The musicians are among the best in the nation. And the hip, young conductor leads with blond, good looks.

        So why don't more young people go to the symphony?

        That's the question the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra hopes to address now that Paavo Jarvi, 38, has taken over as music director.

Paavo Jarvi leads members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra through a recent rehearsal. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        Like orchestras everywhere — as well as radio stations, TV networks, film studios, newspapers and countless other media outlets and entertainment forms — the 107-year-old CSO is desperately seeking a younger audience.

        Nationally, the average age of the classical subscriber is 57. On an average night, the CSO crowd looks affluent, cultured, sedate and graying. Faced with economic woes, a shrinking audience and a generation that has grown up with little exposure to classical music, orchestras are scrambling to keep the audience from dwindling even further as die-hards grow old and quit going.

Publicity campaign

        Last month, the CSO stepped up its image campaign with billboards and TV commercials. Mr. Jarvi's opening concert was broadcast live on WCET Channel 48. Its first big youth promotion, “UC Nite at the CSO,” for students from the University of Cincinnati, is set for Nov. 15.

        Selling the symphony to the Dave Matthews Band crowd is a challenge. Recent research shows that the coveted 18- to 34-year-olds:

        • Do not respond to traditional marketing.

        • Make plans to go out at the last minute.

        • Prefer going out in groups.

        • Are looking for discounts and free food.

        They are on the fast track: cell phones, multitasking, Internet surfing. This is the single-ticket crowd. The national trend is to buy subscriptions in small packages — or not at all.

        Around the country, orchestras are teaming up with rock bands. Jazzing up concerts with video screens. Going casual. Mixing happy hour with music.

        “I don't really believe that extra-musical gimmicks ultimately work. . . . I don't think that having the orchestra play in shorts would bring any young people to the concert,” said Mr. Jarvi, who will conduct his third weekend of concerts Saturday and next Sunday. “That's an oversimplistic way of looking at things.”

        The first idea he pitched to symphony management was that all students through college senior should get in for $1. On the Nov. 15 “UC Nite,” ticket prices are $10, which includes a preconcert buffet and an after party with the maestro.

        “One has to look at it as an investment. What is better, to have empty seats, or to have seats full of teen-agers?” he said.

A lot of planning

        Money and time are the biggest concerns for young families, said Melinda Whiting, editor of the American Symphony Orchestra League's Symphony magazine, who admits, “That is an issue we're just starting to address.”

        “You gotta get a baby sitter, gotta drive downtown, gotta find parking. . . . We're saying, buy a six-concert subscription, and each evening takes as much planning, time and money,” she said.

        For singles, it's a question of values, said Joelle Daniel, 34, assistant director of Enjoy the Arts/START, a membership program for students and non-students 30 and younger located on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine. “They don't hesitate to spend $75 in a bar on a Friday night, but they won't pay $25 to see the symphony,” she said. “A lot of people in their mid-20s like to do things in groups. If they know they are going to see other people like them at an event, they might attend.”

The "non-attenders'

        On the theory that young professionals like mixers with their music, the Pittsburgh Symphony launched “Soundbytes,” a series aimed at 25- to 45-year-olds. It features a short concert and a big screen with graphics. The conductor talks about the music. A post-concert party with a live band is part of the ticket price.

        The series is popular with high-tech companies that have a younger work force, said Elizabeth Mehta, 33. She is a member of Pittsburgh's New Leadership Board, consisting of young professionals who help promote the symphony.

        The under-35s are “the non-attenders,” said Douglas Kinzey, president of Audience Strategy for the Arts Inc. and marketing adviser for the Houston Symphony. They do not respond to traditional marketing strategies.

        “The secret of this market is cross-packaging,” he said. He has worked with the Houston and Dallas symphonies to develop “Classical Encounters: Mix, Mingle, Match and Music.” The concert package includes dinners, wine tastings, cooking classes, backstage events and interactions with the maestro.

"Like the prom'

        Believing “if you feed them, they will come,” many orchestras hand out free doughnuts, appetizers and even, as the CSO does in its Thursday “Musical Banquets,” a complete dinner buffet.

