I have a confession to make. I recently invited a pair of friends who had never heard a live orchestra to a Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performance. They left at intermission _ at my suggestion.
They weren't clapping at the wrong time or dressed inappropriately. They had heard enough.
It wasn't the first time I've advised newcomers to stay for half a concert, and it won't be the last. Concerts traditionally last two or three hours, a big commitment for neophytes as well as passionate regulars. With all of today's cultural and entertainment options, the competitive opportunity cost for attending concerts continues to climb.
My solution: Classical music concerts should be shorter.
If concerts were shorter, the quality of musicianship could increase significantly. I often chastise classical groups for bloated, unnecessarily long recitals. An hour of tight, balanced, in-tune playing is vastly preferable to a two- or three-hour slog of mediocrity.
While some organizations say a program should fill an evening, offering quantity over quality is a poor strategy even if funders tend to favor inventive and diverse programming. It's impossible to please all stakeholders, but quality should be paramount.
I'd also argue that intermissions are running longer these days, and that the now typical 25 minutes blunts a concert's momentum and cohesion. Let's trim intermission back to 15 or 20 minutes again.
The opera get a pass as it's wildly difficult to significantly abbreviate an opera without ruining its dramatic impact.
"Experimenting with concert length is part of a broader strategy of drawing people in and providing a sort of on-ramp," said Lucas Held, director of communications at the Wallace Foundation, a New York foundation that has provided millions of dollars in grant money to arts organizations testing audience-building strategies.
"Length is just one aspect, maybe not the most important aspect, but finding ways to create experiences more listeners find rewarding is really crucial," he said.
I realize that the cost of ticket prices (which I recently argued are too expensive given how little revenue tickets generate) causes some groups to feel they need to hit a minimum threshold of time, but this is arbitrary. Maybe it's not about the length of the program, but what an organization does with it that matters most.
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust last year conducted research investigating audience engagement behaviors that included event length but declined to provide details or discuss the results when asked about it.
Other orchestras and chamber groups around the country have experimented with shorter programming as a way to draw in new listeners. The New World Symphony, a forward-thinking training ensemble in Miami, rolled out a series of concerts years ago that ran for 30 minutes and 60-75 minutes.
"The trick is not to think you have to fill an evening," orchestra President Howard Herring said. "The question isn't just: 'What music do I want to bring forth?,' but 'What is the uncompromised artistic experience that only we can provide?'"
This is an excellent point. Imagine paying admission to an art gallery and being forced to stare at the same painting for half an hour, whether you wanted to or not. I'm all for challenging listeners with difficult or unfamiliar music, but the curation needs to be exquisite and carefully planned for this to be effective.
Over the years, some friends I've brought to concerts left at intermission and some have stayed. Some have gone with me to other concerts and some have decided it wasn't for them. But in all the years I've been attending symphonies, chamber concerts and operas, only a few times have I heard anyone say, "I they wish that had been longer." Let's take the hint.
