Review of Robert Freeman,The Crisis of Classical Music in America: Lessons from the Life in the Education of Musicians(Rowman & Littlefield, 2014)

Abstract

. . . a lot has changed since the time I graduated from college in 1957, in the world generally and in the field of music. And the speed of change appears to be accelerating. (1)[1] Robert Freeman is probably best known among post-secondary music faculty as the former director of the Eastman School of Music; he came to Rochester from a musicology post at MIT in 1972, served for more than two decades at Eastman, and left in 1996 to take up positions as dean at the New England Conservatory and then later at the University of Texas at Austin. While Freeman had very little administrative experience when he began the top job at Eastman, he soon became a leading figure in collegiate music administration, in part because of his vision and innovation as director, and in part owing to the prestige and standing of the school he led. Indeed, many today would consider Freeman to be among the country's most authoritative and experienced senior figures in performing-arts leadership-the dean of music-school deans.[2] Freeman's recent book engages a wide range of issues that should interest all faculty currently teaching music in colleges and universities in the United States, especially given the rapid changes that so many departments, schools, colleges, and universities are facing.(1) As Freeman points out (91-92), music faculty can often view their professional world primarily through their own specialties, and the structure of modern university life tends to encourage this.(2) His book provides these faculty members (and their students) an opportunity to consider the bigger picture-a view beyond one's own studio, classroom, department, school, and university. Since the future will likely bring changes in music curricula to almost every school or department, faculty will be best prepared to make the right adjustments when they are able to see how what they do is situated within a broader context.[3] Freeman's book is among the relatively few that deal directly with music schools. Previous monographs by Henry Kingsbury (1988) and Bruno Nettl (1995) have explored the culture of the "Music Building" from an ethnomusicological perspective, while Joseph Polisi (2005) has published a collection of essays focused on his experience as president of the Juilliard School.(3) The Crisis of Classical Music in America, however, is more than a book about music schools. As the title announces, it also engages the larger question of the status of classical music in our culture, and especially the future of the symphony orchestra.(4) Finally, the book is also a kind of professional memoir, rich in details of Freeman's own biography and especially focused on his time at Eastman.(5) The stories of Freeman's early life are engagingly told, chronicling his childhood in a home filled with music, teenage summers at Tanglewood, undergraduate experience at Harvard, graduate study at Princeton, and time spent as a junior faculty member at MIT. At one point, for instance, Freeman relates how his father turned to Leonard Bernstein for advice about his son's future and education (33); this is but one of several stories dotted with well-known figures from the world of classical music that make for fun reading. Some may find a few of the personal stories from the Eastman years to be less engaging; at times these seem only loosely connected to the discussion at hand but they are often very detailed nonetheless.(6)[4] To organize the range of concerns the book addresses, Freeman presents the chapters as essays directed primarily at specific readerships. One chapter each is directed to: parents of students; students; faculty; deans; provosts and presidents; and directors of endowments, the NEA, and NEH. These chapters are preceded by ones discussing the changing times, origins and development of musical instruction, and Freeman's own personal history. As an appendix, Freeman includes a document on teaching evaluation developed at Eastman, along with his first address to the Eastman faculty from 1972. …