Most of us in music studies are aware that the technological and economic imperatives of neoliberal capitalism shape the production, circulation, and consumption of classical music. But fewer of us are likely to be aware of – or admit – just how deeply neoliberal ideology is embedded in the classical music world, which still clings to the idea of ‘Art’ with a capital ‘A’ perhaps more than other musics. Marianna Ritchey's Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era forcefully disabuses us of this notion, making clear that the classical music world is shot through with the ideology of neoliberalism, which manifests itself in the language, attitudes, and actions of the musicians, journalists, and institutions that work within it.

Neoliberal capitalism traces its intellectual origins to the economic liberalism of philosophers such as Adam Smith, who believed that a truly free market is rational and therefore incapable of injustice. The modern incarnation of this, neoliberalism, ascended in the United States after the Second World War, primarily through the writings of economists such as Milton Friedman based at the University of Chicago. Beginning in the 1970s, politicians such as Reagan and Thatcher (for whom Friedman acted as economic advisor) crushed labour unions and – with the help of developing communication and information technologies – unleashed a wave of deregulation that freed capital to criss-cross the globe in search of the cheapest raw materials and human labour. Since then, neoliberal economic policies have largely been kept in place, and even promoted, in the United States and the United Kingdom by successive administrations on both sides of the political spectrum.

Composing Capital explores the effects of fifty years of neoliberalism in the classical music industry in the United States. The dissolution of collective identity and social safety nets, along with the evaporation of state support for cultural institutions, means that activities that formerly existed (at least partially) outside the realm of ‘the market’ have now become marketized. In art worlds such as music, this affects not only how culture is valued but also the values that underpin cultural production. While the classical music world once valued autonomous ‘Art’ that, at its best, provided social critique, today's classical musicians, journalists, and institutions value musical populism, individualism, and market-facing entrepreneurialism. Ritchey notes that this in and of itself is not a bad thing; after all, the central project of ‘new musicology’ was to critique the intellectual and aesthetic elitism of modern music. The problem is that, while ‘market friendly’ compositions and performances may be more inclusive (although Ritchey makes a strong argument that this is not the case), they also empty classical music of its political critique, replacing it instead with rhetoric that replicates neoliberal ideology and, Ritchey argues, further undermines the precarious place of the very institutions and individuals that promote it.

Ritchey's writing is engaging, thoughtful, and unwavering in its critique. She is particularly adept at distilling neoliberal thought and situating her critique of it within a socio-historical and political-economic frame that includes the dissolution of collective identity, the destruction of collective labour, and the connections between consumer technology and the US military industrial complex. She does this by drawing on an array of (ethno)musicologists such as Timothy Taylor, anthropologists such as David Graeber, and critical theorists such as Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. In doing so, she provides a welcome addition to the small, but growing, number of music studies works that focus on contemporary political economics.

In chapter one, Ritchey critiques the fetishization of ‘innovation’ in both neoliberal capitalism and the classical music world. ‘Innovation’ in the tech sector is grounded in an ethos of ‘creative destruction’ in which established institutions and ways of doing things are both undesirable and unsustainable. In this worldview, technological ‘innovation’ is always good for society, which informs the mostly unquestioned idea in classical music that incorporating technology into compositions and performances will somehow ‘save’ it by cultivating a new generation of listeners. The irony, of course, is that Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term ‘creative destruction’, saw this line of action as ultimately unsustainable. This suggests that the classical music world's uncritical embrace of ‘innovation’ is, at best, short-sighted.

Ritchey's first case study is the rising young composer/DJ Mason Bates, who has built a career at the intersections of the classical music establishment and big tech corporations. For the former, Bates represents the kind of fresh-thinking innovator who will turn young people on to classical music through his use of turntables and incorporation of electronica beats into live orchestral performances. For the latter, Bates's advocacy for technological innovations and canonization of tech and its entrepreneurs through works such as The Rise of Exotic Computing and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs serves to legitimize both big tech's products and also its leaders. Ritchey argues that the obsessive focus on ‘innovation’ in both the classical and the tech worlds not only mirrors the contemporary neoliberal capitalism's fetishization of the term but also serves to naturalize and reinscribe it.

