A suggestion for Miley Cyrus and Kanye West: Move over and make room for violinists and piano-players.
This is the new generation of music. The classical music genre’s sales grew by 5% this past year, while rock and country sales went down by about 6% and 11%. Andrea Bocelli and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra rank as some of the world’s biggest music moneymakers.
While Bocelli and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra have been popular for decades, other artists have made themselves popular within a few years, mostly with the help of YouTube. The Piano Guys have amassed 2.5 million subscribers to their channel and can get almost a million views for a new video in a single day, while Lindsey Stirling has four million subscribers and a plethora of viral videos.
These groups of artists are Mormon, which may influence their love of classical music and desire to be artists. One member of the Piano Guys, Van Der Beek, explained what music means beyond the sounds.
“I love how music can help you feel the Spirit,” he said in an interview with KSL.
Stirling has also made clear that not only does classical music touch her soul but that being able to share her love of music in a public way has strengthened her testimony.
“The entertainment industry, it can make you so jaded. … I am so grateful for the gospel and for the standards it has kind of set in my life because, one, it just makes me a happier person, it’s kept me safe, and I know that even all the people on my tour have recognized how the way that our tour is, and the “rules” we have on the tour bus, they keep everybody happy,” Stirling said.
One of the benefits of being both Mormon and in the pop-classical genre is the amount of other Mormon artists to collaborate with. Stirling recently played with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Piano Guys did a video with Alex Boye. Stirling and the Piano Guys have also played together.
Despite some claims that classical music is dead, the fact that these artists can make age-old music relevant to new generations through new media shows that good music never dies.
