“The classical music world has a lot of conversations about what we do,” writes Ricky O’Bannon on Thursday (12/3) at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s online magazine, Stories. “Often what’s missing from these discussions is data. Last year we tried to offer up some [data and] numbers to make those conversations more meaningful by collecting and categorizing all of the music that 22 of the largest American symphony orchestras were playing in the 2014-2015 classical season.… This season we collected programming data for both major American symphonies as well as smaller regional orchestras—89 in total—to give a more holistic view of symphonic repertoire in the United States.” Among the findings: “Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms make up a little more than 18% of all music performed. That means that one out of over 5.5 pieces an orchestra performs will be by one of those composers.… A little over 9% of the music played this season was written in the year 2000 or later.… Music by living composers makes up about 12% of everything played this season.… When only looking at works performed by living composers, female composers account for 14% of the repertoire.” The article includes infographics, spreadsheets, a description of methodology, and a link to the 2014-15 data.
Posted December 7, 2015
