Over the last year we’ve seen incredible disruption to the classical music at a time when it was also struggling to keep up in a digital age. As a result, we need answers to the big questions which got me thinking a little…
Who do we turn to? Who will give us some answers to our big problems? Who are the thought leaders in classical music?
I actually opened this up to Twitter which brought about an unexpected question. What actually is a thought leader in classical music?
So, I Googled it and as you can imagine found a million and one naff business articles. But what I did find was a really nice definition on Wikipedia of what “thought leadership” is:
“Thought leadership is influencing a narrative by understanding what needs to be done.”
Back to Twitter and it was interesting to see who people suggested and what their reasons behind it were. Based on the Wikipedia definition and my own thoughts I came up with what thought leaders both are and are not in classical music.
Classical music thought leaders are not necessarily very good musicians. They may even not be musicians. Being famous and advocating for a topic generally also doesn’t make a classical music thought leader (anyone can say “we need more music education”)
But what a classical music thought leader is, is someone who is looking at our world and the problems our sector faces, and then creating original solutions to those problems, tackling abuse, and the influencing the narrative we all have.
So, in no particular order, here are my list of classical music thought leaders that we should all be following and listening to.
