“A new national survey commissioned by the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) has found that the Australian public values symphony orchestras as an important part of our culture, with most respondents saying that they would support maintaining or increasing government funding,” writes Jo Litson in last Wednesday’s (8/14) Limelight (Australia). “However, the survey also found that the major performing arts categories, including classical music, opera, theatre and ballet, are failing to attract most of the public to their events. The online survey, conducted in July, reached 800 people. The results were released last weekend at a conference organized by the Sydney Orchestra Musicians Association. In a healthy endorsement of Australia’s orchestras, 83 percent of those surveyed said that they believed that government funding should either stay at its current level … or be significantly increased…. Forty-eight percent identified classical music as an important part of Australian culture, and 50 percent felt it was important that school children learn classical music…. While 48 percent of respondents reported listening regularly to classical music, many of them did not actually attend live classical concerts on any regular basis.… The … research supported the view that orchestras, along with opera and ballet companies, were public and cultural assets.”
Posted August 23, 2019
