Is classical music dead .... for the n-th time?

I dunno how many times I wrote here, for my younger pianists colleagues, that as a performer/artist we gotta be more daring, adventurous and (if it's still possible, hell yeah, why not) original. Of course I looooove all those Beethoven Sonatas etc. etc, but who are coming to listen to those Sonatas performed again and again? Me, yeah, and very few other freaks, but think of the hassle of going out of the house to go to the concert hall. The motivation should be strong enough. Especially in Jakarta, the most jammed city in the world! If not, I just take some CDs of mine and listen to it at home. And c'mon, let's admit it: between the performer and the repertoire, you are coming to a concert for the performer, right? So, when (s)he is a young and beautiful person, do you really care what (s)he is performing? Of course there are other values apart from having a pretty face (if this were the only criteria, I would have given up my career loooong ago), which includes charisma or stage presence, personal friendship or relationship with the artist... and an adventurous programming. There was a recent statement from Martin Engstroem, that highly powerful guy of the record company Deutsche Grammophone (well, no classical record company is that powerful anymore nowadays). I quote his words : "The image is central to the cultural life. When I came to Deutsche Grammophon, my office was A & R, or manager of Artists and Repertoire. But the repertory did not matter to anyone. The artist was what counted; and my job ended up being a big A and a small r because no one buys the symphonies of Beethoven. A CD lasts long, making it unnecessary to replace it. Today people follows the artist. The public wants the last CD of Cecilia Bartoli or Lang Lang, and it matters little what is recorded. The repertoire is secondary." .............................................................................................................................................. And this is not just happening with piano recitals. What, do you think, is the reason of the closing of many symphony orchestras, the continuing problems of the most expensive opera house today which is the Queen Sofia Palau de les Arts in Valencia, and the latest the Metropolitan Opera of New York? Coz they don't get enough public. No, no, I rectify it. They couldn't get enough NEW public. And members of the old audience are leaving. It's not that the public is funding them. It's the sponsors: nobody wants to sponsor events which do not attract public. So, for us who don't have exactly the pretty faces needed, there are other elements which matter when we are performing. But the most important thing is that performers should have interaction with the public with his music. Shortly speaking, he should have sex with the public, not just masturbate alone on stage, performing the works that he likes and imagining that the public would like it too. Programming is not an accumulation of good music on stage. It is a process. Even sex has a process, you can't start with an orgasm. .............................................................................................................................................. But I think we are going in the right track in Indonesia. At least, the classical audience is GROWING, not DIMINISHING, and most importantly, young people go to our concerts. I personally try to think of fresh --which often means not mainstream-- programming, and I do need fresh ideas constantly. And that, my friend, I can only get from the public. So please tweet me, give me ideas of what you wanna hear in concerts! .............................................................................................................................................. That's why I was so delighted when The Juan March Foundation (this is a prominent patron of the arts in Spain, with whom I've been working since my move to Spain in 1998) is programming a series of concerts with the theme of music based on the motif B.A.C.H . Juan March Foundation is also famous for their fresh approach to programming, and inviting prominent artists who care about this aspect ; their latest guests were the American composer John Adams and the conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim. For the next season they asked me to perform with this program of BACH motif (they have a series of the same theme, there is a concert with string quartet, and other instruments) and also asked me and several other Spanish composers to write new works on this motif. For my concert, I chose my favorite composer, Santiago Lanchares to do a new work which I will premiere together with mine. Of course, the most celebrated piece of music with this motif is Liszt's Fantasy and Fugue on B.A.C.H. But then, browsing on the internet and guided by Miguel Angel Marin, the artistic director of the Foundation, I found tons of other pieces, so I checked some of them . One particular piece which took my breath away was by Rimsky Korsakov: Six Variations on the theme BACH, op. 10 (this opus number doesn't mean it's an early work. Well, he was 34 years when he wrote it, but remember that he was not a "child prodigy" as we normally say it. And he combined his compositional career and teaching with a career in the Russian military). It's just so clever how he uses the BACH theme as the bass line only most of the time. In fact, one don't hear that theme too often. And his harmonies are, well, inventive, striking, you name it. And apparently, after it was premiered and performed several times after it was written in 1878, it was sort of forgotten. There is no record whatsoever that it's been performed outside Europe, so most probably when I perform this in Indonesia it will be the first Asian performance ... after 136 years! I also looove the piano writing : it's clear, transparent and not one note too many. .............................................................................................................................................. I admit, I learned a lot from Rimsky's work in writing my own music music, Fantasy & Fugue on B.A.C.H. My piece turns out to be so different from Rimsky's, but I understood the harmonic wealth and possibilities from that motif. And also I realized how it could be so diatonic, chromatic and atonal at the same time. My piece lasts for about 6 minutes or a bit more, it is quite virtuosic and perhaps it's the most "atonal" sounding of my works till now (apart from some short pieces in Alicia's Piano Books), but I hope its virtuosity would compensate its atonal dissonance, especially the fugue which lasts for just a bit more than 2 minutes. .............................................................................................................................................. The thing is, a piece of music becomes "legendary" because of some mysterious luck (apart from its high quality, of course, but as I said, there are so, so many forgotten masterpieces). Some composers like Taneyev, Paderewski (who used to be the Prime Minister of Poland! And perhaps he was the only example in history of both a good politician AND artist), Respighi and I can name hundreds more of "unplayed" composers which include Rimsky Korsakov just had, and still is having bad luck. So, pianists, start searching! The internet is now your best friend! .............................................................................................................................................. Since the new Titan Center concert hall in Bintaro (South Jakarta) invited me to perform there and taste their nice acoustics, I decided to perform both Rimsky Korsakov's Variations and my own Fantasy and Fugue there. My work will be a first performance, since it hasn't been performed before, although the official World Premiere will be at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid later this year. The concert at Titan Center will take place on September 20th at 7 p.m. There will be some Rapsodia Nusantara pieces too, of course, and my now popular Variations on I. Marzuki's "Rayuan Pulau Kelapa" which is a present "with love" from Rina Zoet to her husband, Daan :)