Applause and silence

My mother once asked me why my music is greeted with such enthusiasm in the concert hall and yet seems to lead nowhere afterwards. The question, innocent as it was, revealed the divide at the heart of contemporary music life. Audiences respond to sound, to shape, to meaning — to the thing itself. Institutions respond to alignment, visibility, and the optics of belonging. The former is human; the latter bureaucratic. When listeners applaud, they confirm that the work has spoken to them. When institutions fall silent, they confirm only that they are listening for something else. When music still moves hearts but not hierarchies, perhaps it’s the hierarchies that are out of tune.