Exposing the negatives

I don't completely (heart) the fancy Celebrate Salonen season site that the LA Phil put together, but I do appreciate the alliteration potential and the gesture.

Two cool things: 1. The fact that you can hover over any timeline point with an eighth note graphic and an interview will start without your having to click on it, and 2. the wall on which you can leave your tribute to Salonen.


I've mentioned this before, but I'm big into the juxtaposition of, you know, Bill Viola's thoughts on Salonen with Lemon Lim from Hong Kong's thoughts on Salonen. It gives an artist an air of importance and widespread relevance without making him or her seem intangible.

I wonder if people are also saying snarky things, though, and the LA Phil just isn't posting them. Maybe the site visitors can sense that it's a "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" situation, but I doubt it. People are mean. Maybe I'll post "I cannot effing WAIT for Dudamel!!" ((not true, by the way)), and see if it shows up.

Would it be too dangerous to have unmonitored message boards for orchestras on their websites throughout the season, and not just on special occasions such as this? People can be nasty, but at least when they're nasty it means they're engaged. Out of curiosity, I took a gander at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's website and thought, "Oh, great! They have a Community section." I assumed that meant message boards like this or this, but then I remembered the industry in which I work, and thought, "Riiiight: family concerts and volunteer opportunities." Of course there's nothing wrong with family concerts and volunteer opportunities, but it is interesting that, outside of the classical music realm in 2008, "community" has come to mean something completely different.

Back to message boards: are we afraid of negative comments and differences of opinion in classical music? Hilary wanted to put her bad reviews on her new website, and my first response was WHAT are you talking about; why would you do that? She figured people would see the reviews anyway - they're out in the world, after all - so why not just admit that not every critic in the known universe thinks she's the bee's knees, as any artist quote page or press kit would suggest? On folkish/indie-rockish singer/songwriter Sam Amidon's MySpace page, he includes the quote, "Amidon makes mistakes, lots of them..." Grapevine (Reykjavik), which is funny and eye-catching. Does it really add something to include the negative, though, or is it just a joke? Interestingly (enough), that quote does not appear on his website proper, so maybe posting bad reviews is OK on the sites for the kiddies, but not on the "official" sites? OK then.

Like (all) (/) (most) things, the root of this classical PR conundrum comes from the art form itself. In other musical genres - jazz, bluegrass, folk - making mistakes is cool; the art is in the imperfections, or whatever, and mistakes aren't really "mistakes". In classical music, we assume that mistakes aren't made in performances (or composition, for that matter), so when a critic (or, in the case of a message board, a community member), criticizes something, it reads as an admission that the performer(s) have made one, and is consequently a completely negative entity. Constructive criticism doesn't appear to be allowed to exist. The perception of classical musicians as perfect beings leads to all sorts of problems with perception: if The King's Singers never mess up, how can I relate to them? I, Jane Human Being, mess up all the time!

Open-ended message boards may not be the solution to online community engagement for orchestras, but it's worth thinking about what is (beyond simply having your 20-something intern create a Facebook page). And if we truly open ourselves up to criticism and commentary of all shapes and sizes and really put our flaws out there, will we attract more fans?

OK, now I brace myself for the negative comments to this post.