March 2009 Archives
In a time when nearly every classical music writer has a personal or publication blog, Parterre Box's James Jorden has started reviewing for The New York Post, an honest-to-goodness newspaper. His first review, of The Metropolitan Opera's La Sonnambula, was printed on March 4, 2009. Click here for his next review, of Rusalka, also at The Met, and then here for his coverage of The Met's 125th Anniversary Gala.
Having an extremely popular opera blogger write for a print paper - that we'll just safely assume is in trouble - is shrewd. Jorden has a loyal online readership, a unique, recognizable voice and an established media outlet through which to promote his new gig. In short, he is an industry personality. The blog post in which Jorden directed Parterre Box readers to his first NY Post review received 94 congratulatory comments. His post sending readers to the Rusalka and gala reviews received 63 and 89 comments, respectively. The comments on his reviews can nearly all be found on the Parterre Box blog posts that link to the newspaper reviews, while the three pieces on the actual NY Post site collected 15, 0 and 0 comments. It seems Parterre Box followers are reading Jorden on the NY Post site and then going back to Parterre Box to comment. However, through these comments on his blog, we can tell that a chunk of people who probably wouldn't have read the NY Post that or any other day visited its website to read Jorden. I certainly did. Similarly, Jorden received support from fellow bloggers, as Norman Lebrecht and others directed their own followers to the Sonnambula review.
Are his NY Post written in the same style as his blog posts? Of course not. Do they still have his style? Yes they do.
With that in mind, should newspapers make it a business priority to enhance their staff writers' non-publication personas?
Look at Alex Ross' blog, The Rest is Noise, which is personal but linked topic-wise to his "day" job at The New Yorker. I read his articles in The New Yorker before he launched the blog (in 2004, having been on staff at the magazine since 1996). When I did start following his blog (in 2005), I was already familiar with his style/tone/perspective from the magazine. That said, because he communicates with his blog readership differently than he does with his magazine readership (whether a lot of those readers are the same or not), I now read blog and magazine pieces with - at least what I think is - a more informed perspective on both. New Yorkers stack up unread in my apartment to embarrassing heights, but I'm always caught up on his pieces. And if ever Alex would leave the magazine, I would follow him. Would I unsubscribe to The New Yorker? No, but - would I buy my first-ever copy of Playboy if he started writing for them? Absolutely. I'm told people read Playboy for the articles all the time.
Anne Midgette, who has always had a distinct, powerful voice and very loyal readership without ever having blogged personally, just began writing a blog for The Washington Post, where she is on staff. The blog launched yesterday, is called The Classical Beat, and can be found here. Anne is another critic I would follow to Playboy, but I have to wonder: how will her blog entries on the Post website be different than her print articles for the Post? Will she communicate with blog readers differently - more casually, more specifically? If not, then how will this blog increase The Washington Post's readership? Why not just have her write online-only content and call it just that? From a publicist's perspective, I say the more places to pitch potential features and reviews the better, but from the newspaper's perspective, I just don't see how this will increase page views or, more(?)/less(?) importantly, newspaper print subscribers.
Alex Ross, Steve Smith (Time Out New York/New York Times) Marc Geelhoed (formerly from Time Out Chicago) and Sasha Frere-Jones (New Yorker) all have separate personal blogs in addition to their journalist responsibilities to prestigious publications. By showing their personalities, writing about topics of their own choosing (without editors), and connecting with different readers - geographically and subject-tively - in their personal blogs, these writers are essentially providing invaluable media coverage for the publications they get paid to write for. When Marc wrote for Time Out Chicago, I would read his magazine features when he linked to them from his blog. Why did I care what was coming to Chicago if I live in New York City? I didn't, but I did care what he, personally, was covering. If I ran The Washington Post, which, spoiler alert, I do not, I would have called Anne into my office and said, "Anne, we need to you start a blog. Blog about whatever you want. Be yourself. Actually, be bigger than yourself. Get yourself on every blogroll in the blogosphere. Comment all over town. Ruffle some feathers. Link to your Washington Post articles, don't link to your Washington Post articles - we don't care. We'll pay you for your time blogging. Oh, there's just one thing: your blog can ostensibly have nothing to do with us."
Anne would then blog "on her own", develop a loyal and probably a much wider-reaching readership than the Post classical music section currently has, and then consistently direct these fresh followers to the her pieces on the Washington Post website. Readers would love her, readers would hate her, readers would read her. For months on this blog I've been saying the way for classical musicians to gain new fans and cultivate their current base is to really show their true personalities. The same should be applied to critics.
Now let's say Anne's Washington Post blog does in fact show her personality more than her print writing does; let's say the tone of the blog is completely different than the tone of her reviews, that she's encouraged to write about non-classical music topics, that her blog posts are edited only mildly or not at all. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually matter, because despite what's covered and how, readers simply won't trust that a blog by a staff critic on her employer's site will be providing a raw perspective. That masthead and URL keep readers at a distance, even if Anne posts the exact same content she would on a personal blog. Similarly, a blog on a newspaper site can't help but feel like a reluctant, "if we must" gesture from the powers-that-be. Newspapers have viewed blogs and online content as a threat to their business models for too long to convince us they're thrilled the way things are going now. (Exhibit A, every time a newspaper goes "online only" the perception is that they're going out of business, rather than simply joining the 21st Century.) If we're craving writers with both - for lack of a better word - "personal" personas and professional personas, their modes of expression cannot come from the same place.
Will we eventually learn to trust newspaper blogs? I don't know; do we trust a blogger's reviews for a newspaper?
Having an extremely popular opera blogger write for a print paper - that we'll just safely assume is in trouble - is shrewd. Jorden has a loyal online readership, a unique, recognizable voice and an established media outlet through which to promote his new gig. In short, he is an industry personality. The blog post in which Jorden directed Parterre Box readers to his first NY Post review received 94 congratulatory comments. His post sending readers to the Rusalka and gala reviews received 63 and 89 comments, respectively. The comments on his reviews can nearly all be found on the Parterre Box blog posts that link to the newspaper reviews, while the three pieces on the actual NY Post site collected 15, 0 and 0 comments. It seems Parterre Box followers are reading Jorden on the NY Post site and then going back to Parterre Box to comment. However, through these comments on his blog, we can tell that a chunk of people who probably wouldn't have read the NY Post that or any other day visited its website to read Jorden. I certainly did. Similarly, Jorden received support from fellow bloggers, as Norman Lebrecht and others directed their own followers to the Sonnambula review.
