My name is Amanda Ameer, and I don't really like jazz.I'm OK admitting this for two reasons: 1.The three people whose opinions on music matter to me most feel the same way, and 2. It gives me perspective on why, despite all the good marketing and publicity in the world, some folks may just never like classical music. Wait, three reasons: we learned on Thursday night that Stephen Colbert doesn't like it either (at ~12 minutes). "GOD that's unbearable!" he explodes, "Ergo, it must be good!"This, of course, does not mean there's not lots to learn … [Read more...]

Monday was a really sad night for me: Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner broke up, and I cared because I feel like I know them. I have a sick fascination with The Girls Next Door, and no, gentle readers, I am not a 22-year-old frat boy. How can I love a show and hate everyone on it, you may ask? [That's not entirely true: I do enjoy Hef, who strikes a kind of ideal imbalance of obsession and apathy.] I watch the show (and, in the interest of full disclosure, have Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD) because I, and, spoiler alert, many others, crave backstage … [Read more...]

Composer-performer Caleb Burhans got a 2-and-change page print-edition, 4 page online edition, bonafide Allan Kozinn profile in The New York Times on Sunday. As of 6:15pm today, he had a total of 58 plays on his MySpace page. Does this mean 1. MySpace is dead. 2. The Times has no influence over its readers' listening choices. 3. Both.And if the answer is both, then who or what in this world is actually influencing what music people buy, see and listen to?"I was in The New York Times, and all I got was these lousy 58 plays." [The article did not … [Read more...]

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 … [Read more...]

Few things have been/will ever be more terrifying than the series of PSAs we were all just subjected to (Oh...we're calling that a "debate"? Okee...I'll play along...), but this subject line comes doggone close:In case you can't read that, the e mail subject is, "Attached is a press release announcing a concert to be given by the MSM Chamber Sinfonia conducted by Kenneth Kiesler to take place on Thursday, Sept. 25 featuring NY premiere by Marjorie Merryman and showcasing MSM Clarinetist G. Borisav". I often tell people that journalists might … [Read more...]

I have gotten two phone calls from artists about The Cleveland Plain-Dealer; should we do interviews with the new writer, they both asked, separately, we heard the orchestra got the last writer fired. Now, I love the artists I work with dearly, but they are rarely up on their industry gossip. The fact that this news made it to some of the top performing artists in the world and sincerely distressed them is...interesting. Hard-hitting journalist that I am (not), I e mailed The Cleveland Orchestra's publicity department and asked if I could … [Read more...]