if u get to the end of this article and read every single word ill give u a prize
Introduction: an industry in the dark ages
“Classical music is dying,” people have been lamenting (for almost an entire century now, by the way).
“It’s the programming!”
“It’s the lack of diversity!”
“It’s the pretentiousness of performance etiquette!”
While these may all be fair and true statements, they are also lazy and obvious and they fail to get to the heart of the issue. If classical music does die it’s because we’ve been deliberately killing it, and we’re driven to do this not unlike the way people are driven to commit actual murder: through a belief in a pious ideology, which sounds noble on some surface level, but is in fact just insane, fictitious and deeply misguided.
That ideology is this: artists will sell out if they distribute their art through a functioning business model.
Why do we need to sell our art?
Unless you happen to be a hermit living off-grid who doesn’t trade currency for goods and services, both you and I participate in free-market capitalism. However, the world needs art (that is something I am simply not willing to debate right now), so here arises an inherent issue.
Art and capitalism have opposing values.
If you’re doing it right, art is a process-based endeavour. It is about exploration, and in particular the exploration of unanswerable questions. It is about the moment, the present tense. The journey is the point. Its ideals are immaterial, and its value is not quantifiable or measurable.
Capitalism, on the other hand, is of course focussed on products, materialism, results and ever-increasing profits.
Unfortunately (if you see it that way), in order for art to exist in modern society, we as artists need to be able to survive within the capitalist system. And contrary to popular opinion, I believe it is possible for us to use that system to enable us to create without having to compromise our artistic ideals.
In fact, through the following analysis I will argue that the not-for-profit model is currently doing more damage to our artistic ideals than would the private sector.
How do classical music institutions currently operate?
Although on the surface some classical music institutions appear to operate effectively as businesses, in fact the vast majority of them are not businesses and they do not operate as such.(1) Some, like the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) for instance, are extremely resource-rich, and may even turn a profit. The ACO, for instance, (like every other orchestra in Australia) is classed as a “not-for-profit” organisation, which means, among other things, that they do not pay tax and they can receive government funding.
However, the ACO is a bit like the British Royal Family; it all began with taxpayer money, and then it quietly built an empire through obsessively controlling its public image, monopolising government support and private sponsorship, reinvesting its surpluses back into the institution, and purchasing private assets.(2) And like the Royal Family, it continues to acquire more and more wealth, tax-free.
It is perhaps controversial to assert that while the ACO is no doubt a very tight band, its success is in equal parts due to Richard Tognetti’s ruthlessness and his ability to exploit the not-for-profit model, which, fortunately for him, had its golden age in the 1990s thanks to the Whitlam and Keating governments.(3)
In 2022, the economic climate has changed. It is simply no longer possible to achieve what the ACO achieved in the not-for-profit sector. Relying on the not-for-profit sector without a true business strategy not only puts classical institutions in a perpetual state of financial precariousness, but it also means that the artistic values of these ensembles are ultimately at the whims of the hands that feed them.
In this way, the current financial environment is not one conducive to the creation of quality art. If classical music is to die, its cause of death will be that it continues to not consider itself a business, relying on the not-for-profit model for life support. Artists need to start thinking differently, and I’m not talking about edgy programming or diversity quotas.
The not-for-profit model fails us artistically
The failing not-for-profit model is not uniquely an Australian problem. It is a recurring and well-documented phenomenon in other Western countries which feature similar systems. John Kreidler, a Senior Program Executive who administers hundreds of grants with a collective value of USD $2 million every year for the San Francisco Foundation, authored a paper on the non-profit arts model in the United States. In his analysis, he writes:
“The issue today is whether and how the model of the nonprofit arts organization, which has flourished for only a brief moment in the history of the arts, will continue to be a viable, versatile and publicly useful instrument for artistic production.”(4)
It is troubling that there is also very little difference between arts organisations and charities in terms of the issues intrinsically created by their modern structures. Art and social justice have always been inextricably linked, and today they are existentially and ideologically threatened in the same way by the same systems.
