I agree. Avante-garde classical is very esoteric and unreachable by your typical audience today.

Another point to consider is the lack of audience education, for lack of a better term. Maybe this falls under your first point about time, but I’ve found, through my years of being a gigging musician, as well as during my time performing in classical groups at college, that by and large, people don’t understand or support the etiquette today, that they once did. There’s less appreciation, almost, as if music has become so cheap (through ipods, movies, TV, and radio), that the value has decreased. It’s become so easy to obtain music, there is less and less regard for its beauty and the skill of those who create it.

I was walking into my local Walmart a couple weeks back and had the privilege of listening to a church school orchestra performing to raise funds for a summer string camp. I was the only one who stopped, the only one who applauded (and one of the few who donated). Granted busking is a different kettle of fish from the concert hall, but the point remains: everyone was so busy on their phones, listening to their own ipod, and arguing with one another to even pause and appreciate. It’s not limited to there, either; I’ve played venues where I had to compete with the big sports game (“we won’t turn off the game,” “turn down your sound, the game is on”) and I’ve played in concert halls (happened during my college days) where people not only forget to turn off their cell phones, but proceed to carry on a LOUD conversation for the duration of the concert!

(On a side note, I am glad your area maintains music funding, where I live, music education funding and related arts programs are being cut left and right.)

It breaks my heart, because we are seeing a huge epidemic now in our society of suicide, depression, and anxiety disorders, and I feel like they’re related. We’re not living from the heart, we’re shutting ourselves off from beauty, we’re forgetting we’re human... and only the arts (music, art, literature, theater, dance) can show us the way back home.