Page 46 - APAP - Inside Arts - Conference 2020

Rubén Rengel
JASON BELZ
Vice President and Director of Booking and Artist Manager
Kirshbaum Associates Inc.
There are a number of pressing issues facing the classical music industry today, but I think diversity is certainly one of the more important at this moment. While there are
a number of organizations working to tackle this issue — Sphinx and League of American Orchestras, for instance — more needs to
be done to expand the pipeline of young musicians of color so that our stages better represent our communities at large. Only when this happens do we have a chance
to see audiences follow suit and broaden from the primarily older, whiter and more affluent we see now.
I think one of the things that makes people intimidated by classical music is that they assume that they need a knowledge of it to appreciate it. That is quite different from other art forms, and so I think the labels need to come off. People need to just be able to experience a concert of music and see how they feel about it. Don't worry about making a program "accessible" but consider what will make an artistically beautiful program of the highest caliber and allow the listeners to take what they will away from the music.
I also believe the younger generation needs to be heard, and we need to listen. There are a number of extremely intelligent, highly engaging young artists in their
20s and 30s who are not only the future
of classical music, but are the perfect ambassadors to even younger people in inspiring a love of music.
FAVORITE COMPOSER: Too many to
list but if I must choose one it would be Mozart. Not only was Mozart innovative, prolific beyond comprehension and a melodic genius, but I think mostly his music is just so very human. The sheer beauty of his compositions, the dramatic timing in
his operas, these things all appeal to us as humans and speak to our inner spirit and the beauty of life.
44 INSIDE ARTS CONFERENCE 2020