Classical Music is not Scary:

I’ve been frightened of seeing classical music most of my adult life. Convinced attending a performance would be a perfect meeting of my three least favorite things (sitting still too long, wearing uncomfortable clothes and not understanding why), I stayed far away, feeling that if I didn’t feel welcome, I didn’t want in anyway.

This year I began dating a wonderful woman who is trained as a violinist. Classical music is her passion. I figured if she liked it, it couldn’t be as soaked in snobbery as I thought and hell, relationships are about sharing interests, no? So I’ve been attending symphonies, learning about composers and realizing that music played by an orchestra can be downright thrilling. Especially if it’s real loud, which I seem to favor. It’s reinforced for me that classical music is not an offering on the altar of a dead art, to be worshiped then shuffled away from, head down.

Case in point: The San Francisco Conservatory of Music invited me and a bunch of local bloggers last weekend to the opening performance of their BluePrint Festival, which focuses on new music by living composers. It’s the brainchild of Nicole Paiement, who conducted several of the pieces we saw.

While I didn’t love all the music we heard, I was captivated by the idea of a living classical tradition, of musicians and listeners in dialog with composers as part of our contemporary culture. If the last decade in music has taught us anything, it’s that the razor wire we used to hang between genres of music is now an illusion instead of a barrier. Asking "Is this pop/indie/hip-hop/electronic/classical is now a silly question. On a given album The Roots or Radiohead contain elements of all of these.

The performance we saw featured a piece by Philip  Glass (whom I love) complete with multimedia visualizations, and an interpretation of a Rimbaud poem featuring vocals by spoken word artist WiseProof. Some of it lifted me out of my seat and some left me cold. But I did have a feeling we should all have in the presence of music but rarely do–that anything could happen and if it doesn’t, we can imagine someone making it so. Next time. Or sooner.

Ms. Paiement said to be during the Q & A afterward "Art is a living thing. We’re building a place for music to be talked about, thought about but most of all experienced. So don’t worry if you don’t "get it." What do you experience? How do you feel?"

What a blessed relief.

The Blueprint Festival has two more shows this season. Tickets are way affordable and there’s about 90 places nearby to have dinner beforehand. 

Congratulations to the staff of the San Francisco Conservatory and my fabulous girlfriend for making this possible. I look forward, in a little wonder and a lot of gratitude, as the possibilities of what’s next.

• Category: music