Are his NY Post written in the same style as his blog posts? Of course not. Do they still have his style? Yes they do.
From the NY Post: The audience, unsure of what was happening onstage, tittered nervously. Even the finale, with the entire company decked out in glitzy Swiss costumes for a campy "Springtime for Hitler" production number, puzzled more than it pleased.
From the blog: La Cieca never knows quite how far to go in repeating what she "is told," but since some of it seems to be leaking out anyway, well, she'll try to be tactful. Apparently sometimes opera companies choose to use terminology like "laryngitis" and "knee injury" in order to avoid having to say "exhibited bizarre behavior at rehearsals" or "arrived obviously unprepared."I know which writers I like, and I seek out their work where it lives, be that on personal blogs, publication blogs, Twitter feeds, online versions of newspapers and magazines, or print versions of newspapers and magazines. A publication's brand could not matter less to me; it's the writer's personal brand I'm after.
With that in mind, should newspapers make it a business priority to enhance their staff writers' non-publication personas?
Look at Alex Ross' blog, The Rest is Noise, which is personal but linked topic-wise to his "day" job at The New Yorker. I read his articles in The New Yorker before he launched the blog (in 2004, having been on staff at the magazine since 1996). When I did start following his blog (in 2005), I was already familiar with his style/tone/perspective from the magazine. That said, because he communicates with his blog readership differently than he does with his magazine readership (whether a lot of those readers are the same or not), I now read blog and magazine pieces with - at least what I think is - a more informed perspective on both. New Yorkers stack up unread in my apartment to embarrassing heights, but I'm always caught up on his pieces. And if ever Alex would leave the magazine, I would follow him. Would I unsubscribe to The New Yorker? No, but - would I buy my first-ever copy of Playboy if he started writing for them? Absolutely. I'm told people read Playboy for the articles all the time.
Anne Midgette, who has always had a distinct, powerful voice and very loyal readership without ever having blogged personally, just began writing a blog for The Washington Post, where she is on staff. The blog launched yesterday, is called The Classical Beat, and can be found here. Anne is another critic I would follow to Playboy, but I have to wonder: how will her blog entries on the Post website be different than her print articles for the Post? Will she communicate with blog readers differently - more casually, more specifically? If not, then how will this blog increase The Washington Post's readership? Why not just have her write online-only content and call it just that? From a publicist's perspective, I say the more places to pitch potential features and reviews the better, but from the newspaper's perspective, I just don't see how this will increase page views or, more(?)/less(?) importantly, newspaper print subscribers.
Alex Ross, Steve Smith (Time Out New York/New York Times) Marc Geelhoed (formerly from Time Out Chicago) and Sasha Frere-Jones (New Yorker) all have separate personal blogs in addition to their journalist responsibilities to prestigious publications. By showing their personalities, writing about topics of their own choosing (without editors), and connecting with different readers - geographically and subject-tively - in their personal blogs, these writers are essentially providing invaluable media coverage for the publications they get paid to write for. When Marc wrote for Time Out Chicago, I would read his magazine features when he linked to them from his blog. Why did I care what was coming to Chicago if I live in New York City? I didn't, but I did care what he, personally, was covering. If I ran The Washington Post, which, spoiler alert, I do not, I would have called Anne into my office and said, "Anne, we need to you start a blog. Blog about whatever you want. Be yourself. Actually, be bigger than yourself. Get yourself on every blogroll in the blogosphere. Comment all over town. Ruffle some feathers. Link to your Washington Post articles, don't link to your Washington Post articles - we don't care. We'll pay you for your time blogging. Oh, there's just one thing: your blog can ostensibly have nothing to do with us."
Anne would then blog "on her own", develop a loyal and probably a much wider-reaching readership than the Post classical music section currently has, and then consistently direct these fresh followers to the her pieces on the Washington Post website. Readers would love her, readers would hate her, readers would read her. For months on this blog I've been saying the way for classical musicians to gain new fans and cultivate their current base is to really show their true personalities. The same should be applied to critics.
Now let's say Anne's Washington Post blog does in fact show her personality more than her print writing does; let's say the tone of the blog is completely different than the tone of her reviews, that she's encouraged to write about non-classical music topics, that her blog posts are edited only mildly or not at all. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually matter, because despite what's covered and how, readers simply won't trust that a blog by a staff critic on her employer's site will be providing a raw perspective. That masthead and URL keep readers at a distance, even if Anne posts the exact same content she would on a personal blog. Similarly, a blog on a newspaper site can't help but feel like a reluctant, "if we must" gesture from the powers-that-be. Newspapers have viewed blogs and online content as a threat to their business models for too long to convince us they're thrilled the way things are going now. (Exhibit A, every time a newspaper goes "online only" the perception is that they're going out of business, rather than simply joining the 21st Century.) If we're craving writers with both - for lack of a better word - "personal" personas and professional personas, their modes of expression cannot come from the same place.
Will we eventually learn to trust newspaper blogs? I don't know; do we trust a blogger's reviews for a newspaper?
There's a Family Guy episode where Peter, Lois, Chris, Stewie
and Brian are drowning and, certain they
are all about to die, Peter admits to not liking The Godfather. "It insists upon itself, Lois," he explains. "It insists upon itself."
It may actually be impossible not to stand at the end of the Broadway revival of Hair. Whether you like the musical, or even like musicals at all, the cast of and the creative team behind this production - transferred from The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park last summer - simply demand you to buy into it.
I had seen Hair in the park, and my hopes were not high for the move to Broadway. The park was what sold the production. On opening night, it started pouring rain on us at the exact moment the band dropped out and the cast sang the words "Let the sun shine in". The Al Hirschfeld doesn't have the benefit of the elements, and I've always felt that even the brightest sound/costume/set/lighting designers are doomed to fail with Hair revivals. My mom has described how she and my dad could barely breathe because there was so much pot in the theater when they saw original production; how the cast basically ran around naked for 2+ hours while the audience was encouraged to strip down, too. If I'm not getting illegal substances and full frontal with the price of admission and I wasn't alive during the 60s, any production of Hair I see is bound to be a caricature of itself.
