Ripping More From the Headlines

Ripping More From the Headlines

A scuffle at the Boston Pops is one thing, but the news that a ten
year old has been convicted of beating a homeless man requires more of a
response from us.

Written By

Colin Holter

If you’re a regular NewMusicBox reader, you probably stay abreast of happenings in the classical music sphere and are no doubt already aware of the scuffle that took place at a recent Boston Pops concert. I checked out the CBS News account of this strange incident, but I was distracted by another linked headline: “Boy, 10, Convicted of Beating Homeless Man.” Suddenly two guys duking it out in Symphony Hall to the sound of a Gigi medley seems very trivial. It’s not necessary to discuss both of these news items, however, because only one of them has to do with new music.

According to nationalhomeless.org, “the number of non-lethal attacks against homeless people has risen by 281%” between 2002 and 2005. On the other hand, the frequency of fistfights at orchestra concerts in America has, to my knowledge, remained fairly stable (probably in the neighborhood of, say, one per year). Even if, as I suspect, it resists expansion to a generalization about our culture, the former matter is a disturbing trend that demands consideration from concerned citizens—and all composers should, of course, be concerned citizens (I am a perpetually concerned citizen). The latter is a strange one-off occurrence that went down at the corner of Pop Music and Light Classical Music, not exactly the locus of contemporary art music as I’d like to define it. This is not to say that I’ve noticed an outcry (be it blogospheric or meatspatial) about the Boston Pops rumble, but I also haven’t noticed much of an outcry about the beating of a homeless man by a ten-year-old kid.

I’m just saying.