Q. Why change anything?

A. Despite increasing evidence of global climate change, there are still deniers. Similarly, some major foundations have supported arts industry research to study the cultural climate changes for some 25 years, and there are still many deniers among musicians, board members and arts administrators. For believers, it is very clear that it is high time we mount strategic actions that might reverse the overwhelming local apathy to the classical arts.

At CutTime Productions we recognize that music events need be re-designed and led by the musicians themselves, the chief craftsmen of artistic innovations. Dedication to our craft just won’t go far enough anymore, if we musicians can’t sell our own tickets to the 78% of Americans who are happily asleep to classical. We make it worse when we can’t articulate any beneficial values to instrumental music that are most relevant and compelling to family and friends. We musicians are sometimes asleep too.

It’s time to wake up; and then try waking our families and neighbors, and then perfect strangers too. It’s time we go beyond words such as great, amazing and incredible to tell a personal epiphany about classical music, even if it’s not quite factual. Making this music more common does not make it less special. For it to speak to more people, we must embrace the rest of the world and make the game of music most plain. Can we drop academic habits for a few minutes and just talk to audiences like our family and friends? Doing so, we can easily make music events more comfortable, genuine, compelling and maybe, so hell yeah that new fans begin to open up to classical and follow us into traditional concerts. Connections are made first by intimacy and personality.