After identifying this ‘innovation fetish’, Ritchey embarks on a critique of neoliberal ‘diversity management’ and labour formations through a deconstruction of the well-known YouTube Symphony Orchestra (YTSO), with which Bates premiered his composition Mothership in Sydney, Australia in 2011. Initially a pedagogic value, ‘multiculturalism’ was appropriated by corporations in the 1980s as a way to manage an increasingly diverse global workforce, as well as by nation-states as a way to maintain hegemony. Ritchey notes that, while the official discourse of multiculturalism makes corporations and governments seem progressive, it obscures the systemic racism that neoliberal capitalism perpetuates by, on the one hand, separating culture and class from racialized injustice, and, on the other hand, facilitating centre-periphery power structures in which corporations headed primarily by white male CEOs subcontract precarious work out to workers who tend to be female and from the Global South (34). The YTSO reflects this: YouTube is owned by Google, which was already worth billions of US dollars in 2011 (it was valued at one trillion US dollar in January 2020). Yet the musicians of the YTSO were not paid, and, furthermore, although ‘non-Western’ instruments and musicians were encouraged to audition, they were presented in performances as peripheral to the core Western classical orchestra (39–43).

Following on from her critique of ‘innovation’ in chapter one, in chapter two, Ritchey critiques neoliberal individualism by focusing on a small group of entrepreneurial composer-performers who comprise the Brooklyn ‘indie classical’ scene. Modernist music was founded on a spirit of critique and its practitioners sought to gain autonomy from ‘the market’. They did this perhaps most successfully through serialist practices that resisted commodification, and by ensconcing themselves in academic institutions where, supported by a salary, they could make music that was free from the imperatives of the market. However, shifting attitudes within the academy, along with the concomitant forces of the marketization of higher education and the overproduction of credentialed graduates, has made this increasingly untenable. Thus, a new generation of artists has arisen. These artists have gained widespread critical acclaim and institutional support by rejecting the critical spirit of modernism in favour of a neoliberal ethos of omnivorous musical populism, entrepreneurialism, and individualism, while presenting their music as ‘innovative’, ‘accessible’, ‘democratic’, and perhaps above all, ‘sustainable’.

Although the artists Ritchey analyses now eschew the label ‘indie classical’, she finds it useful, as it ‘clearly indicates some contradictory tensions … preoccupy the scene’ (59). Ritchey grounds her analysis of the indie classical scene in the American neoliberal ideal of radical individualism. Under neoliberalism, the ideal individual is one who, unencumbered by notions of collective identity and responsibility, is a free and flexible economic actor in the free market: an embodied business. For Ritchey, this ideology is, on the one hand, internalized and reproduced by indie classical composers through both socialization and also economic necessity and, on the other hand, encouraged by the very institutions that rely on the public funding, which neoliberal ideology seeks to undermine.

Ritchey suggests that the rhetoric of the indie classical scene reveals much about the contradictions of capitalism. After establishing the autonomous individual as the foundational starting point of classical liberalism, she traces the articulation of radical individualism to ‘freedom’ by Milton Friedman and other Chicago school economists. Ritchey notes that the lack of unionized classical music ensembles is one of the reasons that composers must also contract their own groups and organize and promote their own concerts. However, her larger argument hinges on the complicated relationship that indie classical composers have with specialization and history. On the one hand, each of the composers Ritchey considers has undergone years of specialized training in classical music, studying at elite institutions such as Juilliard. On the other hand, they ‘rhetorically embrace career flexibility and stylistic eclecticism, which represent the diffusion of specialization that survival within neoliberalism requires’ (67). Each of the composers Ritchey considers is not only a composer who draws on a wide range of classical, popular, and ‘global’ sounds but also a performer, contractor, ensemble leader, and grant writer. Although highly specialized, indie classical performers embrace the role of anti-specialist in both their music and their entrepreneurial activities.

