Fogel: Why Orchestras Need To Change

Orchestras need to change their image, says Henry Fogel, head of the American Symphony Orchestra League: “It’s for the fur coat crowd. It’s stuffy. It’s too formal. I don’t know enough about music. It’s intellectual, not emotional. I might applaud at the wrong time. I’m, sorry to say that – particularly in the first half to two-thirds of the 20th century – orchestras kind of cultivated that image. Now it’s biting them in the behind.”