In its fiery critique of the non-profit sector in the United States, the book “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex” exposes the ways in which funding bodies ironically inhibit the social justice movements they fund. It states that the industry promotes a culture that is “non-collaborative”, “narrowly focused” and “inflexible”, and that these structures potentially pose an even greater risk to activism:
“Even in this earliest stage of foundation development, critics noted the potential danger of large private foundations. In 1916, the US Commission on Industrial Relations … filed a report on labour issues with Congress warning that foundations were a “grave menace” because they concentrated wealth and power in the service of ideology which supported the interests of their capitalist benefactors.”(5)
The parallels in the classical music industry are obvious. For one, the scarcity of arts grants fosters a toxic working environment. Forced to compete over a shared pool of limited funding resources, the nature of the not-for-profit model means that artists and organisations are pitted against each other. While there is no formal literature addressing this side-effect of the industry model, it is clear that territorialism exists everywhere from the orchestral workplace to freelance culture, and we need not venture far into the classical world before countless anecdotal examples are encountered.
Additionally, because almost all classical institutions are not-for-profit, there is no necessity for them to consider things like implementing standard business practises, or employing experienced business strategists. Rather, they are used to mainly considering what is important to governments, funding entities and wealthy sponsors. This means their vision and branding must be twisted to fit the criteria of an arts grant or be palatable to a potential benefactor.
“To survive in the Arts today means to conform, to play nice and stay quiet, to be part of a funding arrangement that serves the interests of private entities and less and less the interests of the public at large.”(6)
A prime example of the dangers of this systematically imposed agenda came in 2020, when artist Casey Jenkins received a $25,000 grant from the Australia Council. Initially her artwork was to be called “Procreate”, but the challenges of the pandemic prevented her from following through with this plan. During this general period, she had also been trying to fall pregnant through artificial insemination, and so she came up with another plan for which she would use the funding: Jenkins’ COVID-safe artwork would be entitled “Immaculate”, and it would feature a live-stream video of her process of self-insemination.
Although there were no legal issues with the work, it soon sparked outrage from media outlets including Sky News and the Daily Telegraph, which criticised the work’s ethics and claimed it was offensive to Catholics.(7) Jenkins’ proposal had already cleared the Australia Council’s process of approval, but following this negative press, the Australia Council initiated an ideological dispute with Jenkins, and eventually decided to withdraw the grant. Reporting on the incident, an article in The Guardian stated:
“If the Australia Council starts rescinding funding projects that become flashpoints of controversy, the future of cultural policy in Australia is in bad shape — and with much of the industry in effective shutdown, and artists desperate for grants, the potential for a further chilling effect is obvious.”(8)
While it may be easily argued that arts boards (which are made up of mostly white, ageing Boomers)(9) are behind things like conservative programming and the upholding of archaic traditions, the fact is that art is also susceptible to other kinds of dogma within the not-for-profit model.
Diversity tokenism, for instance, is driven by the same forces. In his powerful monologue about racism on the ABC’s Q+A, actor Meyne Wyatt stated:
“I’m never just an actor. I’m an Indigenous actor. I love reppin’, but I don’t hear old Joe Bloggs being called quite white Anglo-Saxon actor[…] I hate being a token. Some box to tick, part of some diversity angle.”(10)
Orchestras are serial offenders of diversity box-ticking. When was the last time an orchestra actually put some effort into researching new composers who aren’t the flavour of the month, or First Nations performers no one has heard of yet? If they were really serious about diversity and new music, how about creating a composition prize to find new talent? No, the Deborah Cheetham bandwagon is easier: female AND Aboriginal — that’s two for one, great — we’ll just stick it on the end of the first half of the program before interval. It’s not challenging so it won’t require too much rehearsal, and it’s also easy-listening, which has been proven to appease the punters. All in all a safe bet.
Now please don’t get me wrong here. These are delicate matters. Personally, I’m all for diversity. But this is not diversity. It is shallow, passionless, lazy programming — an afterthought — and in my opinion that is itself a form of violence.
