RPO report reveals increased engagement with classical music

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s (RPO) recent report is a round-up of research carried out by the organisation since March 2021, chronicling the changes in public feeling towards Classical music throughout the pandemic as well as the impact felt by arts organisations themselves.

Based on a survey of over 10,000 people in the UK, the report’s key findings relate to music as a wellbeing tool throughout the pandemic, anxiety about returning to the concert hall, diversity and inclusion in classical music audiences and what can be done to support the industry going forward.

In his report overview James Williams, managing director of the RPO, wrote: ‘The return to the concert hall in 2022 is something for us all to celebrate, but we must not overlook the fact that during 2020 and 2021 the future of the performing arts community hung in the balance.’

Williams added: ‘Whilst live music was significantly limited in 2021, the public's engagement with orchestral music grew – but in different ways.’ The report reveals that three in five people (59 per cent) said they actively looked for new ways to fulfil their interest in the performing arts and around a quarter of 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed explored new genres of music during lockdown, with 30 per cent discovering orchestral music.

February 2022 saw the RPO become the first international orchestra to tour the USA after a two-year break due to the pandemic, but the orchestra’s research during the previous summer had revealed that one in four people were not considering attending live concerts as they believed indoor events were still unsafe.

The Insight Alliance's post-concert research between July and August 2021 revealed a possible solution to this issue as it showed that, following the first visit back to a cultural venue, people’s confidence levels rose from 53 per cent before attending to 79 per cent after the visit – a relative increase of nearly 50 per cent.

In his concluding remarks Vasily Petrenko, music director of the RPO, wrote: ‘Some people want to rush back to the concert hall, and some will take slow steps, but the important thing is to build confidence so that all will return.’ He added: ‘It is possible we may find the audience for orchestral music is bigger after the Covid-19 era.’

The RPO’s report also laid out predictions for classical music going forward, stating that, following the pandemic, arts organisations will face an increasing need to partner with businesses to secure investment. The report lays out the elements making arts organisations attractive to businesses, with one in five businesses willing to assist orchestras which support ‘health and well-being, social inclusion, and education work in the community’ and the same proportion viewing an organisation’s ‘history and reputation’ as influential in its decision to support the organisation.

In an observation published in the report, Huw Davies, RPO’s deputy managing director wrote: ‘There is no question that the succession of lockdowns and Covid-19 restrictions had a devastating effect on live performance in 2021’ but added: ‘Since lockdown restrictions were lifted, we have noticed that our audiences have been more diverse’.

In order to investigate diversity and inclusion amongst classical music audiences, the RPO surveyed an additional 600 people from ethnic minority groups. Around a third of people (36 per cent) in the UK stated they ‘did not know much about classical music’ and this proportion rose to 42 per cent among respondents from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The importance of education is promoting inclusion in classical music is evidenced by the fact that a greater than average proportion (5 per cent above average), of respondents from ethnic minority backgrounds stated that music needed to be taught as a core subject in schools and that school children should have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument.

Although the RPO’s mid-2021 research revealed that for the first time, approximately one in five people across all UK regions expressed an interest in orchestral music, the report notes that local authority spending on culture in the UK has not grown proportionally. Instead, spending has almost halved (-43 per cent) over the past decade, with Local Council culture funding equating to around £43 per person.

The research used for this report was conducted for the RPO by Maru Blue and was undertaken in December 2020, February 2021, July 2021, November 2021, and January 2022. Each survey was conducted online among a representative sample of 2,000 adults across the UK.

You can find the full report here.

You can find out more about the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra here.