On April 3, Jennifer McGuire, executive director of radio for CBC English Services, posted a notice on the Internet which read, in part: "You may have heard about the exciting changes coming to Radio 2 next September... We'll still be high quality... pushing boundaries with shows unlike any others... but we'll be drawing from a broader, richer and diverse spectrum of music: classical, jazz, folk, world, R & B, singer-songwriter and roots... Current listeners can take comfort in the fact that classical will remain the most represented music genre on Radio 2. New listeners will be blown away by the shows we're adding to the schedule..."
New listeners may or may not be blown away, but long-standing CBC listeners and advocates are feeling increasingly blown off. And many are now reaching for the "off" button.
What the rosy public relations pitch conceals is the fact that weekday classical music programming will be reduced by more than 50 per cent and largely slotted for the middle of the day. Those in school or at work can go whistle. Moreover, the emphasis during those hours will apparently be on well-known and popular classics, potentially the classical equivalent of Muzak -- or pablum. Brace yourselves for the prospect of lots of excerpts from Mozart's Greatest Hits and Beethoven's Top Ten.
There has been a loud and angry reaction to these proposals from many in the normally loyal CBC audience. This in itself is remarkable because there is frequently some reticence among those who would make the case for classical music -- a reticence, no doubt, grounded in a reluctance to defend what might be caricatured as "high brow" or elitist. Moreover, notwithstanding the aging of the population, we live in an age which exalts and appeals to popular mass culture in all the major art forms, and is particularly oriented to youthful audiences. What is troubling is a general failure to recognize that popular culture is already well served on radio, television and the Internet and, equally, that classical music, an art form that ranks among the greatest achievements of human civilization, is not widely served by most media.
In its evolution over the last millennium, what we think of as classical music has always been enriched by the popular and the folk music of its time; but to appreciate that and to see the process continue, classical music must be able to coexist with other musical forms. It is a living tradition which encompasses not just the likes of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven and their predecessors, but Shostakovich, Philip Glass and John Adams.
And, lest it be thought that this music -- both early and recent -- is simply the preserve of aging populations of peoples of European origin, it bears noting that some of the greatest performing artists of classical music are young: Witness the internationally acclaimed Canadian violinist James Ehnes, the remarkable soprano Meesha Bruggergosman and the WSO's dynamic conductor, Andrew Mickelthwate. Venezuela's Gustavo Dudamel, conductor of Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony will, next year, become conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, one of the great American orchestras. Dudamel is 27.
Moreover, increasing numbers of the most brilliant young performers of Western classical music come from places like Japan, China and Korea, even as classical music in the Eastern tradition is increasingly appreciated in the West.
Unfortunately, more is at stake here than just the future of classical music: The role and future of Canadian public broadcasting are also at issue. Since the creation of what is now the CBC by R.B. Bennett's Conservative government in the 1930s, public broadcasting has been an element of our national psyche. Despite periodic bouts of controversy, public broadcasting -- and radio especially -- has served several important functions, not the least nation building. It has done this by bringing to the airwaves a particular mix, reflecting the whole country, of news, comment, documentaries, the arts -- including music and particularly classical -- which were often deemed unprofitable by commercial broadcasters. Overwhelmingly, those who have supported public broadcasting have done so because it offered programming that commercial radio did not and probably could not.
CBC's new programming will make it much more like current offerings on many private commercial stations, particularly in larger urban areas. CBC will remain commercial free, of course -- if one ignores CBC's constant promotion of its own new and "exciting" programs. In significant measure, CBC radio's raison d'etre, that it offered something valuable and unique, will be lost, and with it, one suspects, many of those who enjoyed it because it dared to be unique.
The 2007 programming changes in Radio 2 were extensive; those slated for 2008 will make Radio 2 unrecognizable. As the CBC remakes itself into something that looks more and more like the variety programming of private radio, it provides less and less reason for its current listeners to stay. The argument for even having a public broadcaster will become increasingly difficult to make. Since Radio 2 listeners are also taxpayers, why would they continue supporting that which they can readily get elsewhere? Indeed, why should they?
wnwfp@mts.net
PREVIOUS
