CALIDAD DE LA ATENCIÓN DE LOS PACIENTES CON COMPLICACIONES

Only a small fraction of the population in England attend classical music concerts. Whether the number of people who are attending classical music concerts is diminishing is hotly contested (Sandow, 2013; Silpayamanant, 2013a; 2013b). As noted above, governmental research projects are well-positioned to provide an accurate view of the size and make-up of classical audiences, and Figure 1 (collated from DCMS, 2015a; 2016b) presents results from the Taking Part survey. Between 2005 and 2016, the number of adults in England who reported attending a live classical music event in the 12 months prior to the survey has remained between 7% and 8.5%, with a rather large drop in reported attendance in 2013–15. This survey points to a slight, but not alarming, decline in attendance in England over the last 10 years.

Figure 1: Percentage of English population reporting classical concert attendance in the previous 12 months (Taking Part survey 2005–16)

However, the figure of 7–8.5% is a somewhat distorted evaluation of the market for classical music. On the one hand, earlier studies have shown that a much greater percentage of the population listen to recordings of classical music but do not attend concerts, implying a much bigger potential market for classical music (Baker,

2000/2007; Brown, 2002). On the other hand, the figure above does not take into account the frequency of attendance. Most people who reported attending a concert in the previous 12 months to the 2015/16 Taking Part survey had only attended one (30.7%) or two (26.8%) concerts in the previous year, whereas 1.4% of had attended

6.0% 6.5% 7.0% 7.5% 8.0% 8.5% % re p orti n g a tte n da n ce i n p re v 12m Year of survey

concerts weekly (DCMS, 2016b). This continues to support Baker’s (2000/2007) claim that ‘the vast majority of tickets for classical concerts are bought by a very small number of people and the vast majority of people who attend classical concerts do so very infrequently’ (p.16) and suggests that the classical music audience is even more insular than the 7–8.5% figure implies. In addition, this audience is concentrated in the capital, with 11.9% of the London population reporting having attended classical music concerts in 2015/16, compared to just 6.3% of the population in the West Midlands, in which the CBSO are located (DCMS, 2016a).

The same surveys also reveal an homogenous audience for classical music, formed of white people who are middle-aged and older. In the 2015/16 Taking Part survey, white people (7.9%) were significantly more likely to attend classical music, and to attend more regularly, than ethnic minorities (5.3%; following statistics are all DCMS, 2016b). The same survey showed that the highest rate of attendance was among those aged 65–74 (12.8%) and 75+ (12.8%), with only 3.6% of 16–24 year olds and 4.6% of 25–44 year olds having attended a concert in the previous year. This is especially relevant to understanding audiences in Birmingham, which has a particularly young and ethnically diverse population (Birmingham City Council, 2013), thereby suggesting that concert audiences are not representative of the population of the city.

In the US, the 1997 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey of public participation in the arts (equivalent of the UK Taking Part survey) found that the audience for classical music in America was, on average, older than the national population and ageing (Kolb 2001b, pp.12–13). A series of analyses have been conducted on American attendance data to ascertain whether audiences simply become attenders with age, or whether this is a sign of a generational shift in

consumption. Kolb (2001b), Stern (2011) and researchers at the League of American Orchestras (2009) analysed NEA data, all three of whom found that each generation since those born during the second world war was attending less than the previous generation. Their findings suggest that young non-attenders will not automatically become attenders with age and therefore the ageing audience for classical music may not replenish itself. While these studies were based on audiences in America. Although arts organisations in America face different challenges than in the UK, mostly due to having a radically different funding model, the fact that audiences in both countries have a similar demographic and are getting older means that the results are a concern to UK organisations as well.