Unless, as I learned last night, the production insists upon itself.
Audience participation is expected in Hair. Actually, it's written into the script, so I was not at all surprised that within 10 minutes of the show starting a cast member was standing on two arm rests and straddling the aisle in front of my friend and me. I knew I was going to be sung at, I anticipated my friend's hair being messed with (she's press so was on the aisle), I was waiting for various people's laps to be sat on. Then I was handed a flyer for a "be-in" that instructed me to "Bring something to suck."
Real flowers were passed around.
The cast came half off the stage to hold hands in a circle with the front row.
Tribe members climbed into the balcony.
Berger sat at the edge of stage left and started waving at someone in the front row. She didn't wave back, so he waved again. She didn't wave back. "Wave back to me," he said. She waved back.
When The Tribe blows a fuse and the theater goes dark, I was actually nervous a cast member was going to feel me up. And if fear of molestation isn't an indication that the fourth wall is in shambles, I just don't know what is.
More cast/audience interaction followed intermission. And that Tribe just got angrier! Angry about "Vietnam" in 2009. They were playing not happy people of a not happy generation, something that, to me at least, ironically doesn't come through on the original Broadway cast recording.
After the curtain call [I joke about spoiler alerts, but this is an actual spoiler alert, although you probably saw it coming] guardrails flew up out of nowhere and cast members began directing rows of people up the stairs and onto the stage to dance. "Can we go??" I blurted, terrified that the row in front of us would be the last to be invited.
I've never been accused of being shy, but leaving my computer, purse, wallet, two portable hard drives and an iPod at seat E4 and bounding onto a Broadway stage to bounce around with total strangers, sweating with my gross, still-wet-from-the-morning hair in my face in front of hundreds of people was not precisely my plan for the evening. The show was supposed to be predictable and filled with missed opportunities! I was supposed to go to dinner and grumble about cultural irrelevance like I always do! Instead I left the theater high as a kite, albeit not in the same way my mother and father probably did 30 years ago.
This production of Hair takes the silver and bronze for best theater experiences of my life: getting soaking wet while the cast adamantly belted for sun this summer, and dancing on stage last night. (Gold goes to seeing Rent in previews. No getting around that.)
I tell you all this because frankly, I hate audience participation. Nothing annoys me more than cast members making fun of people for coming in late, than being the girl some character serenades, than reluctantly clapping and/or singing along. I can't stand getting splashed, but getting rained on becomes one of my most memorable theater moments? Where's the line? When does audience participation hinder and when does it enhance a theater piece? Is there a point, like with the Hair revival, that the line is so far crossed you can't help but go along for the...yep, gonna say it...trip?
It may actually be impossible not to stand at the end of the Broadway revival of Hair. Whether you like the musical, or even like musicals at all, the cast of and the creative team behind this production - transferred from The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park last summer - simply demand you to buy into it.
I had seen Hair in the park, and my hopes were not high for the move to Broadway. The park was what sold the production. On opening night, it started pouring rain on us at the exact moment the band dropped out and the cast sang the words "Let the sun shine in". The Al Hirschfeld doesn't have the benefit of the elements, and I've always felt that even the brightest sound/costume/set/lighting designers are doomed to fail with Hair revivals. My mom has described how she and my dad could barely breathe because there was so much pot in the theater when they saw original production; how the cast basically ran around naked for 2+ hours while the audience was encouraged to strip down, too. If I'm not getting illegal substances and full frontal with the price of admission and I wasn't alive during the 60s, any production of Hair I see is bound to be a caricature of itself.
Unless, as I learned last night, the production insists upon itself.
Audience participation is expected in Hair. Actually, it's written into the script, so I was not at all surprised that within 10 minutes of the show starting a cast member was standing on two arm rests and straddling the aisle in front of my friend and me. I knew I was going to be sung at, I anticipated my friend's hair being messed with (she's press so was on the aisle), I was waiting for various people's laps to be sat on. Then I was handed a flyer for a "be-in" that instructed me to "Bring something to suck."
Real flowers were passed around. The cast came half off the stage to hold hands in a circle with the front row.
Tribe members climbed into the balcony.
Berger sat at the edge of stage left and started waving at someone in the front row. She didn't wave back, so he waved again. She didn't wave back. "Wave back to me," he said. She waved back.
When The Tribe blows a fuse and the theater goes dark, I was actually nervous a cast member was going to feel me up. And if fear of molestation isn't an indication that the fourth wall is in shambles, I just don't know what is.
More cast/audience interaction followed intermission. And that Tribe just got angrier! Angry about "Vietnam" in 2009. They were playing not happy people of a not happy generation, something that, to me at least, ironically doesn't come through on the original Broadway cast recording.
After the curtain call [I joke about spoiler alerts, but this is an actual spoiler alert, although you probably saw it coming] guardrails flew up out of nowhere and cast members began directing rows of people up the stairs and onto the stage to dance. "Can we go??" I blurted, terrified that the row in front of us would be the last to be invited.
I've never been accused of being shy, but leaving my computer, purse, wallet, two portable hard drives and an iPod at seat E4 and bounding onto a Broadway stage to bounce around with total strangers, sweating with my gross, still-wet-from-the-morning hair in my face in front of hundreds of people was not precisely my plan for the evening. The show was supposed to be predictable and filled with missed opportunities! I was supposed to go to dinner and grumble about cultural irrelevance like I always do! Instead I left the theater high as a kite, albeit not in the same way my mother and father probably did 30 years ago.
This production of Hair takes the silver and bronze for best theater experiences of my life: getting soaking wet while the cast adamantly belted for sun this summer, and dancing on stage last night. (Gold goes to seeing Rent in previews. No getting around that.)
I tell you all this because frankly, I hate audience participation. Nothing annoys me more than cast members making fun of people for coming in late, than being the girl some character serenades, than reluctantly clapping and/or singing along. I can't stand getting splashed, but getting rained on becomes one of my most memorable theater moments? Where's the line? When does audience participation hinder and when does it enhance a theater piece? Is there a point, like with the Hair revival, that the line is so far crossed you can't help but go along for the...yep, gonna say it...trip?
