All in the balance: Bachtrack’s Classical Music Statistics 2024

How is the classical music world changing? Over the course of 2024, Bachtrack listed 30,774 concert, opera and dance performances, in 48 countries across the world. This comprises the largest database of classical music performance on the web, allowing us to spot trends and reveal as-yet-unnoticed insights into how the classical music world is changing.

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In 2024, we can see a continuation of many trends spotted over the past decade – including an increasing prevalence of women conductors and composers, and a generally increasing frequency of performances of music by living composers. Bachtrack’s listings comprise the seasons of large orchestras, opera houses and concert venues, so trends observed tell us about how programming decisions are changing within these more mainstream institutions.

Getting busy

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra leapt ten places versus 2023 to become the busiest orchestra in 2024’s listings. Among conductors in the concert hall, Klaus Mäkelä has ascended to the top of the list, up from 2nd last year – his 113 concert engagements listed in 2024 rival the Toronto Symphony’s 118. Another noted re-entry into the top 10 busiest conductors is Sir Simon Rattle, whose 78 engagements in 2024 represent more than a twofold increase on the previous year.

Women conductors continue to make their presence felt. 2024 saw noted increases in the number of engagements for several well-known women conductors, including Joana Mallwitz, Nathalie Stutzmann, Simone Young, Kristiina Poska and Marie Jacquot, the latter becoming music director of the Royal Danish Orchestra at the age of 34. Several other early-career women conductors saw increasing numbers of engagements, an encouraging sign.

But it must be emphasised that women are still greatly outnumbered by men in the conducting world. Of all concerts listed in our database, 13% were conducted by women, as compared with 11% in 2023. Of the top 50 busiest conductors, 5 are women – with 13 in total in the top 100. No women appear in the top 20 busiest conductors. The comparison with soloists is somewhat stark: of those with at least 10 engagements listed in 2024, women made up 26% of concert pianists, 21% of concert cellists and 45% of concert violinists.

Diversity of repertoire

One data point we were interested in concerned concert soloists: namely, who plays what? Do some soloists take on a greater range of repertoire in a season than others? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is yes – but the diversity of repertoire among some soloists was surprising. Kirill Gerstein, the 4th busiest piano soloist in our listings, performed a remarkable 18 concertante works, including Busoni’s gargantuan Piano Concerto in C and, among others, Ligeti’s Piano Concerto, two concertos each by Adès, Rachmaninov and Ravel, and three by Beethoven.

Our two busiest violinists Augustin Hadelich and Renaud Capuçon performed 17 and 15 different concertante works this season. Among cello soloists, whose repertoire is naturally more limited, Anastasia Kobekina, Sol Gabetta and Alisa Weilerstein all performed at least 9 different concertos – with Weilerstein performing two world premieres. We found 15 pianists and 15 violinists who performed at least 10 different concertante works in 2024. While our listings only capture a sample of soloists’ activity over a season – many perform much more than our listings document – this sampling does demonstrate that top-flight soloists do not always limit themselves to a small variety of repertoire.

A year of Czechs and Faurés

What draws soloists, conductors and concert planners to repertoire? Clearly, there’s a combination of factors – popularity, practicality, prestige, pizzazz. Anniversaries and centenaries are also a significant motivation, and 2024 saw a series of anniversaries, including Bruckner, Smetana, Fauré and Schoenberg. How did these anniversaries materialise in performances?

Given his death in 1924, we expected to see a bump in Fauré performances. But the extent of this bump defied expectations. In France, with 243 listed performances up from 67 the previous year, Fauré performances saw a 362% increase. In the UK, Fauré enjoyed a comparable 250% bump. The US saw only 33 listed performances of Fauré in 2024 – but this still represents a 300% increase on the previous year.

Smetana’s 200th anniversary coincided with the 2024 Year of Czech Music, leading to Smetana’s operas seeing an almost twofold increase in performances. It also led to Dvořák ascending to 10th spot in the most performed composers of concert music. Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony “From the New World” was 2024’s most performed work. Janáček also saw a bump, particularly in opera houses, where he is the 10th most performed composer of opera in 2024. But not all bumps are related to anniversaries – Stravinsky enjoyed a bumper opera year in 2024, with 92 listed performances, an increase of around 350% on the previous year.

