I love Tom's question -- an artistic project that would involve the community. Here's one -- why not commission a piece that would involve musicians from the community? I mean many community musicians of all abilities, and all ages. A model for this is Britten's absolutely wonderful hour-long opera Noye's Fludde, which is written for the musical resources of an entire town. There are parts for a few professional musicians, amateur musicians, teenagers, beginning violinists who can only play on open strings, recorder players, the local handbell choir, the church choir, and of course children of all ages, who play the animals.The Voice of God is a speaking role that can easily be done by a non-musician. (I think that's right, though my memory might deceive me, even though many years ago I played the role myself. Not as a non-musician, of course.) There's a recording, if anyone's curious to hear how all this works out.

So how about this? Why not do it? I suggested this once to the music director of a regional orchestra, who'd had some notable success programming new music and wanted to build on that, and also attract some national attention. I suggested John Corigliano as the composer, or, if he wouldn't do it, myself. But Tom, you could write the piece in Philadelphia!

I believe the Houston Grand Opera has done something like this, commissioning a number of composers to write pieces that will each involve some substantial community musical resource. But just imagine my idea in practice -- the orchestra does a piece that involves local rock bands, a marching band, a gospel choir, members of a youth orchestra, music of immigrant groups, some very edgy new music group, Suzuki violins, a jazz group…and more. Just imagine it!

Music education. I agree that there should be much more of it. Just recently, in the region where my wife and I have our country house, Levon Helm, the drummer of The Band (one of the great '60s rock groups) organized a benefit for music education in the local high schools. This is important.

But I'm not sure that music education has much to do with rebuilding the classical music audience. If we think it does, we're assuming that the problem is that people don't have enough exposure to the music. And that, I submit, is pretty clearly not true. A very well-known Knight Foundation report showed that many, many more people listen to classical  music (on the radio, for instance) than ever go to classical concerts. I have anecdotal data from many people who listen to classical music at home, on CD, but never go to classical concerts. iTunes reports a large number of classical downloads, many of them bought by younger people. If you browse iTunes playlists, you'll see many that mix classical music and pop. No way (in my experience) that the people making those playlists are going to classical concerts, though they're listening to classical music.

And, most devastating of all, I've heard about a study in Britain that showed that even young classical musicians, members of youth orchestras, didn't go to classical concerts?

Why didn't they go? Because they didn't like the ambience, the way the concerts feel, the formality, the preponderance of old people, the stuffiness, etc., etc, .etc. That's what one of my downstairs neighbors in New York says, too. She's in her early forties, the perfect model of a "culturally aware non-attender." She listens to classical music at home, and says she might go to concerts if they were shorter, if they started later, if she had the option of sitting at a table and having a drink, as she can do at many clubs.

So the problem with music education -- as a way of rebuilding the classical audience (besides the fact that it will take far too long; we'll all be out of business before the newly educated generation is old enough to buy tickets) -- is simply that it only teaches people about the music. But the music isn't the problem! It's the ambience of classical music, the deadly air of classical concerts, that's the problem. So music education would somehow have to socialize people to accept that deadliness, and that will never work, not least because it's asking people to accept something that goes opposite to every current trend in our culture.

Yes, music education is a good idea. (As long as it teaches more than classical music. How many Americans know the music -- blues and gospel, for instance -- that led to rock & roll? How many have ever heard Robert Johnson, often thought to be the greatest blues singer? How about all the classical musicians in my Juilliard courses who've never heard Charlie Parker?) But it won't build a new audience for classical music, unless the classical music world changes pretty decisively.