Few things crack me up like spotting classical music celebrities. I perk up and think Oh! There's so-and-so, knowing full-well that no one else on the street recognizes the person. And then I laugh, laugh, laugh to myself at the silliness of the classical music celebrity concept for the rest of the day. (I'm pretty easily entertained.)
For example, I just saw Juan Diego Florez on the corner of 65th and Broadway, looking spiffy in a leather jacket and black jeans. I hopped to the left so he could pass and gave him the ol' twinkly-eyed I-know-who-you-are-J-D-F look, which I'm fairly to moderately certain went unnoticed by him.
If I ask Doug to add a Gawker Stalker type feature to this blog, will you all play along and post when you see classical music celebrities? Or will it just be me being a nerd all alone?
For example, I just saw Juan Diego Florez on the corner of 65th and Broadway, looking spiffy in a leather jacket and black jeans. I hopped to the left so he could pass and gave him the ol' twinkly-eyed I-know-who-you-are-J-D-F look, which I'm fairly to moderately certain went unnoticed by him.
If I ask Doug to add a Gawker Stalker type feature to this blog, will you all play along and post when you see classical music celebrities? Or will it just be me being a nerd all alone?
Are there any classical music-specific iPhone applications?
If there aren't, shouldn't someone hit that?
Maybe a variation on Shazam, where you hold the phone up to the speakers when classical music is playing and it finds the score for you. Critics could use it during performances! Shazam aside, maybe the application could pull the score if you're just listening to classical music on your iPhone. Calling all music publishers...? This is never going to get new fans for the art form, but it would certainly be exciting for existing music dorks.
Or what if a site like Arkiv or Pandora created an application where, after Shazam identified the repertoire/soloist/orchestra, other recordings (with buy options) would be recommended? You could select "different soloist" or "cheaper recording" and it would find the piece you just heard (in a movie/elevator/lobby/on hold with Time Warner Cable) with your personal preferences taken into consideration. You could then purchase the recording you wanted and download it right to the iPhone.
What about a program note application; if there were a central database of all program notes, and you were about to see a performance of the "Emperor" concerto, you could pull up the notes by the authors you like before the concert/during intermission, rather than only having the option of reading the notes that the venue provided. It would also be interesting to see where the pieces you were about to see had been performed recently.
(Poor, SAD Amanda doesn't have an iPhone because she refuses to let go of her 1997 Verizon family plan, but it truly is an amazing thing.)
If there aren't, shouldn't someone hit that?
Maybe a variation on Shazam, where you hold the phone up to the speakers when classical music is playing and it finds the score for you. Critics could use it during performances! Shazam aside, maybe the application could pull the score if you're just listening to classical music on your iPhone. Calling all music publishers...? This is never going to get new fans for the art form, but it would certainly be exciting for existing music dorks.
Or what if a site like Arkiv or Pandora created an application where, after Shazam identified the repertoire/soloist/orchestra, other recordings (with buy options) would be recommended? You could select "different soloist" or "cheaper recording" and it would find the piece you just heard (in a movie/elevator/lobby/on hold with Time Warner Cable) with your personal preferences taken into consideration. You could then purchase the recording you wanted and download it right to the iPhone.
What about a program note application; if there were a central database of all program notes, and you were about to see a performance of the "Emperor" concerto, you could pull up the notes by the authors you like before the concert/during intermission, rather than only having the option of reading the notes that the venue provided. It would also be interesting to see where the pieces you were about to see had been performed recently.
(Poor, SAD Amanda doesn't have an iPhone because she refuses to let go of her 1997 Verizon family plan, but it truly is an amazing thing.)
Making a rare appearance across the Brooklyn border, I met with choreographer Chase Brock and members of his company The Chase Brock Experience
(click for an excellent website) on Tuesday. One thing we all discussed
was how it's more fun to go see your friends dance than it is to see
performances when you don't know anyone on stage. Of course seeing
total strangers is intriguing in its own ways/shapes/forms, but prefer
it or not, the experience is more detached. I've written before about
how much I enjoy my clients' performances because I know them
personally; if I had to define my job as a publicist, I would say it is
to make audiences feel they know my clients as well as I do.
How can this be achieved? Great print and online features that reflect interviews where the artist and writer really "get" each other. YouTube channels, where artists can essentially speak directly to their fans. Facebook and, now to a lesser extent, MySpace, the two great equalizers of the music industry (if I started a band this afternoon - Amanda and The Pitches? - I could have the same MySpace page as U2). Blogs and Twitter feeds, through which artists - if those outlets are natural to them - can show various sides of themselves. You know the social media hit list, it's using the outlets at our disposal in organic and meaningful ways that's the challenge.
The band Lucky Soul used to have a fantastic website that I would always show to chamber music ensembles. When they came to Joe's Pub in October, I lingered around after the concert ((creepy)) and told them how much I loved the site. Oh yeah, we changed that, they said. And I never even took a screen shot! Basically, when you selected "About" it took you to a background photo of the band and said "click on each band member for more information". Then you could do as the site said and click on a band member, and a little box with "Name, Influences, Favorite Lucky Soul song" etc. would pop up. It was simple and informative and I loved it; to this day, I've never seen a dance company or chamber ensemble do anything similar.
In light of this conversation, Micki Weiner from The Chase Brock Experience pointed out the Hair Broadway revival website. The homepage features rehearsal footage and interviews with cast members ("mixed media"), so you don't even have to go hunting around for getting-to-know-you material:
In The Tribe section, each cast member has a video interview. My favorite is Will Swenson's, in which he gives his hair (SPOILER ALERT: not Hair) biography. Where do I go from there, is your weary query? Well, they got their cast video blog, too.
Footage like this is so inexpensive to produce now, it's just dreary-dreary if ensembles and dance companies don't have it on
their sites. How can people be so heartless? Err, thoughtless?
