The Classical Music Industry

13 Talking About Classical Music

Radio as Public Musicology

Chris Dromey

In the spacious, public foyer of London’s Southbank Centre (Europe’s largest arts centre), a wall-sized advert trails the concerts of the venue’s four resident orchestras with the slogan ‘a classical music season exclusively for pretty much everyone.’¹ Orthodox marketing practice might well blanche at the use of ‘exclusively’ to describe classical music. Inclusivity and accessibility are the contemporary watchwords of a musical genre long dogged by cultural stereotypes, particularly surrounding (middle) class and (old) age. But the slogan’s deliberate oxymoron is surely self-aware and provocative, aiming to stop readers in their tracks, to play on classical music’s image ...