Geoffrey Thomas

Some QuestionsI am now working both as a musician and actor. One of the results of this is the Theater of Music, which is a dramatic presentation of a composer, both the man and the music. I have many aims in the Theater of Music, but one of the most important is to work with children. As you can imagine, this is far from easy at times. It varies from pure joy to survival.The big issue, of course, is to figure out how to reach a new generation of listeners. This is something we all need to think about. Below are some of the thoughts and questions that concern me at the moment.What do we know?At some school concerts some children don’t sit still and are not quiet for a concert. This makes it very difficult for an artist to do his job. It is possible that this is the only problem we have to address. Without cooperation from the children in the audience it is extremely difficult to have a performance that is successful. If children are quiet during the performance then it is at least possible to reach some of the kids.Getting an audience to be quiet is a practical victory, but may not solve the problem of creating audiences for the future and, more importantly, of helping children to fall in love with great music.Possible background issues and questionsChildren only listen to popular music. Many parents do not tell their children stories or sing to them. Many children sing very little or not at all. Does this mean they hear differently? Can neurological research distinguish between children who sing and children who do not? What are the relationships between musical study and school achievement? Is there a general loss of perceptual sensitivity among children today? How would you establish that that is the case?What problems do the age and class of concertgoers create? In other words, if young people see only grey heads in a concert hall, will that have a strong negative impact? How does the approach to interpretation and the performance itself effect how children view a musical event? How can we create events that will successfully reach children who have little or no experience of great music? What effect is the lack of new repertoire causing? There is relatively little music composed in the last 50 years that is really part of the repertoire today and that would be appealing to young people. What problems do the types of venues create? In other words, does going into a concert hall itself create resistance. The music videos that kids watch today are highly visual. Does the lack of visuals in standard concerts make these programs less interesting for today kids? Most pop songs are only two to four minutes. Many of them are not necessarily intended for concentrated listening. Is it too much to expect listeners to pay attention to something that lasts significantly longer? Much great music is infinitely more complex than pop music. What problems does this create?There is a fantastic symphony orchestra program in Venezuela. Something like 100,000 kids are involved in performing. The best orchestras are so good that Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado, among others, have conducted them. See http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip/abreu.htmhttp://www.basstrombone.nl/default.asp?subj=bnews&id=134What effect is it having on the participants? What kind of spill over effect is it having on non-participants? Are more people listening to classical music in Venezuela? The Theater of Music is my effort to build bridges.A surprising amont of music for film and television is classical or classical-like. Thus kids have heard more really good music than they think. I was in a restaurant in Zagreb last year. Suddenly a group of men let rip in four to six-part harmony. It was sensational and quite moving. This is a living tradition on the island of Hvar in Croatia. Many places still have such living traditions. How does this connect to what we want to do?