Americans for the Arts National Convention & Three New Studies

Thursday through Saturday is the national convention of the advocacy organization Americans for the Arts. It’s being held in Seattle, and I will be interviewing attendees and presenters for the group’s website.  I also plan to report here on who’s saying what and how it might impact us in classical music radio.

There are also three new reports out that you might want to read.  One is from Chorus America that finds:

an estimated 32.5 million adults regularly sing in choruses today, up from 23.5 million estimated in 2003. And when children are included, there are 42.6 million Americans singing in choruses in 2009. More than 1 in 5 households have at least one singing family member, making choral singing the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children.

They correlate their findings with other statistics that show singing Americans as people who are successful in other walks of life, as well.  It’s correlative, but maybe not causative.  We always have to be careful in the arts not to assume the arts make us smarter.  It may be true, but more likely smart people are drawn to the arts.

The NEA has a new study out about American audiences.   You can download it here.   A summary of two of the findings:

There are persistent patterns of decline in participation for most art forms. Nearly 35 percent of U.S. adults – or an estimated 78 million – attended an art museum or an arts performance in the 2008 survey period, compared with about 40 percent in 1982, 1992, and 2002. i ii

• Attendance at the most popular types of arts events – such as art museums and craft/visual arts festivals – saw notable declines. The U.S. rate of attendance for art museums fell from a high of 26 percent in 1992-2002 to 23 percent in 2008, comparable to the 1982 level.
• Between 1982 and 2008, attendance at performing arts such as classical music, jazz, opera, ballet, musical theater, and dramatic plays has seen double-digit rates of decline.
• Fewer adults are creating and performing art. For example, the percentage of adults performing dance has lost six points since 1992. Weaving and sewing remain popular as crafts, but the percentage of adults who do those activities has declined by 12 points. Only the share of adults doing photography has increased – from 12 percent in 1992 to 15 percent in 2008

The Internet and mass media are reaching substantial audiences for the arts.

• About 70 percent of U.S. adults went online for any purpose in 2008 survey, and of those adults, nearly 40 percent used the Internet to view, listen to, download, or post artworks or performances.
• Thirty percent of adults who use the Internet, download, watch, or listen to music, theater, or dance performances online at least once a week. More than 20 percent of Internet-using adults view paintings, sculpture, or photography at least once a week.
• More Americans view or listen to broadcasts and recordings of arts events than attend them live (live theater being the sole exception). Classical and Latin or salsa music were the most popular music categories (with 40 and 33.5 million viewers/listeners, respectively), and 33.7 million adults reported listening to, or viewing programs or recordings about books/writers. The same number (33.7 million) enjoyed broadcasts or recordings about the visual arts.

The Arts Education Partnership has just released a new study called The Nation’s Arts Report Card. You can read it here. It’s too involved to summarize well in a short space, because you have to see the methodology for yourself, but the interesting thing to me was that the highest scoring students got 194 out of 300.  To use a radio term, that means there’s a lot of headroom for improvement.  Otherwise, the amount of instruction stayed fairly steady (since 1997, but before the current economic crisis), kids are being asked to write down their music more, and there’s a significant ethnic gap in music education.  All stuff we already knew.

As in everything else, we in classical music have to think globally and act locally.  What is your classical radio station doing for arts education?