The BSO should harness this moment to reach new audiences

Bill Barclay, a director, composer, and Weston native, leads two programs at Symphony Hall next month.

A March 6 announcement from the Boston Symphony Orchestra is still ricocheting through the music world: Boston will lose its elite music director, Andris Nelsons, at the end of the Tanglewood season in 2027. Nelsons, beloved by musicians and widely in demand, will depart while the organization grapples with a 40 percent decline in classical-music audiences over the past 20 years.

Speculation surrounding the wisdom of this decision is flourishing. But that debate obscures a primary reason the decision was apparently made: the audience. And many people’s assumptions about it — graying and conservative — are out of date.

This is my 10th season with the BSO, mostly creating large theatrical concerts designed to attract new listeners. Those listeners are out there: According to a Classical Pulse study published this month, 55 percent of Americans have attended a classical concert in their lifetimes. Of the more than 4 million adults in the Boston metro area, that translates to a potential classical concert audience of more than 2 million people. Total attendance at Symphony Hall in a season, according to tax filings? About 160,000.

Among Americans who have ever attended a classical concert, the generational patterns are striking: 88 percent of these adults who are under age 45 have been to at least one performance in the past year, and nearly half have been to three. Compare that to concert attendees over age 55: 41 percent have not attended even once in the past year.

Meanwhile, classical streaming, particularly among younger listeners, is growing. According to research from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2020, 65 percent of adults under 35 in the United Kingdom listen to orchestral music regularly, while a global study by the orchestra with the music streamer Deezer and the British Phonographic Industry found that 18- to 25-year-olds account for a third of classical streamers worldwide. BSO broadcasts from Symphony Hall reached an estimated 2.2 million people via streaming and radio in 2024-25, according to its annual report. For every person in the hall, 13 listen to them somewhere else.

So the classical music audience is alive and well. The question is not whether the BSO needs it, but whether this audience needs the BSO.

People streaming the BSO are receiving something real. But neuroscience tells us they are receiving a fraction of what is offered at Symphony Hall, one of the finest acoustical spaces in the world. When people listen passively — music playing while they cook, scroll, or commute — the prefrontal cortex tunes it out. The music becomes wallpaper.

But active listening, the kind inspired by an excellent live orchestra, triggers something categorically different. Live music creates more intense emotional responses more frequently than recorded music. Your brain constantly predicts the next phrase, and when Mahler subverts that expectation with a pleasurable surprise, you receive a hit of dopamine that distracted listening cannot produce. Neurons entrain to live music, synching their firing with the added cues of the live experience, increasing pleasure and engagement.