“Things are getting better in some ways, but to a degree it still feels like lip service,” says Neil Morris, Yorta Yorta activist and musician. “For non First Nations peoples to understand the depth of our sacred purpose of music is to ask them to first step into the sacredness of our ways.”
“… How can we have an industry occupying Indigenous lands seized through the criminal construct which is terra nullius, which presents itself as a leader in innovations and at the vanguard of societal transformation? … On the administrative side of the industry, how much is in First Nation peoples’ control?”(11)
Morris goes on to describe the need for a ‘paradigm shift’ in the industry through ‘great acts of courage’. These are not isolated events. They are industry trends, and it is foolish to be so sure that we are producing meaningful art when artistic control is in the hands of this heavily flawed system, rather than in the hands of the artists.
The not-for-profit model fails us financially
“The performing arts industry can be broadly characterised as monopolies teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.”(12)
As artists are made increasingly vulnerable to the influence of agenda and bias through the not-for-profit system, it also continues to fail us financially. As well as further diluting the vision of classical institutions, the sheer time and energy spent on the bureaucratic activity of attaining and maintaining funding drains financial resources from the artists themselves.(13)
The Morrison Government’s 2019 proposal to merge the arts into a new super department(14) raised concerns that the arts would not be prioritised, that it would make bureaucratic delays more likely, and ultimately that it would result in less accessible funding. In addition, Live Performance Australia’s recent pre-budget submission to government reveals that in recent years, the Australia Council has been less effective in its advocacy to government on behalf of the artists it is mandated to support.(15)
So, not only do we have less money — our voices are not being heard.
The model also compounds the problems which naturally arise from monopolisation. Large, established arts organisations receive the lion’s share of already limited government and private funding, and the same organisations are also favoured and prioritised by concert venues. A particularly scandalous instance of this was in 2018, when it was revealed that NSW State Government funding, which was supposed to be administered between 17 different projects involving hundreds of artists, was ‘diverted to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’.(16) Associate Professor Joe Caust, who researches arts funding at the University of Melbourne, notes the increasing pressures on smaller arts organisations as a result of monopolisation and reduced government funding:
“Out of 412 applications from small to medium organisations across all art forms for four-year, general grant funding, 250 have been informed they were not successful. Of the 162 remaining, only around 100 will eventually be successful… Making arts organisations with totally different mandates compete against each other, for a diminishing amount of funding, makes no sense.”(17)
This funding arrangement promotes anti-competitive institutional behaviours, lack of accountability and even malpractice. Moreover, weak government policy on arts employers’ legal obligations to an increasingly casualised workforce creates more potential for the exploitation of freelance workers. With much of the available funding used to cover administration costs, freelance and casual workers are left with few rights and no bargaining power, and so the rift between arts employers and artists continues to grow.
It was curious, for instance, that the musicians of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra were still taking a significant pay cut in 2021, despite the orchestra reporting its biggest profits that year.(18) It was curiouser and curiouser still when its Managing Director Sophie Galaise commented to The Age that the organisation was “not in super-good health”.(19) More recently, according to an anonymous source, MSO musicians’ requests for a 3% pay rise to adjust for inflation have allegedly been continually rejected on the grounds that the organisation does not have the funds. Meanwhile, rumours swirl that certain members high up in the orchestra’s administration continue to take home significant bonuses.
How is it that artists contribute $15 billion in revenue to the Australian economy per annum,(20) and yet they occupy the lowest income brackets?(21) How is it that the individual wealth of Australian adults is the second highest in the world,(22) and yet there is never enough available funding for the arts?
With a rapidly changing economic climate, soaring inflation, the rising cost of living and a looming housing crisis, an already financially insecure workforce can no longer afford to rely on such a poor system — especially one which is chiefly upheld by administrators who have no real skin in the game.
‘Selling out’: the irrational, crippling fear
Classical musicians like to pretend that the profession is pure — somehow free from the superficial ugliness of the economic world. We believe that merely participating in that world taints the sanctity of the art form itself, and we judge and shame any artist who successfully monetises their craft. Operating a legitimate business with a sustainable growth trajectory and a surplus of revenue is suspicious, and anyone who manages to achieve that can’t possibly be a serious artist.
