I'd like to buy a vowel

From The Boston Globe last week:

In an extremely rare public flare-up in the outwardly genteel world of major symphony orchestras, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, the 77-year-old maestro who is one of the last living links to a golden era of Russian music, has pulled out of the entire run of four concerts he was scheduled to conduct with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which began on Thursday...

The trouble began on Wednesday during a rehearsal break, when the conductor and his wife took a stroll around Symphony Hall. They came upon a promotional poster that gave the week's soloist, the cellist Lynn Harrell, top billing, both with large print and a photograph. Rozhdestvensky's name appeared in smaller print as part of the program announcement.

Soon afterward, the conductor came across a copy of the orchestra's season brochure, a marketing tool designed to entice potential subscribers. He found a page with the heading "Artists who inspire" and a smaller section devoted to "Distinguished Conductors." That section, while including the names of two little-known conductors, did not mention his name. It appears only in a third section on the page under the heading "The Cello Shines," in connection with Harrell, this week's cello soloist.

"I felt insulted by the actions of the administration," he explained, "I feel not only slighted but I suffered what is called in Russian a moral insult, and I'm free to take any actions to defend myself in public."

I think we learned a valuable lesson, here: never let your guest artist and/or their spouses out of your sight!

I think we can all agree that some presenters are careless with their marketing materials. While I was at IMG, I saw everything from a joint Edgar Meyer/Bela Fleck show with Edgar billed as "the bassist in the Bela Fleck Trio" (n.b. there is neither a Bela Fleck Trio, nor would Edgar Meyer be its bassist) to The Eroica Trio being called "The Erotica Trio" in a press release. The most frustrating presenter move is using photos from ten...twenty...years ago. Just this week I've laid the smack down on presenters for using King's Singers photos with the wrong group members and a Hilary photo when she was circa 14. (She's 29, it's time to move on.) Things like this are inexcusable.

Not the case with Maestro Rozhdestvensky. His name was not highlighted in a season brochure, and he did not get top billing on the poster. There was no presenter mistake; this was a conscious marketing decision. Is name placement in marketing materials in his contract? Of course not! Nor should they be, in my opinion. The Boston Symphony Orchestra knows how to market their concerts to their audiences. The fact that the BSO's marketing team did not think Rozhdestvensky's name would sell tickets is a problem he should take up with his management, not with the orchestra. (Re-)Raise your US profile, and your name gets on the poster.

The 90 commenters on Jeremy Eichler's Globe piece were split down the middle. Some rallied to Rozhdestvensky's defense: "I am saddened that he walked out, but I understand it. Clearly, the BSO screwed up here. And it isn't even a close call," wrote blizzard November 24, 5:04 PM.  reindeergirl November 22, 9:35 AM offered the following insight: "Fire the marketing department, and get musical scholars in there who also can write and design." Okee dokee - those should be easy to find. We can assume, I think, that neither blizzard nor reindeergirl is responsible for selling symphony orchestra tickets in an economic recession.

PJ1 November 22, 2:35 PM offered, "Welcome to PC Boston. If an accomplished woman is part of an event, the media (including BSO's marketing) is likely to feature the woman; no matter how accomplished a man is, like in this case. Rozhdestvensky, in the view of the presiding PC culture here, is almost a DWM."

One gathers that the "accomplished woman" PJ1 is referring to is in fact the scheduled soloist, cellist Lynn Harrell, who, as Wikipedia tells us, lives with "his wife, the violinist Helen Nightengale, and their children, Hanna and Noah" and "has twin children from his first marriage to the journalist and writer Linda Blandford." An accomplished lady indeed!

But I digress. Let's say The King's Singers are walking around my former place of employ, McCarter Theater, this February, and they say to me, hey, why weren't we on the cover of the McCarter News or on the homepage of their website? First, I would say your concert is selling well/out, so what's your damage? If the concert was selling poorly, however, I would say, well, did we have new and interesting photos to give the design team at McCarter? Did we provide A/V content for their website? Did we offer exclusive interviews? Free tracks for download? Did you make yourselves available for press interviews? If not, the problem is with us, not with the McCarter marketing department. (The King's Singers are fantastic about all this - I'm just using them as an example.)

Marketing and PR are a two-way street. Things like having a variety of press photos to offer a presenter - with/without instrument, headshot/full-body shot, black and white/color - can make the difference in brochure, website and poster placement. Living legend or not, if Rozhdestvensky's name alone would not sell tickets, what could he and his team have done to help promote his BSO concerts? The fact that his name was not prominent on marketing materials should have been a wake-up call, and the response should have been, "how can we help each other sell these shows and raise my US profile at the same time," not, this is a "moral insult."

Epilogue: Because of this episode, the younger generation of classical fans knows who Gennady Rozhdestvensky is! When you Google him, the heading "Douche of the Month: Gennady Rozhdestvensky" is above the e-fold. Good work. That's public relations at its best.