Bruckner, given his 200th anniversary, did see a significant rise in numbers of performances, particularly in Germany and the UK: in the latter the 84 performances listed represent a five-fold increase on 2023. In Bruckner’s native Austria, he saw only a mild increase – indeed there were slightly more listed performances of Bruckner in 2022 than in 2024. Can it be that, given the typical size and scale of his works, the Bruckner market in Austria is at saturation, while Germany’s isn’t?

The centenary of Puccini’s 1924 death also led to a bump in opera performances, knocking Verdi off the top spot, with over 1204 listed performances. But the proportional terms increase of 26% is relatively mild. Schoenberg, celebrating a 150th anniversary, saw a bigger proportional increase: 252% in the concert hall, and a notable 58 opera performances.

Living composers

What about living composers? Once again, 2024 sees John Williams and Arvo Pärt as the most frequently performed living composers. But one noteworthy ascension is that of Caroline Shaw, who was the 4th most frequently performed living composer. Her work Entr’acte, which has versions for string quartet and string orchestra, saw 30 performances across the year, being adopted by prominent conductors and string quartets across the world. This single work received more performances in 2024 than any woman composer did in Bachtrack’s 2013 listings.

The death of Kaija Saariaho was also keenly felt in 2024, with 96 listed performances, more than any other year in our records. We count 8 women in the top 20 most frequently performed living composers – it is a tragedy that Saariaho can no longer be counted among them. While the most frequently performed living composers are seeing greater equity, age still skews high, with the median age of the top 20 being 65. But we also saw several young composers enter the top 100 for the first time, with 39-year-old Lisa Streich’s 28 performances, up from 9 in 2023, being particularly notable.

Rates of performance of music by living composers are, in general, slowly increasing – a finding we observed in 2023 – but in some locations the rise in 2024 has been worth noting. 12.3% of performances of concert works in France were of pieces by living composers, up from 8.7% in 2022, with the equivalent figure being 19% for both Sweden and Australia.

It should be emphasised that these listings capture the activities of orchestras and larger venues, rather than specialist ensembles or contemporary music festivals, which are less frequently listed on Bachtrack.

Dance

In the dance world, unsurprisingly, The Nutcracker reigns supreme, still the most performed ballet in the world with around 400 more performances than the next most popular ballet, Swan Lake. However, we are observing a slight decrease in Nutcracker frequency, of around 11% – as companies choose to schedule Cinderella, A Christmas Carol or The Snow Queen as alternative seasonal works.

Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is in the top 10 most performed ballets for the first time. This production, premiered in 2011 by The Royal Ballet and later by the National Ballet of Canada, has since been performed by at least 7 other ballet companies around the world.

Other notable additions to the most frequently performed dance works are several one-act ballets mounted by newly relaunched London City Ballet, clocking in more than 40 performances each in the second half of 2024. Sharon Eyal also had many performances of one-act pieces, including the increasingly in-demand Autodance.

Eyal, for the second year in a row, is the only female choreographer in the top 20 most frequently performed choreographers (13th) with Crystal Pite just missing out at 21st. Wheeldon has jumped up to 6th, with the usual suspects still running ahead: Petipa, Ivanov, Balanchine, Bourne and Ailey. Considering just the most performed living choreographers, women comprise 3 of the top 20 (and 9 of the top 50).

Looking to the future

What to make of all of this? Since the huge disruption of the Coronavirus pandemic, which hit performing arts organisations hard, several longstanding trends observable within the last decade have continued. Whether the observed increase in equity amongst performers and composers will continue is moot, and while in some places these increases are notable, in others they are marginal.

What our statistics don’t capture are how seasons have been planned – decisions already made, or being made at this instant. Do orchestras still maintain commitments to diversify their repertoire, performing more women composers and composers of colour? Do they remain committed to looking to appoint women to guest and assistant conductor positions – a necessary step if chief conductors are to obtain gender equity? Are dance companies looking to obtain greater equity in their choice of choreographers?

At Bachtrack we recognise talent wherever we see it. But we also think that arts organisations, together with governments, have a duty to maintain an active role in the health of the arts themselves. As to the future of the performing arts, things remain very much in the balance.

This article is also available in Japanese.