[JKCalhoun]

> If Philip Glass had had to live in "rural nowhere" in order to afford to make music, we would have never heard of Philip Glass.

I'm not so sure. A lot of art comes out of "affordable areas" — sometimes small college-town ghettos like Athens, Georgia, for example. Why couldn't we get a Philip Glass from Manhattan, Kansas?

[joe5150]

Why not indeed? If there is an orchestra's worth of musicians available and an audience there with the taste and curiosity necessary to support avant garde performing arts, anything can happen. It's easier now than ever to put a band together in your college town or even record and release music without ever leaving your bedroom, but beyond that scale you still need a critical mass of creative collaborators all in one place to pull it off.

[creer]

There are orchestras everywhere. Because musicians want to play and directors want to direct and any random school has a performance hall. Whether they are all that good is another question, but that's true of big cities in the US also. And audience is still another question: I expect you don't get to have all that much of an audience until you have somewhat made it. No doubt Philip Glass didn't start with much of an audience.

Most artists that try to invent something new start with essentially no audience. They don't create that for the big bucks.

[mbreese]

> There are orchestras everywhere

And they can all post videos of performances on YouTube. You don’t even need to have an orchestra perform a work for an extended time before you can find an audience. I would think that this would make it more likely for new composers to be able to find success than before. You don’t necessarily need to be in an NYC or Boston like before.

[joe5150]

"Big bucks" is the last thing I'm talking about. I'm not talking about symphony subscribers and other blue hairs in a concert hall. I'm talking about an audience of creative peers.

[creer]

Okay that's an interesting one. Any artists trying to create something new and different around here? How does it work with the "peers" around you? How does it work with other artists, art writers, gallerists, patrons, etc?

What I have noticed of this, and my readings seem to point to the reaction of people around someone in an uncharted direction like PG being a mix of "bemused but admirative and encouraging", and "ignored". And what proportion of the "peers" is now online? IG and such? (For an artist in my life, IG seemed to be an essential lifeline. A main connection.)

[JKCalhoun]

Yeah, requiring an orchestra does sort of crimp your palette if that is what you do — compose for orchestras.