“You’re an opera singer? I LOVED Phantom of the Opera!”

“Classical music is just so relaxing.”

“What do you think of Jackie Evancho?”

“You should try out for American Idol!”

I heard all of those statements, and countless others like it, while I was training to be an opera singer. Though everyone who replied in this manner was undoubtedly well-intentioned, to my 20-something self, it was a sucker punch to my ego each and every time.

Hello! Hannah Goldshlack-Wolf here, your Senior PR Manager in New York, and I’m a former opera singer and recovering classical music snob. I got my Bachelor’s in vocal performance from Juilliard and my Master’s from Bard; perhaps I have earned enough cred to justify the snobbery, but, as I’ve gotten older and (I hope?) slightly wiser, I’ve come to look upon these statements with a little more grace. After all, snobbery can’t exist without privilege, something we all need to keep in check, especially in cultural conversations.

Young and snobby Hannah would have awkwardly tried to shut down statements like those above by saying something to imply the speaker was uneducated in the vast differences between classical music and classical crossover. And to be clear, my stance is that the two genres are indeed separate, and it’s a non sequitur to mention Webern (Anton) and Webber (Andrew Lloyd) in the same breath. Working in the classical music communications sector for close to a decade has taught me that it’s more complicated than categorizing music as this or that; and, it’s a cop-out to stubbornly default to the prestige opinion: namely, classical music is good, intelligent, and worthy, and classical crossover is vacant, trite, and uneducated.

So, what is classical crossover, and why does it matter? Classical crossover is, to oversimplify, music in which classical compositional motifs exist in a different, usually lighter, setting. There are countless examples, far beyond the Il Divo/Susan Boyle/Sarah Brightman stereotypes. At the turn of the 20th century, the Irish tenor John McCormack had a successful tenure on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, as well as a lucrative recording career singing the folk tunes of his heritage. Liberace’s sparkly capes and gold lamé jackets were dazzling to look at, but frankly, so were his pianistic chops (and which of you can bang out a Chopin medley wearing that many diamond rings?). Themes by Rachmaninoff can be found in the pop masterpiece, “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen, made ultra-famous by Celine Dion. And of course, Beyonce graced us all with an excerpt from the 18th Century Italian song “Caro mio ben” in her most genre-inclusive album yet, “Cowboy Carter.”

(As for what classical crossover isn’t, it’s not experimental, atonal, aleatoric, or anything we would consider “new music,” such as Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, or Caroline Shaw, or Meredith Monk. That’s its own thing with its own merits.)

How we talk about classical crossover matters, even if it’s not your cup of tea. Especially if it’s not your cup of tea, actually, and I am looking at you, conservatory grads and symphony stans. Walk into a room with any classical concert presenter and the conversation invariably lands on the conundrum of how to bring new audiences into the concert hall. One of the most common ways of doing this is to reject the elitist/purist view that a classical concert must comprise a Beethoven symphony, Haydn string quartet, or Mozart opera, and ipso facto, anything else is somehow “less than.” The way not to encourage new audiences to experience classical music is to belittle them or pander to them, and frankly, we as an industry and community cannot afford the snobbery anymore. It is time to be more inclusive not just of audiences of different backgrounds, but of audiences with different tastes.

Here at WildKat, I’ve had the pleasure of encountering some extraordinary works by living composers whose artistic output could be described as classical crossover. Recent examples include:

Matt Cook’s Braveship is a symphonic suite that explores an orchestra’s uncanny storytelling ability.

Stephen Emmer’s Mt. Mundane draws on elements of his extensive background in the pop and rock worlds.

James Ross’s expertise in traditional Celtic music is the backdrop for his album of string quartet and piano works, Landscape to Light.

Yohanan Cinnamon created Piano & Strings through his affinity for melody, despite having no formal training as a composer.

…and many others.

The one commonality here is that not one of them assumes an unintelligent audience. The music is classical crossover for its own sake. It is not watered-down classical music written to appeal to the tastes of pop consumers (that would be classical appropriation, and I will not list specific examples of music which I feel fits this bill out of respect for differences in opinion), But, it’s high time classical music snobs and neophytes alike start talking about this particular breed of music, and accepting – celebrating, even – that music was not intended to be understood by some, but to be enjoyed by all.