From concert hall to club: classical music has a new home

Classical music is often incorrectly assumed to be one-dimensional, but a wave of musicians are pushing the music beyond its traditional boundaries and into spaces you might not expect to hear it. Championing this development is Elizabeth Alker (presenter of BBC Radio 3’s alt-classical show, Unclassified). She says: “There are plenty of people working to take classical music out of the concert hall and to new audiences in clubs and warehouse venues. Groups like the Manchester Collective or Nonclassical, they’re bold and ambitious and they’re extremely passionate about the music and giving audiences the opportunity to hear it. It’s pretty radical to stage a work like Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire in a marketplace in Hull!”

Radical as it may be, such events are part of a growing movement that’s creating environments for mixed audiences of musical purists and the culturally curious to encounter classical music in unexpected ways. For the composer Gabriel Prokofiev, from a renowned classical family and the disruptor-founder of the Nonclassical club night, the creation of open, relatable events is needed to break down the walls between DJs and dinner jackets. “It’s all part of the process of classical music catching up with contemporary lifestyles,” he says. “Classical music is stuck in a bubble and most of the people involved don’t necessarily realise they’re in a bubble – they just love the music, it works for them, but that’s a tradition and a way of presenting the music that doesn’t really fit with modern ways of living.”

Alker, herself a clarinettist by training, agrees that removing traditional boundaries is key to delivering new experiences. “I think, sometimes, the way classical music is presented can seem a bit more formal than contemporary audiences are used to,” she says. “A couple of years ago, I worked on a series of concerts called the Red Brick Sessions with the BBC Philharmonic. We had live scrolling programme notes, the bar was open, and we had an interval discussion that was very permissive and open. It felt relaxed and fun, but there was still a reverence for and enjoyment of the music. It was just rowdier than a lot of classical concerts. I’m in favour of a bit more rowdiness.”

The BBC’s Beyond Boundaries series of concerts does as the title suggests, pushing the notion of a classical concert beyond what is usually associated with the genre. While rowdy may not be the first adjective that springs to mind with this series, unconventional certainly does. Concerts feature non-classical elements such as music from video games, spoken word and pop and jazz. As part of this series, conductor Jules Buckley and singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas will join the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 28 February.

What’s clear is that across the spectrum of those working to change classical music’s perception among modern audiences, the power and relevance of the music itself is undiminished. DJ and electronic musician Max Cooper has repeatedly explored the connections between computers and conductors and, for him, classical music’s “melodic richness stays relevant centuries later”.

For Cooper, there’s a special resonance in the work of minimalist composers such as Philip Glass, which “pre-empts the core principles of modern electronic music in terms of its focus on loops, repetition, syncopation and complexity”. Whether it’s classical or electronic, old or new, it is, he thinks, “all one big melting pot of patterns”, with “more parallels than differences”.

For Prokofiev too, his own music, which is as indebted to grime and hip-hop as it is to traditional orchestration, is composed as a conduit for younger people to experience something he thinks remains vital. “In a way,” he says, “classical is more relevant than ever. It takes you away from the more high-speed lifestyles we have; the screen-swiping, quick fix of modern technology.” And the creation of new events and forms of music that can produce a dialogue between classical and modern is ultimately about community: “You sit there and you’ve got direct interaction with human beings in the room creating really beautiful music that can give you a different, more concentrated, immersive experience.”

Alker sees the upcoming Unclassified Live concerts as a good place to start for those wanting to get a view into this crossover world of baritones and bars. The series is, she reveals, “our new collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank and the conductor André de Ridder. We’ve chosen artists I play on my Radio 3 show to either write new music or have existing work arranged for the orchestras.”

The next season of events, which starts in September and runs throughout 2020, “includes electronic artists such as Daniel Avery, Tim Hecker and Darkstar, alongside composers such as Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw and Nicole Lizée”. They’ve all been chosen, she says, because “they all make such original and brilliant music, and the BBC Concert Orchestra and Southbank Sinfonia are such flexible and innovative groups. They all embody Unclassified’s interest in how ancient practices and instrumental groups collide with new techniques and sounds.”

Even for the seasoned presenter, it feels like a leap into new and exciting territory: “I cannot wait to hear how it sounds with a full orchestra, and to see their fans, who might not be familiar with orchestral music, experience the emotive power of an ensemble that size. This isn’t going to be a case of sticking cheesy strings on music, but of creating unusual textures, surprising sounds and dynamic, collaborative, live performances for inquisitive music lovers.”

See the full list of upcoming concerts in the BBC’s Beyond Boundaries series