        “Most of the (subscription) sales are made through get-togethers and parties,” Mr. Kinzey said. In spite of severe flooding in August, 350 symphony neophytes showed up for a bash at a Houston restaurant.

        They like to party. But new research refutes the notion that the 18- to 34-year-old crowd wants to go to the symphony in blue jeans. A confidential project being carried out by the Cincinnati firm Spencer Hall Inc. for a select group of orchestras confirms that they want a special evening out.

        “They treat it like the prom,” said Stephen Duncan, St. Louis Symphony marketing director.

        In Dallas, where symphony concerts are 93 percent sold by subscription, the symphony advertises itself over rock radio stations as a cool place to take a date.

        “It's not just the stats of, we're playing a Tchaikovsky symphony,” general manager Douglas Adams said. “It's marketed to our non-core fan as an elegant, dressy evening out.”

West Coast innovations

        In the past decade, eyes have turned to the West Coast, where the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic have registered a perceptable dip in their audience age.

        Twenty- and thirty-somethings flocked to the L.A. Philharmonic's Stravinsky Festival last season because it had alternative programs in nontraditional places, like museums.

        “We felt, if we didn't act so insular, and if we partnered with other arts organizations, that gave it a bigger punch — made it a city-wide event,” said Elizabeth Hinckley, 32, public relations director. “You didn't see the gray hairs; you saw much more of the 20s crowd coming in. The last five or six concerts were completely sold out, and there were lines out the door.”

        They were careful not to market it as “classical music” in the town that runs on “what's hot, what's hip, what's now,” she added. “Classical is unfortunately a derogatory term. . . . We look at it as music that's performed by an orchestra.”

20th-century music

        Although conservative East Coast and Midwestern orchestras still play mostly Beethoven and Bruckner, their West Coast colleagues earn points for risking more cutting-edge fare.

        This year, Los Angeles will have a festival with the music of Arnold Schoenberg. Music director Esa-Pekka Salonen's “baby” is his Green Umbrella series of 20th-century music that attracts a young L.A. crowd. Recently, Mr. Salonen met with the hot, best-selling rock group Radiohead in London to talk about collaborations.

        What might seem daunting to some — a festival of American 20th-century music — including Carl Ruggles, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, David Del Tredici and John Cage — brought new people in droves to the San Francisco Symphony for its “American Mavericks” festival last summer. The news spread by word of mouth, the festival's own Web site and billboards.

        “You could not be in San Francisco and not see that the symphony was doing something really new,” executive director Brent Assink said, At last check, 66 percent of San Francisco's single ticket buyers were younger than 44, he said.

        Finally, the Internet is where it's at for most 18- to 34-year olds, a fact that orchestras have realized at glacial speed. In Cincinnati last year, fans buying concert tickets off the CSO Web site increased by 76 percent. The potential exists for streaming concerts live on the Web, providing sound bites to preview concerts — even for interactive music lessons.

        For those who find their information on the Web, a boring Web site is a turn-off, said Peter Scacco, director of communications and marketing at the Cleveland Orchestra, who formerly worked for Dell computers.

        “Many orchestras around the country have to do a lot more work on their Web sites; we all do,” Mr. Scacco admitted. (For one of the most sophisticated orchestra Web sites in the country, check out sfsymphony.org.)

        Still, for all the market research, strategizing and flavor-of-the-month programs, it's important not to lose sight of the symphony orchestra's original purpose, San Francisco's Mr. Assink cautioned.

        “(Music director) Michael (Tilson Thomas) cares a great deal about what kind of experience people are talking about when they leave the hall,” he said. “The orchestra can play a terrific concert, but if it hasn't been communicated to the audience, it's a relatively hollow experience.

        “You know when the orchestra cares that the audience is in the hall. . . . That draws in a younger audience, and it draws in repeat audiences. People who are in their 30s talk to their friends and colleagues and say, "You have to go to the symphony. I had the most wonderful experience there last night.' ”

        Tickets to Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concerts are available my phone, 381-3300, online at www.cincinnatisymphony.org and at Music Hall box office prior to concerts. Students tickets may be purchased the week of the concert; two tickets per student with valid ID.
       

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