Class Intersection: A Day at the BSO

I'm a member of both the Jazz Ensemble and the Wind Ensemble, and having all of our concerts this past weekend reminded me of some of the times when I went along with a group of friends to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform at Meyerhoff Concert Hall in Mount Vernon. In hindsight, BSO concerts were events where a lot of class mixing occurred; the BSO has a great student discount program, where they can pay $20 for access to an entire year of BSO concerts, and as a results a lot of college students go to BSO concerts on a regular basis. However, the main demographic in attendance is always elderly, affluent white people wearing authentic fur coats and leather shoes. So you can imagine why there would be a little bit of tension when both groups meet at the same location (normally expressed in the form of raised eyebrows and disapproving faces).

Before every concert, there is always a cocktail party in the lobby, where all of the ladies and gentlemen socialize before the main event (what they talk about I'm not sure, but they all seem like they know each other from somewhere, like the entire lot of them are old friends—it reminds me of those scenes from old books and movies set in Europe where the social elite would all go to the opera). Juxtapose those people in suits and dresses with the college kids in jeans and T-shirts and the result is a lot of furtive glances of disapproval and some hushed whispers by the elders, as if we were corrupting an institution that they held sacred but didn't want to tell us to our faces. (These are only the reactions that I had, mind you—I make no guarantees as to the truth of them, it's just how I felt at the time.) When I went, I enjoyed myself a lot because I had taken enough music classes in my lifetime to have the cultural capital necessary to appreciate it all, but I did feel very out of place among a large amount of people that I am sure had way more money than I did. The BSO is open to all students, but it does feel a bit like an exclusive club, because only some classes have the cultural capital necessary to appreciate the music. Even though the BSO does a lot of community outreach, I have a hard time imagining an inner-city student in a Baltimore public school going to a BSO concert out of his/her own free will and enjoying it.