In addition, classical music attendance is strongly linked to education. In their analysis of the 2005/06 Taking Part survey, Chan et al. (2008) noted ‘many persisting socio-demographic inequalities’ in levels of engagement with classical music (p.9). This seems to have changed very little in the decade since; the 2015/16 Taking Part survey showed that 15.4% of university graduates had attended a concert in the previous 12 months. The proportion of the population attending concerts correlates exactly to their level of education; 8.8% of people with a higher education qualification attended in the previous year, compared to just 3.3% of those with A Levels and 2.7% of the population who only have GCSEs (all DCMS, 2016b). Furthermore, attendance is determined by social status. Analysing the 2015/16 survey by National Statistic Socio-Economic Classification (see ONS, 2012; Rose & Pevalin, 2001), of those in the ‘upper socio-economic group’, 10.9%

respondents had attended a concert in the previous 12 months, compared to only 2.6% of the ‘lower socio-economic group’ (DCMS, 2016b). Classical music audiences therefore represent a highly affluent and well-educated proportion of the British public.

The reasons for this correlation between privilege, education and classical music attendance have been explored by sociologists and music education researchers. The most notable sociological study is Bourdieu’s (1984) theory of cultural capital; he claimed that, like economic inheritance, cultural competence was passed down through higher-status families by exposing children to high art from a young age. He believed that the knowledge and familiarity needed to appreciate classical music was therefore taught to children by family and teachers (for a summary of research since Bourdieu on this topic, see Kawashima, 2006, pp.64–65). Research in music

education has also found a strong link between music participation and concert attendance, although Pitts’ (2009) qualitative study on the lifetime effects of music education found that musical participation can act either as a prompt or an inhibitor to concert attendance.

Furthermore, Pitts’ (2009) study has highlighted the diversity of routes into

concert-going in different life stages, whereas previous research has overwhelmingly centred on childhood. The ways in which people become interested in classical music later in life are far less well understood, a key criticism of Bourdieu’s (1984) theory (for example, Upright, 2004). I suggest that these gaps in knowledge are in part caused by routes falling under two very different types of research; childhood routes in education research, and adult routes in marketing and audience

discussion of this forms Chapter 2.2. Being friends with people who regularly attend arts events has been shown quantitatively to positively influence attendance, but once again there is a lack of qualitative research into how this occurs (Kane, 2004; Upright, 2004; Van Berkel & De Graaf, 1995). Furthermore, research into how arts consumption changes over a lifetime has found that arts attendance declines sharply amongst people with young families, but then increases greatly at retirement

(Andreasen & Belk, 1980; Belk & Andreasen, 1982; NEA, 2015), which suggests that there may be additional routes corresponding to different stages of life that are yet to be explored. There is still much work to be done to understand the mechanisms by which people attend their first concert and, in time, become regular attenders, which I consider in Chapter 5. This is important both to inform audience

development plans and to understand the circumstances which produce an attender or a non-attender.

Large arts organisations in England who are funded as National Portfolio

Organisations by the ACE are having to work to diversify their audiences as part of their funding requirements, but their audiences are just as acutely aware of the homogeneity and threat of extinction of classical music audiences. Qualitative academic research has sought to understand participants’ views on this situation. O’Sullivan’s (2009) study with CBSO audiences found a ‘sense of “lack”’ in their perceptions of the audience, both in terms of the lack of audience members in the hall and lack of young or more diverse people to replace the ageing audience (p.219). Similarly, CBSO audiences in Pitts et al.’s (2013) study felt that it was a ‘worry’ (p.72) and ‘disturbing to those in that community’ (p.73) to see the audience getting older. O’Sullivan (2009) however noted an ambivalence in the audience member’s views; on the one hand, they acknowledged the need to change to find new

audiences, however there was also reluctance to abandon the past and change too drastically from the traditional concert format (p.220). This seems to support Kawashima’s (2006) warning that attempts to broaden an audience may alienate current attenders (pp.65–66). This could be another obstacle in attempts to diversify the audience. Arts organisations, funding bodies and audiences alike are aware of the homogenous and increasingly old audience for classical music; all, it seems, want to see younger and more diverse audiences in concert halls. As I showed in the introduction, however, not all agree about how to bring this about. Audience development strategies are employed to attempt to broaden the audience, however, as I show in the next section, there is no consensus on how to go about finding new audiences, and the ideologies behind audience development are deeply

problematic. This study aims to build empirical evidence of how audience development works in practice, for both core and populist audiences.