My newest obsession is with companies that highlight their employees on their websites, rather than providing a simple staff list for contact purposes only. I was thrilled to see what I thought was a section like this on The Guggenheim website last week, but turns out they were just announcing a new curator (I had thought staff profiles on the homepage were going to be a regular feature). The Happy Corporation, where my friend works, just launched a new site that has both rotating photos of their staff on the homepage and features Tweets from all staff members throughout the day. Here's Alex:
Potential clients literally see who they'd be working with and get a sense of the employees' personalities. Simply having photos and bios of staff members on performing arts organizations' sites would be good public relations. Perhaps an orchestra and staff joint photo where, Lucky Soul style, website users could click on a person and see what they're about would be effective. All these people go into producing the orchestra concert you're going to see tonight: learn about them! Or, rather than just having an orchestra member or dance company member featured on the homepage, rotate in people from the administration, too. Seeing a familiar face and knowing that the usher who's taking your ticket has worked at the venue for 25 years and takes piano lessons might make the concert-going experience a little more interesting. Incorporating multiple Twitter feeds on website homepages would be especially effective for dance companies, orchestras or ensembles - backstage? on tour? in rehearsal? Rather than have to find different members' Twitter accounts, one could basically follow each perspective from an organization's website.
How can this be achieved? Great print and online features that reflect interviews where the artist and writer really "get" each other. YouTube channels, where artists can essentially speak directly to their fans. Facebook and, now to a lesser extent, MySpace, the two great equalizers of the music industry (if I started a band this afternoon - Amanda and The Pitches? - I could have the same MySpace page as U2). Blogs and Twitter feeds, through which artists - if those outlets are natural to them - can show various sides of themselves. You know the social media hit list, it's using the outlets at our disposal in organic and meaningful ways that's the challenge.
The band Lucky Soul used to have a fantastic website that I would always show to chamber music ensembles. When they came to Joe's Pub in October, I lingered around after the concert ((creepy)) and told them how much I loved the site. Oh yeah, we changed that, they said. And I never even took a screen shot! Basically, when you selected "About" it took you to a background photo of the band and said "click on each band member for more information". Then you could do as the site said and click on a band member, and a little box with "Name, Influences, Favorite Lucky Soul song" etc. would pop up. It was simple and informative and I loved it; to this day, I've never seen a dance company or chamber ensemble do anything similar.
In light of this conversation, Micki Weiner from The Chase Brock Experience pointed out the Hair Broadway revival website. The homepage features rehearsal footage and interviews with cast members ("mixed media"), so you don't even have to go hunting around for getting-to-know-you material:
In The Tribe section, each cast member has a video interview. My favorite is Will Swenson's, in which he gives his hair (SPOILER ALERT: not Hair) biography. Where do I go from there, is your weary query? Well, they got their cast video blog, too.
Footage like this is so inexpensive to produce now, it's just dreary-dreary if ensembles and dance companies don't have it on
their sites. How can people be so heartless? Err, thoughtless?My newest obsession is with companies that highlight their employees on their websites, rather than providing a simple staff list for contact purposes only. I was thrilled to see what I thought was a section like this on The Guggenheim website last week, but turns out they were just announcing a new curator (I had thought staff profiles on the homepage were going to be a regular feature). The Happy Corporation, where my friend works, just launched a new site that has both rotating photos of their staff on the homepage and features Tweets from all staff members throughout the day. Here's Alex:
Potential clients literally see who they'd be working with and get a sense of the employees' personalities. Simply having photos and bios of staff members on performing arts organizations' sites would be good public relations. Perhaps an orchestra and staff joint photo where, Lucky Soul style, website users could click on a person and see what they're about would be effective. All these people go into producing the orchestra concert you're going to see tonight: learn about them! Or, rather than just having an orchestra member or dance company member featured on the homepage, rotate in people from the administration, too. Seeing a familiar face and knowing that the usher who's taking your ticket has worked at the venue for 25 years and takes piano lessons might make the concert-going experience a little more interesting. Incorporating multiple Twitter feeds on website homepages would be especially effective for dance companies, orchestras or ensembles - backstage? on tour? in rehearsal? Rather than have to find different members' Twitter accounts, one could basically follow each perspective from an organization's website.
You know what my press releases are lacking? Balls references. And ironic quotes. I love how "shows" is written here, like, allegedly that's what they're promoting but who even knows. "Eric Owens makes his Carnegie Hall 'recital' debut this April."
Courtesy of a blogger friend:
Courtesy of a blogger friend:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAlso, "Ask about them"? The press should be asking...whom...about..whom?
3/25/09
** Das Racist - Backpack Trap Rap to Dance To! **
Lacing electronic, dubstep, and hip-hop beats with worldly freak folk lyrics, Das Racist kicks your balls into outer space. Influenced by rap duos like Kid 'N Play, Bert 'N Ernie, and Ghost 'N Raekwon, these dudes are here to make hilarious topics like race relations, American consumerism, globalization and postcolonial-ass shit, fun again. Queens-born Himanshu Kumar and San Francisco-born Victor Vazquez do for music what smoking Kool cigarettes do for 14-year-olds in Pennsylvania. They have a great deal of street credit, as well. Ask about them.
While the everyone was breaking their bones at SXSW, Das Racist have been writing rhymes in a Crown Fried Chicken somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn and preparing to perform "shows" in Brooklyn and the Northeast.
Check out "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell". Perfect for when you're wilding.
A writer I work with a lot just forwarded this, let's say "pitch", along:
Groan, I say. And not in a sexy way.
I do hope you'll list this unusual concert - lots of beautiful young people"...three world premieres"-yessss we're going to talk about music and...and...noooo, you should write about this concert because of all the hot-hot-hotness.
and three world premieres, by very sexy composers: [lists three composers].
Groan, I say. And not in a sexy way.
I asked my friend Megan to text/e mail me a marketing reports for the blog from South by Southwest:
i was thinking about marketing things from sxsw and came up with absolutely nothing. i mean.....it's the same as every other live music show or festival but just on steroids. there's like a million product promotions (and always the same products. soco and dewars own the hipster booze circuit i swear) and branding events and whatever but it's all the same. metallica played to promote their guitar hero game....but that pretty much got lost in the fact that metallica was playing. the most revolutionary thing i saw was austin whole foods!!! we went two days in a row, it was so fabulous.
I throw my computer into various purses (or "bags", says the semantics police) like it's a wallet. I'm constantly killing an hour, two hours, between meetings, and if I don't work during those gaps, I'll just spend money.