Chapter three takes as its case study the Los Angeles-based experimental opera group The Industry, and its ‘participatory’ operas Invisible Cities and Hopscotch. As with Ritchey's previous case studies, The Industry is lauded in the press for its innovative use of technology. For example, Invisible Cities was staged in Los Angeles's Union Station, where performers wore wireless microphones while paid audience members (who wore headphones) as well as regular commuters walked around and through the performance. Even more ambitious, Hopscotch was performed at six sites around the city, using a vast array of wireless microphones, headphones, mobile devices, and limousines that shuttled paid audience members from performance site to performance site. With these performances, The Industry burnished their neoliberal credentials through their ‘innovative’ use of technology, which provided audience members with an ‘immersive’ and ‘participatory’ experience.

Ritchey first contrasts the ‘participation’ of the audience in Invisible City and Hopscotch with the politics of the participatory art movement that first emerged in the 1990s. In its original formulation, participatory art challenges the perceived passivity of the audience and, perhaps more importantly, engages people socially by facilitating interactions with the artist, artwork, and/or other audience members. Ritchey observes that, although The Industry borrows terms such as ‘immersive’ and ‘participation’ from participatory art, it conflates ‘participatory’ with ‘personalized’, and in doing so neutralizes the revolutionary critique of the original movement by replacing political action with contemporary business theory (94).

Ritchey suggests that lack of political and historical awareness demonstrated by The Industry was particularly problematic in Hopscotch because it was tied up with another hallmark of neoliberal capitalism: gentrification. One of the performance sites was Boyle Heights, an area historically marginalized by decades of racist civic and economic policies such as redlining. Artists are almost always at the forefront of gentrification, which had been happening in Boyle Heights since the early 2000s. While one might dismiss shuttling paid audience members around a historically marginalized community in limousines as simply tone deaf, Ritchey notes that the scope of planning of the performance required the cooperation of dozens of municipal and neighbourhood entities; yet, The Industry failed to obtain the permission of residents for the performance. Ritchey therefore suggests that the consumer-oriented attitude that Hopscotch exhibited towards public space is an example of how neoliberalized classical music deploys the rhetoric of participatory art without any of its political critique, thus stripping it of any potential of encouraging thoughtful citizenship. She also suggests that, because it was performed in a historically marginalized neighbourhood, Hopscotch became part of the city of Los Angeles's larger ‘urban redevelopment’ (read: gentrification) programme for the area. The performance was met with, and eventually shut down by, protests from local activists. However, this was only a small victory in the neighbourhood's long-running battle against gentrification.

One of the (many) contradictions of neoliberal capitalism is that, while neoliberal economists seek a ‘perfect’ market free from noise (i.e. all actors have perfect information), capitalism needs the noise created by disruption to perpetuate itself. This is perhaps best encapsulated by big tech's desire to collect as much information as possible while also always seeking out the next market to disrupt. Chapter four therefore examines how the microchip maker Intel uses classical music to naturalize neoliberal capitalism's ‘myriad disruptions of human life’ (116) through its pairing of its ubiquitous four-note theme with the four-note ‘fate motive’ in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for its 2015 product introduction event called ‘Drone 100’ at an airport in Torench, Germany. In front of a live audience, Intel set a world record by launching, as the name suggests, 100 drones simultaneously. The drones were launched to a recording of Beethoven's Fifth. However, instead of the written fermata that normally follows the introduction of the ‘fate motive’, the iconic ‘ba-ba-ba-dummm’ was answered by Intel's own ubiquitous four-note mnemonic. The recomposed Fifth Symphony then reappeared in Intel's television advertisements along with the tag line, ‘Experience Amazing’.

