SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Symphonies Gingerly Embrace Digital Performers

from the Christian Science Monitor

Every season at your local concert hall, the drill is the same: Musicians tune up their instruments, a conductor walks onstage, taps a baton, and works of past compositional masters spring to life.

This scenario has not been tampered with for centuries, a fact that many cherish and others lament about the symphonic experience. Now, threatened by the high costs of producing orchestral concerts, shrinking endowments, an aging subscriber base, and the slashing of music curriculums across the country, which diminishes the role of music in young people's lives, classical music has arrived kicking and screaming into the Digital Age. Computers are helping change the way people make, perform, and listen to symphonic music.

"Orchestras are floundering," says Greg Bowers, a composer who teaches music theory and composition at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. "They want to fill seats desperately. A lot of them are cowering, they're afraid to do anything that may challenge the audience. Their patrons are older and less amenable to new things. So you have this incredible, aesthetic bind."