but the fact remains that it still exposes a broader audience (who isn't glued to the Olympics right now?) to concert music. I think it's a good thing.

Of course, then you get the purists who make snide remarks about how dumbed-down the music is - here's a bit of barely-contained snarkiness about how ignorant skaters are about the classical music often used for their programs. Which I think is misdirected, in a way, because I don't think they're concerned about "musical integrity" in the way one would be if one were, say, presenting a concert of the same music just as music, without the spectacle of the skating which is, after all, the main focus in a skating competition. So what if they chop up musical selections or go from Mendelssohn to Chopin? And who's to say what's "tacky" in this context?

This kind of commentary/critique bothers me because it does everything to confirm the perceived snobbery and elitism of those of us in the classical biz (critics and bloggers included). I don't expect a seamless, logical, historically informed performance of symphonic music in a skating program any more that I expect the average orchestral musician to know about a triple Lutz or the byzantine judging system. But I'm happy that music and skating intersect, that a larger audience hears and appreciates it, and that a few might even be interested enough to look up Scheherazade, or whatever. It's all about exposure, keeping in the public eye and ear, participating in contemporary culture. Because the world is an ever-progressing, ever-changing place. And who likes irrelevance?