Delewareonline.com reports on the results of classical music being used to curb loitering, pushers and ruffians.
“Music soothes the savage beast,” a Boston variety store owner told the Globe after light classical selections were used to squelch teen loitering near the Forest Hills subway stop.
After decades of the classical music establishment’s fighting to attract crowds — especially young people and what it calls nontraditional audiences — city councils and government ministers are taking exactly the opposite approach: using high culture as a kind of disinfectant.
“There’s something very poignant about the idea of classical music as bug spray, as pest control,” says Robert Fink, a music historian at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The public playing of the classical and baroque music — which has reduced crime by 25–37% in the areas tested in London, Australia, Canada and the United States — has attracted some opponents however:
Amy Anderson, president of Chamber Music Monterey Bay, said, “I find it sad and scary that the educated and middle-aged folks who would be on a city council are so inclined to think classical music would drive anyone away, rather than the opposite.”
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