What good does classical music do us in the modern world? At the Utah Opera’s 40th Anniversary gala with Renee Fleming last week, materials in the program and a video about the Opera’s visits to public schools presented several theories on what we get out of keeping classical music alive.
But most of the theories didn’t resonate with me. I’ve spent my whole life in the classical music world. I grew up backstage at the Metropolitan Opera where my mother sang. I attended Juilliard as a pianist. And now I’m a “stage mom” to three daughters who practice hours a day on string instruments. Why do I do it?
Many in the classical music world, including those at the Utah Opera gala last week, cite studies that show classical music makes kids “smarter”. That typically refers to the fact that a child’s ability to register patterns and do mathematical deciphering is increased by their familiarity with musical patterns. That’s wonderful, and the fact that Einstein played the violin is often cited as the prime example of this correlation.
But that cognitive benefit only comes after deep aural or functional immersion in the composition of good music. A single visit by an opera singer to a school is not going to make those school kids smarter. Other theories propose that children gain discipline and an expectation of hard work from practicing an instrument, like they do on a sports team. This is definitely one reason I have my kids immersed in a demanding music program.
But all of these reasons to have classical music in our lives – or at least our children’s lives – center on how it will make us successful. What they will get out of it. And this is where all of these reasons break down for me. I believe that if we remain stuck in this reasoning – that classical music is about making us smarter and more disciplined and more successful and more impressive – we will lose completely its true gifts.
At the Utah Opera’s gala, a senior from West High School briefly came on stage as part of a fundraising announcement. A lanky boy with glasses, he stood at the front of the stage and addressed the audience, telling us what classical music means to him. “Peace,” he said. “I feel peace when I listen to it.”
This is the lasting truth I was seeking that night. Spending the evening at the symphony or the opera or any acoustic concert isn’t about making ourselves more attractive or successful. It’s not an equation: If I sit through an evening of classical music, then I will be smarter. It’s about separating ourselves from an overwhelmingly digital world and meditating on the beauty humans can create. It took a 17-year-old boy to remind the audience that feeling peace in this modern world is its own reward.
Beauty is not an aspiration that is popular in our modern culture. We use the word “beautiful” to describe people’s physical characteristics, or impressive natural surroundings. But we rarely seek for aural beauty in the tone of singers’ voices or in innovative harmonies. Popular music has lots of jobs these days – background music almost everywhere, exercise motivation, a backbone of our celebrity culture, a touchpoint for cultural commonalities – but simply being beautiful isn’t a job we ask mainstream music to do for us very often anymore.
The high school boy at the symphony, perhaps one of the youngest people in Abravanel Hall that night, understood what many grownups do not: that beauty in music, such as the kind that can often be found in classical music, brings peace and respite in an incredibly stressful world. There is value in that peace. There is value in beauty. A classroom full of kids listening to an opera can feel that peace in a single visit. And if that is all they – and we - get out of music, that’s enough.
This morning on the way to school, I played in the car a recording of Luciano Pavarotti singing “Nessun Dorma,” the famous aria from Puccini’s opera Turandot. At my kids’ school starting this year, the 8 o’clock school bell plays the last few measures of this aria, and they wanted to know what it is. As we blasted the climactic ending in the car, my 13-year-old exclaimed, “Oh, that’s so beautiful!” If I can get my kids to find beauty and peace in classical music, I will have been successful.
Neylan McBaine is the CEO of Better Days 2020, a commemoration of Utah being the first place where women voted in the U.S. She is also a stage mom to three daughters and a former concert pianist.