Curtis Long

In the orchestra world we far too often assume that we know what audiences want.
I think that there are two big fallacies in this thinking:

* that there is some kind of monolithic audience with a describable “desired concert experience”, and
* that we, in a brilliantly insightful way, understand what this “desired concert experience” is.

In my observation, what we think this is typically turns out to be is an odd combination of

* exactly what we want to hear (or play or conduct as the case may be), and
* a steady parade of what we cynically consign to the “tired old warhorses” junk pile.