/ARTS WEEKLY/ARGENTINA: Bringing Classical Music to the Workers

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 9 2004 (IPS) - Accustomed to playing for a small cultural elite in fancy theatres and churches, the National Symphonic Orchestra of Argentina, created in 1948, performed for the first time ever in a factory, as part of a novel programme aimed at reaching out to new audiences.

The concerts offered by the Culture Secretariat’s Music in the Factories Programme will be held in workplaces, trade union buildings, and recreational spaces frequented by workers, who generally do not attend symphonic orchestra performances, even when no entrance fees are charged.

Of Argentina’s three symphonic orchestras – the National Symphonic Orchestra, the Philarmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires, based in the Colon Theatre, and the Buenos Aires Symphonic Band – only the latter has followed the motto of ”bringing the music to the people” by frequently offering free concerts in public spaces.

Created in the early 20th century, the Symphonic Band reaches an estimated 60,000 people a year in city parks and squares, universities, schools, business chamber auditoriums, social clubs and, more recently, train stations.

But the chamber orchestras rarely perform outside of the major theatres.

The new programme is aimed at bringing workers not only classical music but also popular artists, in concerts in which the audiences will also have the opportunity to meet and talk with the musicians, the Culture Secretariat’s National Director of Arts, Rolando Goldman, told IPS.

”There are many workers who do not come, even when the concerts are free, because they can’t afford the (bus or subway) ticket, or they think they don’t have the right clothes to wear, or perhaps because they believe that for some reason they won’t be allowed in. That’s why we are going out to find them,” said Goldman.

If the initiative finds an echo, concerts will be held in trade unions, industrial complexes and parks, added Goldman.

”We are going to keep up a presence wherever there is demand,” by returning to factories and other venues where the orchestras have received a warm welcome.

To inaugurate the programme, the National Symphonic Orchestra travelled early this month, for the first time ever, to the southern province of Tierra del Fuego. There, in the city of Ushuaia, they performed in a factory – another first.

However, they did not play in just any old factory, but one that closed down during the economic crisis of the 1990s and was just reopened by its former employees.

Workers at the former Aurora Grundig home appliances company transformed the abandoned factory into the Renacer Cooperative – ‘renacer’ means ‘to be reborn’ – which belongs to the National Movement of Recuperated Companies.

In the last few months, the members of the cooperative finished producing their first batch of washing machines.

The musicians were excited about playing for the first time in the southernmost city of the Americas, where they performed works by Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), Italy’s Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) and France’s Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894).

”We totally agree with this idea,” Andrés Spiller, assistant director of the National Symphonic Orchestra, told IPS. He said the musicians were interested in maintaining the orchestra’s ”artistic prestige while reaching out to new audiences.”

Spiller said the orchestra performs nearly 50 concerts a year before ”an ageing” audience of classical music lovers. But he said that while there are also young people who enjoy classical music, they do not come to the theatre because they are intimidated or put off by the formality of the atmosphere that tends to surround the concerts.

Earlier attempts to offer outdoor symphonic concerts in Buenos Aires drew large audiences of all ages sitting on the grass under the stars. But neighbours complaining about the ”noise” put an end to the experiment with music in the parks.

Goldman is now proposing that several concerts targeting workers be added to this year’s schedule, and that the orchestra return to those places where the music has had a strong impact. He said he would also like to see the repertoire include both classical and popular songs, and he insisted that audiences must not be underestimated.