Let's give 'em something to write about

This is a co-blog exercise - the most exercise I've gotten all week, in fact - with my friend and the toast of New York, composer-performer Nico Muhly. His corresponding entry is here.

Over the summer, I had a phone meeting of sorts with a fellow New York publicist about a series of concerts in which we were both involved. She later made fun of me, because apparently throughout the call I kept saying that journalists needed to "toe the line"; I'm not even sure I was using the expression correctly, but my point was that these four concerts were interestingly programmed/situated and should be recognized as such, i.e. be covered by the press.

My neighbor Kenny ("Dog", to his friends) started a youth basketball league a few summers ago ("The Dog Show"). Here is a 30-35ish year-old man who works in maintenance in a building in Harlem and spends his free time arranging for hours upon hours of of entertainment and exercise for the neighborhood munchkins and their families. This is something that should be pitched -  to NY1, Bloomberg, and various uptown publications - why?  Because it's an actual story.

There is an inherent problem with having a/being a publicist: one is expected to pitch all things related to one's clients, but not all things are actually stories. Journalists must get inundated with press releases that say...nothing at all. "Hilary Hahn is coming to your city!!!" is simply not interesting - no offense, Hilary. And even if you, as a publicist or publicity director at an orchestra/presenter, do get the just-coming-to-town or just-putting-on-a-concert story, who wants to read that? Some artists and performances are simply not story-worthy, and if they are actually written about, shame on the newspapers.

Nico is blogging about a new party game he recently invented: try to create a worse program than that of the New York Philharmonic's Opening Night Gala.

"This concert is now past", indeed. Is that a warning or a clarification?

Does The New York Times have to review the concert simply because it's the Philharmonic?  In his review, Anthony Tommasini spends the first five paragraphs reflecting on Lorin Maazel's tenure as Music Director. I don't blame him: what could he possibly have to say about the evening itself?  This bit is actually intriguing, and as usual, I appreciate a chatty tone:

Overall, though, the performance [of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony] was incisive, rich-textured and lucid. Mr. Maazel has said that he objects to overly romanticized interpretations of Tchaikovsky that turn the symphonies mawkish, and I am with him on that. These are ingenious scores and should sound that way in performance.

This is amusing, because is anyone surprised that Ibert's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra  with Sir James Galway was ineffective? Nothing curious about that!

The performance of Ibert's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra before intermission was curiously ineffective.

I also like this. Points for comedy and giving Times readers a sense of what it was like to be at the (nightmare of a) concert:

At the end he received a warm ovation, though not quite enthusiastic enough, it seemed, to warrant an encore. Mr. Galway gave the audience one anyway: an arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee," tossed off indifferently.

Tommasini manages to write an interestingish review/retrospective of a terribly programmed concert, while other concerts that evening went unnoticed by the Times. Does that help the industry? If the Philharmonic (and other local presenters/orchestras) know they will get reviewed by their local papers no matter what they program, what is their motivation to think creatively (or, perhaps more importantly, to program with a sense of cultural relevance)? Publicists will pitch and journalists will cover, and no one is accountable for a program actually warranting comment.

So yes, I would like it if everyone would toe the damn line. Administrators, think about your programming. Publicists, think about your pitches. Journalists, reward both efforts with equally interesting press coverage. Nico makes the point in his post that good and relevant concert programming really isn't that difficult - he came up with four excellent examples of what the Philharmonic Gala could have been...this morning.  Pitching stories is also not terribly difficult, as long as you have good material to work with.

If the Times stopped covering the Philharmonic's boring concerts, would the Philharmonic be forced to program differently? If the Philharmonic's publicity department told the artistic administrators, sorry, we can't pitch this, would the Philharmonic be forced to program differently? Chicken...egg...chicken...egg...