Classical Crossover Music Analysis

According to Whiting, the primary purpose of classical crossover music is to “appeal to a wider audience than the original version of music.” The well-known classical pianist Christopher O'Riley once said, "I think crossover in general as a commercial term has been a bad designation of something that has an awfully long history to it." Christopher O’Riley is known for playing transcriptions of songs by the rock band Radiohead. His works show his vision of "Beethoven and Mozart sitting down at a dinner party, playing the popular aria of the day” to him Beethoven was probably better known as an improviser until people started giving him attention for his symphonies. Christopher O’Riley goes on to explain that Liszt borrowed Hungarian folk
Typically, classical music appeals only to a narrow demographic, which The Guardian journalist Stephen Moss (2007) described this audience as “getting on in years, retired, white [and] middle-class.” Most Americans view Classical music as a luxury, something reserved for the rich and elite. Others see it as an unnecessary distraction (Lebrecht, 1997). An article from Slate announced, “Classical music in America is dead” in 2014. The author of the article Mark Vanhoenacker (2014) stated, “Younger fans are not converting to classical music as they age. The last generation to broadly love classical music may simply be aging, like World War I veterans, out of existence.” He also mentions the problem with music education at public schools; how school funding cuts fall first on arts education and no music specialists serving elementary schools. The Classical radio is slowly going away and many orchestras are filing bankruptcies. Even The New York City Opera, once called as the “people’s opera,” filed for bankruptcy in October, 2014 (Vanhoenacker, 2014). In reality, the traditional classical music is slowly dying and underappreciated by the
On the other hand, all these formal restrictions do not necessarily apply to Classical Crossover music concerts. It is probably why Classical Crossover music is more casual and easier for the audiences to truly enjoy.

Music that Sells Today’s classical album chart is consisted of both traditional classical music and crossover classical music artists (Adams, 2006). According to Billboard’s Classical Album Chart of October 10th, 2015, the top 20 albums are all by crossover classical artists, including: Il Volo, Yo-Yo Ma, Black Violin, Lindsey Stirling, The Piano Guys, The Tenors, Andrea Bocelli and Jackie Evancho (see