"Danger and goodness, difficulty and meaning".(Forum focus: arts awareness and advocacy)

We've recently been experiencing another wave of dire statements about classical music: ifs dead, it's dying--the audience is aging, standards are decaying, support from governments, patrons and societies is disappearing; it's almost all over now.

I say "another wave" because people have been saying this at least since the time of Beethoven. Just as one of the regular features of any alumni gathering is the statement, "It's all gone to the dogs," one constant preoccupation of social observers and cultural commentators is to pronounce classical music's demise.

And there's plenty to be alarmed about since orchestras are in trouble, recording companies have drastically cut back and are pursuing bizarre marketing concepts that many serious artists deplore, Broadway theaters are looking for robots to play in the pit and music education for our children is threatened everywhere.

And yet, each winter in the School of Music we hear hundreds and hundreds of wonderful auditions from young people totally committed to this life, and each fall an amazing new group arrives in Kresge Recital Hall at Carnegie Mellon, full of enthusiasm and commitment.

Why is this, and what will become of us?

The impulse to make music is truly a need to make music--it is a fundamental condition of humankind. Our earliest ancestors made--among the first things they ever made--articles of bone, branches, reeds, stones and clay: musical instruments. They sang and played to express love, mystery, pride and identity; to nurture, celebrate, soothe, excite, mourn and carry their present into the future, making something permanent out of memory.

Many of these purposes are served by 'all kinds of music--every mother singing a lullaby is a great musician. But that last element belongs to art that we call "classical." It speaks with an unmistakable intention, across generations of human experience, across boundaries of society, race and class. It carries the present into the permanent.