"Carmina Burana" and "Bolero" don't owe their immense popularity to rhythm!?
The criticism of the whole classical music enterprise from 20 years ago (Christopher Small, Susan McClary) focused not on melody/harmony/symphonic form vs. rhythm but in the narratives that were told implicitly or explicitly by post-Beethoven classical music and the deliberately aristocratic social environments of going to a concert and playing in an orchestra (the immense skill of an instrumentalist who does not have a lot of concerto music to play very rarely gets any recognition for example). These and lack of music education are problems which will hinder classical music getting any kind of large audience of people under 50. Getting a specifically Black audience could simply involve programming the kind of thing that the already existing Black performers who love this art form (some of whom have said on the record that they would like to not have to fall back on "Porgy and Bess" to make a living) would like to do. Giving a hearing to Black composers who are not Florence Price has indeed not been exhausted and the orchestra might simply need to learn more about how to reach Black consumers in order for them to come to the performances.
"Carmina Burana" and "Bolero" don't owe their immense popularity to rhythm!?
The criticism of the whole classical music enterprise from 20 years ago (Christopher Small, Susan McClary) focused not on melody/harmony/symphonic form vs. rhythm but in the narratives that were told implicitly or explicitly by post-Beethoven classical music and the deliberately aristocratic social environments of going to a concert and playing in an orchestra (the immense skill of an instrumentalist who does not have a lot of concerto music to play very rarely gets any recognition for example). These and lack of music education are problems which will hinder classical music getting any kind of large audience of people under 50. Getting a specifically Black audience could simply involve programming the kind of thing that the already existing Black performers who love this art form (some of whom have said on the record that they would like to not have to fall back on "Porgy and Bess" to make a living) would like to do. Giving a hearing to Black composers who are not Florence Price has indeed not been exhausted and the orchestra might simply need to learn more about how to reach Black consumers in order for them to come to the performances.