It's 5pm on Saturday and I'm meeting a friend to see a movie at the AMC Loews "Lincoln Square" at 7:15. The Starbucks behind the Barnes & Noble is gross, so...ah! Alice Tully's "At 65 Café", a coffee shop/lunch spot/ bar in the lobby of the new Alice Tully Hall. I walk in and ask the host if there's a seat with a plug. There is one, and he knows where it is: a mini striped table with two mini chairs in the corner just to the right of the revolving doors. I throw down my coat to save the prime plug spot and go to get a cappuccino (actually, a hot chocolate, only to be informed that all hot chocolate has been "eighty-sixed", not my words, because people kept sending it back). I then hunt around the lobby for other plugs [investigative reporting], and find that there is actually one other to the left of the revolving doors, but there's no seat or couch near that one. Not that I'm above sitting on the floor to work if there's a plug (see the Penn Station entry).
I wonder if this lobby has free internet. It doesn't especially matter to me, since I have a USB modem ((natch)), but I'm curious. Would you like to join LincolnCenter wireless yada yada, I'm asked when I turn on the computer. Sure, I click, what've you got:
It's 5pm on Saturday and I'm meeting a friend to see a movie at the AMC Loews "Lincoln Square" at 7:15. The Starbucks behind the Barnes & Noble is gross, so...ah! Alice Tully's "At 65 Café", a coffee shop/lunch spot/ bar in the lobby of the new Alice Tully Hall. I walk in and ask the host if there's a seat with a plug. There is one, and he knows where it is: a mini striped table with two mini chairs in the corner just to the right of the revolving doors. I throw down my coat to save the prime plug spot and go to get a cappuccino (actually, a hot chocolate, only to be informed that all hot chocolate has been "eighty-sixed", not my words, because people kept sending it back). I then hunt around the lobby for other plugs [investigative reporting], and find that there is actually one other to the left of the revolving doors, but there's no seat or couch near that one. Not that I'm above sitting on the floor to work if there's a plug (see the Penn Station entry).
I wonder if this lobby has free internet. It doesn't especially matter to me, since I have a USB modem ((natch)), but I'm curious. Would you like to join LincolnCenter wireless yada yada, I'm asked when I turn on the computer. Sure, I click, what've you got:
Well played, Lincoln Center!! You can have free internet, person in our lobby, but you have to give us your e mail address. Very nice, I am impressed. I type in my e mail address to see how we do:
Oh dear. Ah well, back to the USB modem so I can blog about how I can't access the free internet.
I like these casual Lincoln Center hang-outs. I've had meetings at the wine bar at Avery Fisher (sometimes during Philharmonic concerts, which is especially nice because there are speakers playing the concert while you drink and snack) and have worked at the coffee spot at the other end of that lobby, too. Being here in the Alice Tully lobby is cool because the building is glass, so you can people-watch when you're inside and wonder what's going on in there when you're outside. I've been to five or so concerts since the hall re-opened, and the swarms of people in the lobby before a concert just have to be intriguing from the outside. Love that rubber-necker marketing.
Here's what it looks like now, which is also quite welcoming:
But I have some questions:
Update 3/22: A fourth question, which I didn't think of yesterday - when performances are happening, are they broadcast through speakers into the lobby? There are no video screens, so you clearly can't watch a live performance while having a drink at the bar, but maybe, just maybe, you can listen to one? I will make a point to stop by one night this week to scope out the situation. Watch this space.
Oh dear. Ah well, back to the USB modem so I can blog about how I can't access the free internet. I like these casual Lincoln Center hang-outs. I've had meetings at the wine bar at Avery Fisher (sometimes during Philharmonic concerts, which is especially nice because there are speakers playing the concert while you drink and snack) and have worked at the coffee spot at the other end of that lobby, too. Being here in the Alice Tully lobby is cool because the building is glass, so you can people-watch when you're inside and wonder what's going on in there when you're outside. I've been to five or so concerts since the hall re-opened, and the swarms of people in the lobby before a concert just have to be intriguing from the outside. Love that rubber-necker marketing.
Here's what it looks like now, which is also quite welcoming:
But I have some questions:- Why isn't there music playing? There's not a concert this afternoon, but...it is a music hall. Even Starbucks-es play music (with nice screens telling us what's playing, which leads me to...).
- Why aren't there video screens showing footage of upcoming performances? I'm a captive audience, here for the next two hours: market to me! We are a video-obsessed culture. If there's something playing on a TV, we can't not watch it.
- If for reasons I am unable to imagine there cannot be music or video playing in the lobby of a performing arts venue (like, the illy coffee union doesn't allow it or whatever), why aren't there even flyers on the tables? Postcards? Triangles? There's a small display of flyers in front of the box office, but I'm not over there, I'm at the café. Don't you want to get me to the box office? SELL ME SOMETHING, Alice Tully! I am already inside your doors! You've won! Take advantage of me, I'm begging you.
Update 3/22: A fourth question, which I didn't think of yesterday - when performances are happening, are they broadcast through speakers into the lobby? There are no video screens, so you clearly can't watch a live performance while having a drink at the bar, but maybe, just maybe, you can listen to one? I will make a point to stop by one night this week to scope out the situation. Watch this space.
Just in case any artists or arts presenters out there were worried about YouTube being too low-brow for them/their organization, this just in from the Associated Press:
In recording a video message to the Iranian people marking the Iranian New Year, Nowruz, and distributing it online, Obama seized upon one of the Web tools which he used so effectively during his presidential campaign.
...The 3min 35sec video entitled "A New Year, A New Beginning" was posted on the White House website at whitehouse.gov/Nowruz with captions in Farsi and also on the White House YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/whitehouse.
It had rung up more than 100,000 views on YouTube some 16 hours after its release and generated a stream of more than 1,000 mostly favorable comments.
Andrew Rasiej, a co-founder of the blog TechPresident.com, which examines politics and technology, said using the Internet allowed Obama to deliver his words directly and unfiltered to the Iranian people.
"He's using the open platform of the Internet to ensure his message is heard in full and not shortened where it could be taken out of context or manipulated in a way that doesn't meet with his intent," Rasiej told AFP.