A colleague once said to me, “Classical music is not an industry, it is a profession,” and therein lies the smug, deluded attitude that detains an industry with so much potential in the dark ages, leaving it perpetually stunted. Meanwhile, its sibling industries move forward at a faster rate because they are less fearful of innovation, and they have less of an attitude problem when it comes to business. In today’s world, all fields are industries, and that includes classical music.
But is it even possible to run a profitable business in classical music without ‘selling out’?
Many argue that orchestras in particular must exist within the not-for-profit sector because they suffer from the “Baumol cost disease”,(23) and that they would never survive in the private sector without severely compromising their artistic integrity.
In fact, classical institutions in the not-for-profit sector themselves admit that they are already changing their artistic values in order to generate income. Full-time symphony orchestras in Australia now rely on things like live performances of film scores and collaborations with big-name artists to sell tickets, and they acknowledge that the decision to present these performances is purely motivated by box office revenue.(24) ABC Classic FM presenter, Phillip Sametz, put it this way: “… the subsidies that used to exist that made it possible to perform are shrinking, and commercial prerogatives have to be taken into consideration.”(25)
While is nothing inherently wrong with performing film music, the use of this as a ‘strategy’ to increase ticket sales reveals the distinct lack of imagination residing within these organisations. By leaning on the not-for-profit model, classical institutions (and orchestras in particular) are not driven to innovate. This is especially apparent when it comes to technology, for instance. With a world of possibility at their fingertips through technology, it is quite astounding that classical institutions remain mystified by the problem of how to attract and retain audiences. Those in sectors which face similar funding issues, such as healthcare, seem to better understand the power of technology in solving the problem of cost disease. Vijay Pande, Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University and investor, says that in healthcare “… the cure involves bringing more artificial intelligence (AI) to the industry. AI creates a new opportunity: to transform services into goods.”(26)
Even entrepreneurs in tech with little or no experience in the music industry use quality art as part of their strategy better than ensembles and orchestras do. Fever, a startup that created the infamous Candlelight Concerts, uses proprietary algorithms to gather data about its audiences. Fever’s CEO, Ignacio Bachiller, said that at the time of the startup there was no other company which was using “firsthand discovery behavioural data to inform what new experiences to create by predicting demand.”
“Basically,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch, “there is no Netflix for experiences.”(27)
Classical musicians are harsh critics of the Candlelight sensation — and somewhat rightly so — it is another big business over which artists themselves have no control and from which they receive a pittance for the use of their skills. However, the monumental success of this sort of innovation puts an uncomfortable spotlight on the woeful inefficacy of not-for-profit classical institutions. Fever tapped into a market which they could have claimed. But the safety net of the not-for-profit model made them too satisfied with the status quo, and so someone else got there first.
The bottom line: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
Aren’t we tired of asking, “Please sir, can we have some more?”? And even if we get the funding, does it really enable us to carry out everything we could possibly envision anyway?
I believe these questions are worth deep consideration.
The reality is that we can no longer rely on the not-for-profit model for our bread and butter. As society charges forward with the seemingly unstoppable system of neoliberalism, artists will only be able to reclaim full creative control of their pursuits if they are brave enough to fully take the plunge into the private sector.
This may all sound fanciful, but it’s already happening. In 2021, during the pandemic, I read about a 27-year old pianist called Kyohei Sorita who did something that no classical artist had ever achieved before. He founded the Japan National Orchestra Co. — the first stock company orchestra, as far as I was aware, in the world.(28) Intrigued, I tried to reach him for comment, but did not receive a response. While it remains to be seen how this business enterprise will transpire in the years to come, it is an encouraging indication of the mindset of a new generation of progressive, ambitious — and quite frankly radical — musicians.
Here’s my epilogue where I make a disclaimer and insult you a little bit lol
Haha you fell for it, you poor fool.
So I’ve written a lot of words and now this is just going to be me admitting to you that I basically have nothing to show for it. If you made it this far, well… I don’t know what to tell you. You got yourself into this. Nobody wins a prize, I don’t have a solution, what do you want from me, etc.
