# Nature versus Nurture



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

There is an article in the August issue of Opera News called "Recruitment Plan - When Did We Stop Trusting Audiences to Discover Opera On Their Own?" whose main point, at the risk of over-simplification, seems to be that there would be more opera fans if schools would focus more on music education and less on music appreciation. I'm not really trying to comment on that, but on an interesting attached article on nature vs nurture.

This side article was mostly about one little boy whose parents did not bring him up on opera but who discovered it through an Elmo clip with Denyce Graves in which she sings Elmo a bedtime song to made-up words using the music of the Habenera from Carmen. It's a cute clip. Anyway, this little boy developed an absolute fascination with opera from this at age two, demands opera when his parents want to play other types of music, and even has likes and dislikes when it comes to particular performers.

I love this story, but I doubt that it is a large enough sampling to answer the n vs n question all on its own. Still, I was wondering if anyone else read this and what their thoughts on it might be.


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