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Belfast?

I disagree really. I think a bit of misinformation exists on this forum a bit. Art music (classical, instrumental, etc.) has never been the popular idiom. There has always been a much more widely listened to folk music. We tend to forget that Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Beethoven, and many other composers probably weren't widely known by Joe Blow living in a rural hamlet in Sweden. Today, in contrast, many people know who John Adams is. Philip Glass is another who is well known amongst many diverse people. Both of these composers have achieved far more publicity in their own lifetime than virtually any composer pre-1920. Mozart, to make a comparison, was widely heard in courts throughout Europe (Prague, Vienna, Belfast, Italy, Paris, etc.) However, aside from public concerts held in parks and other public venues, most -if not all- his music was completely inaccessible to the lower class peasants who comprised 99% of the population. While the Kings and Queens of Europe, along with their nobility, were busy listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, etc. the peasants were busy making their own kind of music. This music, largely lost today, did in turn influence the music of these composers (and later composers like Bartok). Do I think that the future of art music is in peril? Absolutely not. There will always be an audience and a venue for it - just as there has always been. There will always be people who will worry about the survivability of art music - just as there has always been. I think what matters most, is that we write music and leave the speculation up to future pundits who will look back at our work.