Every year, the WPAS season announcement gives rise, among some classical fans I know, to a certain amount of what-might-have-been. There is a school of classical programming, however, that firmly holds that too much adventurousness won’t sell tickets anywhere outside New York — and to some extent that may spill over into artists’ thinking as well (as in, “I’d better play Mahler in DC and save Cage for Carnegie Hall”). I, of course, don’t have to worry about selling tickets, so it’s easy for me to say that vision and artistic risk are rewarded with commensurate audience excitement. I also hear a lot about how sick classical fans are of hearing the same old pieces (often with regard to WETA).
But here’s an exercise: what would you like to see on the WPAS program? Do you like it just the way it is? Would you do it differently, and if so, how? What artists or programs would you bring to Washington?
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