Socio-Economic Characteristics of Audiences for Western Classical Music in Japan: A Statistical Analysis

Abstract

In this paper we are concerned with the role of the Western classical music in contemporary Japanese society and culture. Japan launched the adoption of Western music in the curriculum of the new national educational system which was promulgated in August 1872 by the Japanese Government after Japan’s modernization. In almost one century, Japan has attained intellectual accomplishment of such a stature that we are proud of our ensembles, instrumentalists, vocalists, conductors and composers from Japan in the international music markets. Moreover, concerts of classical music flourish in Japan thanks to a flood of visits by renowed ensembles and opera companies from abroad. In the light of these concert activities now in Japan one would naturally ask what is current status of classical music in Japanese society and culture. Or, to put it in another way, what meaning does the Western classical music hold for the Japanese in their social and community life? In order to respond to this broad question, the focus of this paper will be placed not on the production of cultural services (or of classic music) but on their reception. The study of their reception, sheds new light on the development and separation of “high culture” from “popular culture” and demonstrates that the notion of “cultural capital”, first put forward by Bourdieu (1979), as indicated in the next section, is a useful way of clarifying the significance of the production and circulation of cultural services in our society.¹