Every place is different. However, I think you are correct that most of this kind of music is guarded safely behind the walls of academia. While there are real enthusiasts in my neck of the woods, the classical music scene is made possible by rich, old, artsy-fartsy liberal white people with unusual hair styles. I know quite a few of this type. One of them, a lady in her 60's, drunkenly grabbed my friend's succulent 19-year-old ass at Stockhausen concert in a private villa on top of a mountain in Pacific Palisades (unthinkably posh community). It was perhaps the most entertaining concert I've been to. Where this demographic does not exist in high(ish) concentration, you'll probably only find classical music in schools, community orchestras, and privately funded orchestras, and it is unlikely that they will be playing anything but "the hits" (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler...).
|