BUT, to me one thing is clear: the first and most important priority, as always, is the music. There is a market for everything. All I’m saying is that with a quality product, a strong vision, and a cleverly designed, truly innovative business model, there is a world of limitless opportunity, including the opportunity for artistic control to be rightfully placed back into the hands of the artists themselves.
my next article is just gonna be a string of endless memes and u just have to figure out what im tryna say about the arts x
Sources because I care about u (feels like writing a school assignment and i still cant believe i did full harvard referencing voluntarily, im not getting paid for this u know)
Australian Major Performing Arts Group (NSW), A Definition of Charity, Consultation Paper (2011) 7
Australian Chamber Orchestra Pty Limited and its controlled entities 2021, Annual Report. Sydney, Australian Chamber Orchestra, viewed 21 August 2022 <https://www.aco.com.au/-/media/aco-annual-director-and-financial-report-2021.pdf?rev=e4f34925d7f04f418951d2538ef83b16&hash=E93BEC17B438B6E0201166F71898F0F1>
Daley J, 2004, Performing arts advocacy in Australia. Australian Major Performing Arts Group, p. 22, viewed 21 August 2022 <https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-04/apo-nid312235.pdf>
Kreidler J, 1996, ‘Leverage Lost: The Nonprofit Arts in the Post-Ford Era’, Grantmakers in the Arts, February, viewed 21 August 2022 <https://www.giarts.org/article/leverage-lost>
INCITE! (ed.) 2007, The Revolution Will Not be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Duke University Press, Durham, p.5
Glance, V 2021, ‘The Art of Greenwashing: (De)funding creativity and silencing dissent’, The Green Agenda, 22 August, viewed 22 August 2022 <https://greenagenda.org.au/2021/08/the-art-of-greenwashing/>
Lampard, R 2020, ‘‘Artist Who Planned on Live-streaming Self-Insemination Loses Taxpayer Funding, Says the Decision is ‘Weird and Doesn’t Make Any Sense’’, Caldron Pool, 12 October, viewed 21 August 2022 <https://caldronpool.com/artist-who-planned-on-livestreaming-self-insemination-loses-taxpayer-funding-says-the-decision-is-weird-and-doesnt-make-any-sense/>
Eltham, B 2020, ‘Casey Jenkins v Australia Council: When controversial art loses funding, what does it mean for culture?’, The Guardian: Australia Edition, 17 October, viewed 18 August 2022 <https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/oct/17/casey-jenkins-v-australia-council-when-controversial-art-loses-funding-what-does-it-mean-for-culture>
Institute of Community Directors Australia (2020), ICDA Spotlight Report: Arts and Culture Governance, Australia Council for the Arts, accessed 20 November 2022.
Wyatt, M 2020, ‘Actor Meyne Wyatt supports Black Lives Matter with powerful monologue on racism on Q&A’, transcript, ABC NEWS, 8 June, viewed 19 November 2022 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-09/meyne-wyatt-delivers-powerful-monologue-on-racism/12333854>
Morris, N 2019, ‘First Nations inclusion in the music business should be more than tokenism’, The Guardian, 5 September, viewed 26 September 2022 <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/05/first-nations-inclusion-in-the-music-business-should-be-more-than-tokenism>
Kuan, J. (2001) “The Phantom Profits of the Opera: Nonprofit Ownership in the Arts as a Make-Buy Decision”. The Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 17(2): 507-520.
Clements, A 2012, ‘It Is Broke, We Should Probably Fix It: The Nonprofit Model and the Arts’, Hyperallergic, 4 September, viewed 18 August 2022 <https://hyperallergic.com/56248/it-is-broke-we-should-probably-fix-it-the-nonprofit-model-and-the-arts/>
Worthington, B 2019, ‘Scott Morrison to sack top bureaucrats and dismantle departments in wide-ranging public sector overhaul’, ABC NEWS, 5 December, viewed 18 August 2022 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/pm-sacks-bureaucrats-in-overhaul-of-public-sector/11768766>
Live Performance Australia (2021), 2021-22 Pre-Budget Submission, Live Performance Australia, accessed 22 August 2022.
