Go on the iTunes website right now and the most popular album is a Bryan Adams compilation. Next is an album by Gnarles Barkley.
Nowhere on the main page is a classical song or album advertised.
It seems classical music is disappearing everywhere. Just ask Russian pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev, who said that the genre came to an end in the 20th century.
Or have a talk with Jennifer McGuire, the executive director of programming for CBC Radio 2. Since 2006, the station has been slowly introducing content revisions and scaling back the amount of classical music aired. McGuire has been quoted as saying the changes are an attempt to accommodate the tastes of Canadians.
CBC polled the country about content and results show that people are interested in hearing a diverse music selection. So Radio 2 began adding more jazz and pop selection.
The station gave prime-time positions to shows like Canada Live, which broadcasts young, up-and-coming musicians.
Then shows started getting canned, like the afternoon mix-music show DiscDrive.
And the cuts continue. By the end of this season, the classically-oriented Studio Sparks, Music and Company, and Sound Advice will be decomposing in their graves.
By September, what’s left of classical music content will be broadcast during a midday, midweek time slot.
As a consolation prize, CBC says it’ll be streaming classical music online.
The backlash has been huge.
On March 4, when CBC online posted it’s most recent article about revamping Radio 2, the site received an overwhelming 82 comments from listeners, most of them fuming about the cuts and changes.
One of the commentators was BCBarby, who wrote, “Who needs more watered down ‘light contemporary’ pap? We can get that anywhere, from elevators to the music that car dealers play while you’re on hold. Classical music? Well, now it’s nowhere to be found.”
There’s also a Facebook group, “Save Classical Music at the CBC,” that currently has a membership of more than 5,000 people.
Elsewhere online, angry listeners have created an online petition and a website www.stopcbcpop.ca, which protests the changes.
Perhaps this is what the classical music genre needs; people fighting for its survival. Already, the industry is suffering. Currently only two record companies dominate classical music production, whereas 20 years ago there were seven.
When classical performers do make it big, they tend to be the bubblegum-pop-princess types like Charlotte Church or the salesman-come-reality-TV-show tenors like Paul Potts.
It’s no coincidence Potts, who won the show Britain's Got Talent, played to a sold-out audience on March 17 at Centrepointe Theatre.
But how many people in Ottawa have heard of Portia White, an African-Canadian opera singer from the 1940s?
She was featured on the millennium postage stamp series and has been named “a person of national historic significance” by the government. How often do people slip her music into their car’s CD player?
Especially with the revisions being made to CBC Radio 2, there are few houses for the underdogs of classical music.
Lawrence Kramer says it is unfortunate because it means society is losing more than just a few songs.
In his book Why Classical Music Still Matters he writes that music captures the spirit of the era it was written in, just as much as literature does.
But while students learn about literary heavyweights like Shakespeare, Austen and Hemingway, classical music generally isn’t a part of the mainstream academic curriculum.
So while it may be true that some Canadians prefer listening to Diana Krall, Serena Ryder or the Weakerthans, maybe the purpose behind accessible music content runs deeper than popularity and a Canadian name.
Perhaps it’s a matter of not just promoting new culture, but maintaining culture too; before the whole classical music industry gets into treble and goes baroque.