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By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
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Since becoming executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall five years ago, Sir Clive Gillinson has transformed one of the world's top performance venues into a center for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchange. He has also created new educational programs, including a fellowship that offers public-school students access to high-level music education. He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop in Singapore, where he was attending Live! Singapore, a new international trade event for the performing-arts industry.
Sales of classical records continue to fall. Is the industry facing a crisis?
More concert halls than ever are being built around the world, mainly in Asia. The challenge is really about how to create a revenue model rather than create consumption. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony has been recorded hundreds of times, so of course if you put out a new recording it's not going to sell the same numbers as it used to when there were only 10 recordings.
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What impact has the Internet had on classical music?
With the Internet you can now reach practically anybody, which is great, but it also means that everybody has access to the best. Now you can tune in to the Berlin Philharmonic wherever you are. That will have a great impact on regional orchestras. They can't compete with the Berlin Philharmonic, but they still have a role to play; it's just a different one.
In Europe, performance venues rely on generous government support, while in the U.S. and Asia they depend on donations and sponsorship. Is the European model better?
America is tough because obviously in recession times the money available goes down enormously. In the last two years, we've gone from being an $84 million-a-year business to $70 million a year. We used to put up 200 performances a year; that's gone down to 170. In Europe, nobody has had to make cuts like that. On the other hand, the opportunities in America are much greater, because if you've got really exciting ideas, people will support them, whereas in Europe, you tend to be operating in much more of a fixed framework.
How do you keep bringing new and younger audiences to live performances?
With our programming, we set out to create compelling journeys for audiences through partnership with visual art, theater, architecture, and film. By creating a unified picture, you can tempt people to explore beyond what they already know.
A lot of money is being spent around the world right now on building grand concert halls. Should we spend more on art education instead?
You've got to have a holistic view. If you end up creating great concert halls, you've got to give them the money to present great things within. That's one of the challenges in China right now, where there are a lot of great concert halls but not the money to do things inside.
Classical music is still often presented in a ritualistic way, which can be a real turnoff.
There are lots of ways you can make it less inhibited—for example, have the soloist or conductor speak about a piece before playing it because that gives people a window into something unfamiliar. Some people get offended when people applaud after a movement because there is this ritual of silence between movements. My view is that if you've enjoyed it, why on earth not applaud? They did it in Beethoven's time, so a couple of years ago we wrote in our program, "It's OK to applaud." I don't think you should make people feel stupid if they react in a different way.
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