{"id":3455,"date":"2015-01-27T15:39:24","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T20:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2015\/01\/27\/rethinking-classical\/"},"modified":"2024-07-23T14:30:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T18:30:06","slug":"rethinking-classical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/rethinking-classical\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking classical"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\"Maggie<\/a><\/div>\n
The only thing older than most of the people tuning in to classical music these days is the music itself.<\/div>\n

Classical is the second most popular format on public radio stations, but nearly 71 percent of its listeners are over the age of 55\u2014and 51 percent are over 65. So how in the world are you going to make that hip?<\/p>\n

Maggie Stapleton \u201908 thinks you start by telling people new\u2014and hip\u2014classical music is being composed every day. Then you give it to them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the idea behind\u00a0Second Inversion<\/i><\/a>, an online stream \u201cdedicated to rethinking classical music\u201d Stapleton co-created and manages as part of her job with Seattle\u2019s KING-FM.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who has a background in music theory knows that a second-inversion chord is a chord that has been rearranged such that the pitches are in a different order,\u201d Stapleton said. \u201cWe thought that was a fun connection on the musical level, but even if you don\u2019t know what a second-inversion musical chord is, second inversion has the spark of being something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

And different is important. KING is one of the top five classical stations in the country, but it realizes the future depends on getting younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you may imagine, the average listener is on the older side. Sixty-five and up makes the vast majority of our audience, and we started thinking a few years ago about how to reach a younger audience,\u201d she said. \u201cWe embarked on focus-group research in 2012 to find out what people in their 20s and 30s, especially those who had a pretty strong musical background, wanted, and they wanted to hear more contemporary music. They wanted to hear local performances. They wanted to hear their own voices as DJs or hosts. So we put our heads together to come up with this project.\u201d\"SI_ULP_01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Stapleton is young, and she knows what she likes. Throw in a deep knowledge of music stemming from a pair of degrees in flute performance\u2014a bachelor\u2019s from Furman and a master\u2019s from Washington\u2014and she represents the ideal demographic. But are there enough of her?<\/p>\n

She thinks so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe launched our website and our stream in January,\u00a0and we\u2019ve gotten a great response from local musicians who say \u2018oh my gosh, I\u2019m so glad there\u2019s a local voice for this contemporary music now,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cSo far it\u2019s been a really\u00a0great success.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term classical music normally brings to mind thoughts of nineteenth century Europe and names like Beethoven and Brahms. It also has a reputation for being complex and simply inaccessible to untrained ears that have been bombarded since birth with simplistic, four-minute top-40 songs, but Stapleton thinks the masses can be reached if a bridge is built between the two.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of the programming is much different than what you would hear on KING-FM, really focusing on music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, music that is a little bit edgy, a little bit different. We\u2019re also reaching into the realm of crossing genres to classical music that\u2019s got a little bit of bluegrass influence, things like pop songs being played on piano,\u201d she said, citing string quartet Brooklyn Rider\u2019s recent collaboration with banjo master B\u00e9la Fleck and classical pianist Christopher O\u2019Riley\u2019s Radiohead covers as examples. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that\u2019s super common, and I think that\u2019s one reason this has gotten so much buzz and excitement, because there is so much energy that\u2019s coming into classical music and music that is being composed and performed and recorded. Those musicians are absolutely thrilled to have a media outlet for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stapleton grew up in South Carolina and made the bold move to move to the Pacific Northwest upon her graduation magna cum laude from Furman. She \u201cfell in love with Seattle,\u201d which turned out to be a good thing for someone who also loves the arts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first when I was applying for the job I thought, well, gosh, I don\u2019t have any experience in radio. I don\u2019t know how this is going to work out,\u201d Stapleton said. \u201cBut it turned out \u2026 a big part of the job requirement was having a strong foundation of classical-music knowledge. And the great thing about Seattle is there are tons of performing opportunities as well \u2026 I\u2019m very active in my performance life in the evenings and on the weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes playing in two orchestras and a chamber music collective called the Parnassus Project as well as private teaching lessons. It also helps her stay connected to\u00a0Second Inversion\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of the job is working to get musicians heard in various ways and promoted and publicized, and that\u2019s something that has always been really important to me,\u201d Stapleton said. \u201cAs a musician I understand that it\u2019s really important to have media support and to get the word out, so it\u2019s been really gratifying to help other musicians in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stapleton\u2019s family is still in South Carolina, and she credits Furman with awakening her interest in contemporary classical music.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman had a big influence on shaping me as a musician, so I\u2019m thrilled to be talking about all of this,\u201d she said. \u201cI can trace back some of my earliest experiences with new twentieth and twenty-first century music to playing Jennifer Higdon\u2019s \u201cBlue Cathedral\u201d with the Furman Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Joiner. That was my first time playing a piece of music written in the past 15 or 20 years I think, and I realized that there\u2019s so much out there that\u2019s not Brahms and Beethoven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about\u00a0studying music at Furman<\/a>\u00a0and get the latest news on the\u00a0Furman Music News<\/a>\u00a0Facebook page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The only thing older than most of the people tuning in to classical music these days is the music itself. Classical is the second most popular format on public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":14287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,34,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-admission","category-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33163,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions\/33163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}