Boland, M and Timms, P 2018, ‘Arts Minister admits funds redirected to Sydney Symphony Orchestra’, ABC NEWS, 25 September, viewed 24 August 2022 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-26/arts-groups-miss-out-as-minister-funds-special-project/10298452>
Caust, J 2019, ‘Cut throat competition, ‘corporate-speak’ and dark ironies: two new five-year arts plans’, The Conversation, 6 September, viewed 22 August 2022 <https://theconversation.com/cut-throat-competition-corporate-speak-and-dark-ironies-two-new-five-year-arts-plans-122943>
Miller, N 2021, ‘Orchestra posts big profit after musicians took pandemic pay cuts’, The Age, 19 May, viewed 24 August 2022 <https://www.theage.com.au/culture/music/orchestra-posts-big-profit-after-musicians-took-pandemic-pay-cuts-20210518-p57svj.html>
Miller, N 2022, ‘Orchestra ‘not in super health’ despite shower of government rescue cash’, The Age, 3 May, viewed 24 August 2022 <https://www.theage.com.au/culture/music/orchestra-not-in-super-health-despite-shower-of-government-rescue-cash-20220503-p5ai04.html>
Browne, B 2020, Art vs Dismal Science: The economics of Australia’s arts sector, The Australia Institute, Canberra, viewed 20 August 2022 <https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/P901-Art-vs-Dismal-Science-WEB.pdf>
Throsby, D and Petetskaya K 2017, Making Art Work: An economic study of professional artists in Australia, Australia Council for the Arts, NSW, viewed 20 August 2022 <https://australiacouncil.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/making-art-work-throsby-report-5a05106d0bb69.pdf>
Shorrocks, Davies and Lluberas 2021, Global wealth report 2021, Credit Suisse Research Institute, viewed 20 August 2022 <https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-report-2021-en.pdf>
Zhai, P 2020, How does the performing arts deal with cost disease? A case study of QTC’s art policy, case study, viewed 22 August 2022 <https://webofproceedings.org/proceedings_series/ESSP/ICEESR%202020/KWP302.pdf>
Francis, H 2016, ‘Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and more come to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August, viewed 22 August 2022 <https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/harry-potter-jurassic-park-and-more-come-to-the-melbourne-symphony-orchestra-20160812-gqrf7w.html>
McClintock, A 2017, ‘Why no symphony orchestra in the world makes money’, ABC NEWS, 4 April, viewed 21 August 2022 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-04/why-no-symphony-orchestra-in-the-world-makes-money/8413746>
Pande, V 2020, ‘Solving Baumol’s Cost Disease, in Healthcare’, Andreessen Horowitz, 14 December, viewed 21 August 2022 <https://a16z.com/2020/12/14/solving-baumols-cost-disease-healthcare/>
Shu, C 2019, ‘Data-driven events discovery and planning startup Fever raises $35 million led by Rakuten’, TechCrunch, 5 August, viewed 23 September 2022 <https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/04/data-driven-events-discovery-and-planning-startup-fever-raises-35-million-led-by-rakuten/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS5hdS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAN4XKp922zxrQ0B5seSn1k7oYSf2gKtda2bFbL7Gc1qX2mzJasAL6lPnWRDkfdrtAM3gcxLqZ75hncWamJ9N6lEweFsmKF_LS9Kawsy3axRCHp-FfU2nUHIrWxmtwDhkFHjXyuXCLFVl7kdGaWrPB93TVvBlyVInonG-hORr4r-w>
Nishihara, M 2021, ‘Japan pianist Kyohei Sorita aims to make orchestras profitable’, NikkeiAsia, 25 December, viewed 6 August 2022 <https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/Japan-pianist-Kyohei-Sorita-aims-to-make-orchestras-profitable>
This is incredible, so curious to know who u are. Very refreshing read. I also think classical music marketing is an embarrassment. Orgs would feel more comfortable in taking risks with younger, savvier marketers if they weren't so gripped by fear.