I was about to brag about Hilary recording a YouTube Symphony interview via video Skype, but the President has totally schooled us. Sigh. President Obama: 38908390090232, First Chair Promotion: like, 7?
...but potentially bad PR for other artists.
Pianist Emanuel Ax has waived two concert fees for the Columbus Symphony this weekend.
This is an unquestionably classy and genuine act, but I have to wonder: does it set a dangerous precedent for soloists going forward? Hefty artist fees are often blamed for high concert ticket prices, so will fee-waiving be expected, or - worse - will artists who do not play with orchestras that can't afford their fees be perceived as greedy by the concert-going public? Also, can Mr. Ax/will Mr. Ax write the fees off as donations? Because that opens an entirely different can of worms...
Again, Mr. Ax has proved himself to be incredibly generous, it's just a complicated issue.
What I'm most curious about, actually, is why the orchestra made the information public.
Thinking out loud update, Saturday 3/21 morning: Perhaps the Columbus Symphony made the news public in hopes that the resulting publicity buzz (to which I am fully aware I am contributing) would spur new and old donor support. "If an artist like Emanuel Ax is supporting us, we're worth supporting and you should, too." Could a better way to have handled this have been for Mr. Ax to accept the fee(s) and then publicly donate them back to the orchestra without naming the sum, or explaining that the donation was his fees? The orchestra could have then listed him as a donor going forward. Although that, too, has its complications: will orchestras only hire artists who are major donors? Does that basically mean you can pay to play? Would his management have accepted commission? If so, would his management have had to donate their commission? Can artist managers ethically make donations to orchestras?
Pianist Emanuel Ax has waived two concert fees for the Columbus Symphony this weekend.
This is an unquestionably classy and genuine act, but I have to wonder: does it set a dangerous precedent for soloists going forward? Hefty artist fees are often blamed for high concert ticket prices, so will fee-waiving be expected, or - worse - will artists who do not play with orchestras that can't afford their fees be perceived as greedy by the concert-going public? Also, can Mr. Ax/will Mr. Ax write the fees off as donations? Because that opens an entirely different can of worms...
Again, Mr. Ax has proved himself to be incredibly generous, it's just a complicated issue.
What I'm most curious about, actually, is why the orchestra made the information public.
Thinking out loud update, Saturday 3/21 morning: Perhaps the Columbus Symphony made the news public in hopes that the resulting publicity buzz (to which I am fully aware I am contributing) would spur new and old donor support. "If an artist like Emanuel Ax is supporting us, we're worth supporting and you should, too." Could a better way to have handled this have been for Mr. Ax to accept the fee(s) and then publicly donate them back to the orchestra without naming the sum, or explaining that the donation was his fees? The orchestra could have then listed him as a donor going forward. Although that, too, has its complications: will orchestras only hire artists who are major donors? Does that basically mean you can pay to play? Would his management have accepted commission? If so, would his management have had to donate their commission? Can artist managers ethically make donations to orchestras?
Last week, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote a feature about CD box sets. In it, there's a fascinating quote from Nonesuch president Robert Hurwitz about Nonesuch's recently released Elliot Carter collection:
The idea of a "target" audience in this quote is also noteworthy. Do we get so caught up financially and mentally attempting to reach the target audience that we ignore anyone not within the confines of that pre-established target? That is, once an audience is identified, who then gets ignored? I often find that in our attempts to reach "new audiences", we forget about the audiences that already exist; the consumers who would buy an album if only it was brought to their attention, no salesmanship or clever marketing tricks required. We spend so much time trying to connect with non-traditional audiences that the X percent of the population (3%? 5%?) that already cares about the performing arts is overlooked. 5% of the US population is...still a lot of people.
This reminds me of an excellent post by playwright Jason Grote on an ArtsJournal group blog I worked on for the National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC) last June. His essay corresponded to an NPAC session called "Stop Taking Attendance and Start Measuring the Intrinsic Impact of Your Programs", and was about audience surveys. The entire post can be found here, and below is an excerpt:
As a side note, I have to respectfully disagree with Anthony Tommasini about the Nonesuch Philip Glass box set ("a six-inch-square box, an oversize thing adorned with glossy photos and too bulky for a standard CD shelf."), also highlighted in the Times box set article. I, for one, think it's just the coolest thing: I especially love the five fine art interpretations of Glass circling the box and the book(let) that includes "appreciations" by people such as David Bowie, Chuck Close (obviously), Martin Scorsese and Robert Wilson, whose appreciation I have scanned:
I'm also glad no one was around when I first opened the box, because I squealed like a little girl who had just been given a pony when I saw that the inside panel design matched Glass' website:
Of course, I'm the target audience. And my only hope is that all the labels don't go under before Nonesuch gets around to releasing a "We Do Not Belong Together" Sondheim box.
Mr. Hurwitz expects this set to sell satisfactorily, he said. But if it does not, so be it. "We have had a lot of longstanding relationships with important composers and performers over the years," he added. "At different times it seems to me to make sense to put together recordings without thinking about a target audience."Releasing recordings (or producing a concerts) "without thinking about a target audience" is at once noble, pure and completely idiotic. Both sides could be - and have been - convincingly argued; where is the give-the-people-what-they-want line, and when does artistic integrity suffer? If the audience (or potential audience) is ignored, are recordings/box sets/concerts simply vanity projects? If the sales numbers are paid too much attention, is creativity dead?
The idea of a "target" audience in this quote is also noteworthy. Do we get so caught up financially and mentally attempting to reach the target audience that we ignore anyone not within the confines of that pre-established target? That is, once an audience is identified, who then gets ignored? I often find that in our attempts to reach "new audiences", we forget about the audiences that already exist; the consumers who would buy an album if only it was brought to their attention, no salesmanship or clever marketing tricks required. We spend so much time trying to connect with non-traditional audiences that the X percent of the population (3%? 5%?) that already cares about the performing arts is overlooked. 5% of the US population is...still a lot of people.
