It’s the headline violinists, bassoonists and bangers of big expensive drums look for each year: classical music is back, and young people like it again.
To be fair, the data mostly checks out: According to a 2022 study from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), people under 35 are actually more likely to listen to classical music than their parents. In a follow up report from early 2024, they reported interest in attending orchestral concerts peaked the previous year. They also found that orchestral music itself had a bigger increase in popularity than any other.
According to their report, more than half of classical audiences are newcomers to the space, with less than a third being longtime fans.
But as an art form that goes back centuries instead of decades, it has more hurdles for attracting new fans than other resurgent trends. A perception by young people that it’s an overly formal, inaccessible and stagnant form of music has threatened orchestras around the world, which, combined with shrinking post-COVID attendance, put classical music on the ropes.
A pair of classical musicians, including British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cancelled a sold-out show in Toronto after Air Canada refused to allow them to board their flight with a $4.5 million cello, even though they’d purchased a seat for the instrument.
Instead of trying to force the old world allure of classical into a modern era, it’s done the opposite: using streaming, social media and a general dressing down of the dressy atmosphere of symphonies, classical musicians, educators and programmers are focusing on how new classical music can feel, and how modern it can become.
Rise of classical streaming
Businesses seem to be dancing to this very tune. Apple has dumped money into the classical music space, acquiring rights to music from the Carnegie Hall, London Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera and more.
After buying and shutting down the niche classical streamer Primephonic, they touted their new Apple Music Classical app as being the biggest classical music streaming catalogue in the world on launch and have since expanded into Asia — betting big on Western classical music’s culture-spanning allure to win market share from China’s regionally dominant Tencent Music Entertainment.
The Berliner Philharmoniker has recorded and broadcast all performances through its Digital Concert Hall for over 15 years. And though their claim as the “world’s first streaming service.” may be questionable, they did herald a trend. In the last five years, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — three of America’s original “Big Five” orchestras — have experimented with their own streaming services.
Of the remaining two, the Philadelphia Orchestra launched a streaming service in 2016, and the Cleveland Orchestra opted to partner with existing platform Idagio. It’s a similar move to how London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the Salzburg Festival and the Hong Kong Philharmonic — and many, many others — have partnered with Apple Classical to get to digital audiences.
The response has been mixed: New Yorker writer Alex Ross criticized the platform’s truncated playlists geared to commuters and young people short on time and attention span. He begrudgingly admitted the wealth of choice represented “a significant advance over the miseries of Apple Music and Spotify,” though still paled in comparison to boutique classical streamers like Idagio and Presto.
It’s a strategy that is also less likely to alienate existing fans: according to Luminate, baby-boomer fans of classical music are more likely than country or pop fans in the same age cohort to use streaming services. And according to that same 2024 RPO report, COVID-19 lockdowns “supercharged” the emerging trend of streaming classical music — a habit that has surprisingly maintained its prevalence even now that live performances have returned.
“This helps to explain the resurgent interest in the genre,” the report reads. “The heightened levels of discovery at home helped to fuel an interest in attending a concert.”
Making the leap from digital to IRL
But when it comes to those concert halls, programmers have needed to adapt as well — especially to hold the under-35 crowd. The stop-and-start, leisure viewing that streaming offers helps lower the barrier of entry to those used to more casual consumption habits, according to Andrew Bryan, lead of Canada’s Candlelight Concerts.
“It just is not the way that we consume media,” he said of traditional in-person classical concerts. “It’s not the way that young people are used to consuming media.”
And whether it be long performances, dress codes, expensive concerts or complex pieces they weren’t necessarily ready to consume, attempts to make classical music less intimidating to consume have taken hold at in-person events. The Candlelight Concerts series was started for that reason, enlisting professional musicians to perform both classical and modern pieces, ranging from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to Taylor Swift medleys.
“I hope that’s their first step into realizing the beauty that this music really is, and then it will take them into more of the normal classical music and orchestral music that’s available to them,” Bryan said. “It’s a really good access and entry point that didn’t exist before.”
It was the whole reason they launched the now global project in the first place: young people reaching out to say that they were interested in classical music, but found the world and its performances inaccessible. It was a misconception that Bryan says they’re one of many trying to rectify.
Music journalist Michael Vincent says that’s part of the reason classical concerts have seen declining attendance. But 2020’s complete shuttering of live performances also didn’t help: concert-going is a habit, he said, “and that habit was broken a fair bit during COVID.”
Focusing on reaching listeners outside of the traditional concert spaces — and outside of the traditional classical music fare — is integral to classical music’s survival, he said. And that’s helped by breaking down the strict walls of genre, which increasingly sees listeners willing to venture outside of their comfort zones. Meeting them in the middle, as some classical music purveyors have done in programming more populist songs into their performances, has helped classical attract new listeners.
Combined with performances of video game, film and modern music — even working directly with pop stars, like the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s collab with Drake — this approach is intended to wipe the dust off a musical practice that may otherwise alienate younger demographics.
“That’s the reality of music consumers these days, is that people typically don’t stay within one genre of music,” he said, pointing to both Candlelight Concerts and Strings From Paris, the French ensemble that adapted Drake’s music to the artist’s approval. “They listen to a whole bunch of things, so [musicians] are not afraid to program a bunch of different genres of music in the same concert, which attracts younger people, and they enjoy that experience.”
Social media vanguard
But perhaps the most obvious boon has been the same strategy every industry in the world has leaned on: social media. While Strings From Paris garnered their Drake nod after posting a cover on TikTok, other influencers have done their part to shake the stuffy image of the classical world.
TwoSet Violin, the social media team of two professional Australian violinists, leveraged their irreverent comedy into becoming the unofficial kings of classical music’s younger face — attracting more than four million subscribers on YouTube before suddenly quitting in October over the pressures and demands of their sharp rise to fame. Twenty-five-year-old cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason divided an online presence of modern music adaptations and traditional in-person concertos to become a catalyst in classical music’s popularity among young people.
And Canadian Tony Ann, 24, saw social media as the secret to his success. The pianist doesn’t necessarily think of himself as a classical musician; instead, he’s been dubbed a neoclassical expert for his original compositions and pop music adaptations.
While he started out at 12 with a love for Beethoven and plan to become a classical pianist, the simplicity and opportunities popular music offered quickly swayed him. The opportunity social media offered to advertise himself to young people who might otherwise be wary of instrumental piano music, he said, was obvious — and very quickly successful.
“Twenty years ago, people had to go out to a classical concert to be exposed — or a friend of a friend. But today, you know, someone can just open their phone,” Ann said, pointing to what he sees from the stage as evidence. “Definitely, I am noticing a younger audience.”