While chapter one was dedicated to discussing the fetishization of innovation under neoliberal capitalism, chapter four is dedicated to revealing how neoliberalism presents ‘innovation’ as justified a priori; the past is always dirty, dangerous, and – like your laptop's operating system – in desperate need of an update, while the future is a gadget-filled utopia. For example, in a keynote speech at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas, Intel's then-CEO Brian Krzanich excitedly revealed new products such as electronic wristbands that allow the user to ‘drum’ without sticks, without explaining exactly why this was necessary. The necessity is, of course, the ever-shrinking product cycles that drive contemporary capitalism. Our histories are contained in material culture, so as products replace products at an increasingly rapid pace, we become unmoored from our sense of rootedness. As Ritchey observes, classical music is often used as a metonym for historical continuity (124). By associating its brand with Beethoven's, Intel was attempting to satisfy consumers’ need for roots; its pairing of four-note themes articulated the experience of its products to the idea of the classic – an idea of timelessness and universal truth. This rhetorical move apes those used by neoliberal champions such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, who issued vague appeals to ‘history’ in order to present capitalist competition as a ‘natural’ human condition that dates back to the ancient Greeks. Intel's move goes one level deeper. The musical ideology that coalesced around Beethoven's music in the early nineteenth century was one in which large-scale works built around a set of internal themes could reveal timeless truths. Intel makes, perhaps most famously, microchips, hence its marketing slogan ‘look inside’. By interpolating its theme into Beethoven's Fifth symphony, Intel (in)fused its brand with the historical weight of ‘timeless’ music, hoping that postmodern consumers will experience (and internalize) that weight through the gadgets that Intel's microchips drive.

If the reader is confused about the utility, desirability, or even profitability of wristbands for drumming, Ritchey reveals that, for Intel, these wrist bands are an afterthought (133). As with many of Intel's consumer products, the real profit from the patented technology that drives the wristbands is derived from military applications. The condition of endless war that is generated by late capitalism is financially lucrative for technology corporations, for which the US government has become a repeat buyer. Ritchey makes clear that we are all complicit: every time we play an electronic game, use our mobile phones, or use a civilian drone, we provide useful data for tech companies to refine technology that can be used to survey populations and develop unmanned warfare (134–5).

One of the critiques of (academic) critique is that it provides all the questions and none of the answers (at least not satisfying ones). This is particularly a problem for books that critique capitalism: although the problems are easy to diagnose, the solution is seemingly impossible to imagine, much less to implement. The problem is doubly acute for books that assess the revolutionary potential of art/artistic practice such as music. How does one oppose a system that co-opts opposition and re-deploys it towards its own ends? And how do artists involved in revolutionary projects provide for their material needs in the meantime? Ritchey's conclusion faces this dilemma. She begins by persuasively arguing that, contra some commentators, neoliberalism is not dead or dying but is in fact stronger than ever. She then moves on to survey a few artistic approaches to resistance. For example, the publishing collective Frog Peak provides open access to its catalogue online, collects only donations, maintains no copyrights, and is not even registered as a non-profit organisation. However, Ritchey is quick to acknowledge that Frog Peak and projects similar to it are not likely to topple global capitalism. She therefore ends her book with an appeal for more, and better, critique as a method to ‘reawaken our desire to escape capitalism’ (161). Read in the current maelstrom of misinformation and ‘fake news’, the call for greater critical faculties is apropos but also feels more unattainable than ever.

Ritchey's analysis in this book is entirely focused on the United States. This is understandable as she lives and works in the country, and – because of the almost complete lack of government support for the arts – classical music is perhaps more marketized in the United States than in other parts of the world. However, neoliberalism is not monolithic; it takes different forms in different contexts around the world. Ritchey's work therefore provides an excellent foundation for future work on not only the relationship between neoliberalism and Western classical music in other contexts but also the relationship between neoliberalism and global classical and popular musics. Composing Capital is an excellent book. It is a ‘must read’ for anyone who studies political economy from the musicological perspective.