This reminds me of an excellent post by playwright Jason Grote on an ArtsJournal group blog I worked on for the National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC) last June. His essay corresponded to an NPAC session called "Stop Taking Attendance and Start Measuring the Intrinsic Impact of Your Programs", and was about audience surveys. The entire post can be found here, and below is an excerpt:
I generally think that surveys measuring audience response are a bad idea. I care very deeply about what my audience thinks or feels, but I don't feel that surveys are the best way to assess this, and so don't use them. If the theater wants them, I consent, but I don't read them. This is not because I am a snob who is disinterested in what my audience thinks - on the contrary, I care very much - but because I think our contemporary culture has a weird fetish for quantifying everything, and something so delicate and ineffable as the relationship between artist and viewer can't even really be expressed verbally, let alone numerically. I am, in many cases, a believer in the wisdom of crowds and a fan of most open-source projects, but theater isn't computer programming or the collective hive-mind of Wikipedia. I find it much more instructive, actually, to watch an audience watch my work (as was easy to do at the Denver Center's in-the-round Space Theater in 2007), a technique recommended by the filmmaker Francois Truffaut, among others. Collectively, an audience is very intelligent, but not necessarily in a way that individual members can articulate - often I can better tell whether or not a play is working by observing body language. When are people laughing, crying, shifting, on the edge of their seats, dozing off, walking out?I am interested to hear from marketing departments at both record labels and arts presenters on this subject. How often do your A&R people or artistic administrators ask your opinion before releasing a record or booking a performance? Is it a discussion, or are projects simply handed to you to market from above? Even if there is discussion, are your marketing opinions taken into consideration or largely ignored?
...The best art polarizes as much as it unites. Most art that seeks to please everyone is doomed to failure, mediocrity or, at best, a sort of temporary popularity. This is not to say that genre art can never be good - I'm a fan of The Wire, Philip K. Dick, sketch comedy, comic books and pop music as much as I am of, say, Lawrence Shainberg's novel Crust, the poetry of John Ashbery, opera, or performance art, and often the two categories are not mutually exclusive (note the references to Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman on the TV show Lost, an incident that caused the postmodern novel to sell more in the last year or so than it did in the entire 20th Century). What I object to is the attempt to domesticate and commodify a process that tends to sour at its very contact with such concepts.
As a side note, I have to respectfully disagree with Anthony Tommasini about the Nonesuch Philip Glass box set ("a six-inch-square box, an oversize thing adorned with glossy photos and too bulky for a standard CD shelf."), also highlighted in the Times box set article. I, for one, think it's just the coolest thing: I especially love the five fine art interpretations of Glass circling the box and the book(let) that includes "appreciations" by people such as David Bowie, Chuck Close (obviously), Martin Scorsese and Robert Wilson, whose appreciation I have scanned:
I'm also glad no one was around when I first opened the box, because I squealed like a little girl who had just been given a pony when I saw that the inside panel design matched Glass' website:Of course, I'm the target audience. And my only hope is that all the labels don't go under before Nonesuch gets around to releasing a "We Do Not Belong Together" Sondheim box.
I recently sat in the row behind two important New York City critics at a concert. Both were scribbling throughout the performance, and since they were just across the aisle from one another, I wondered if when one heard a pen scratching to his left, would he surreptitiously glance over and wonder if he should be writing something down, too, and vice versa?
I had to go to four (4) stores today to find a copy of the April issue of Opera News. Eric is profiled in it, and I got all jealous that friends at his Carnegie Hall/Philadelphia Orchestra performance last night had seen the piece before he and I had. I went to the Borders at Columbus Circle, then the Metropolitan Opera gift shop, then the Barnes & Noble at 66th street, and finally the trailer version of the under-construction Juilliard bookstore, which had two copies left. Which now has no copies left.
I asked all these places if the April issue just hadn't come in yet, and they said no, it had come in - they just all sold out since yesterday.
So, a tip of my hat to you, Opera News. Your April issue is hot-hot-hot!
(I unbiasedly credit this to Eric's name being in the top left corner of the cover.)
I asked all these places if the April issue just hadn't come in yet, and they said no, it had come in - they just all sold out since yesterday.
So, a tip of my hat to you, Opera News. Your April issue is hot-hot-hot!
(I unbiasedly credit this to Eric's name being in the top left corner of the cover.)
I was en route to 33 Variations two Friday nights ago, and was stopped in my tracks by the presence of a Metropolitan Museum of Art BILLBOARD in TIMES SQUARE:
What the deuce? Didn't anyone tell The Met that the world economy collapsed and the arts are dying a slow and painful death? How the Pierre Bonnard Late Interiors can they afford a billboard in Times Square?? More power to 'em, I say, but what about the 74 recently fired employees?
The ad appears to be the result of a recent Flickr photo contest, which is equally awesome.
Speaking of 33 Variations, I was dismayed that there were 1. no performances of the Diabelli Variations in the city in conjunction with the production (although incorporating a live pianist throughout the play was very cool) and 2. no advertisements or inserts cross-promoting classical music performances of any kind in the program. [But on a happier note, see the two Times reviews in the music section and the theater section, which is the subject of my very first blog entry.]
My missed-promotion-opportunity annoyed state was somewhat assuaged by the New York Philharmonic's March e mail, which included a discount ticket offer for the play:
What the deuce? Didn't anyone tell The Met that the world economy collapsed and the arts are dying a slow and painful death? How the Pierre Bonnard Late Interiors can they afford a billboard in Times Square?? More power to 'em, I say, but what about the 74 recently fired employees?The ad appears to be the result of a recent Flickr photo contest, which is equally awesome.
Speaking of 33 Variations, I was dismayed that there were 1. no performances of the Diabelli Variations in the city in conjunction with the production (although incorporating a live pianist throughout the play was very cool) and 2. no advertisements or inserts cross-promoting classical music performances of any kind in the program. [But on a happier note, see the two Times reviews in the music section and the theater section, which is the subject of my very first blog entry.]
My missed-promotion-opportunity annoyed state was somewhat assuaged by the New York Philharmonic's March e mail, which included a discount ticket offer for the play:
A Special Offer from our friends at 33 Variations
Save over 40%
now through April 12th only!
Written and directed by Moisés Kaufman (The Laramie Project, I Am My Own Wife), 33 Variations tells the story of modern-day musicologist Katherine Brandt (played by two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda), who sets out to discover the root of Beethoven's obsession with Diabelli's waltz. The production features concert pianist Diane Walsh performing the music of Beethoven.
For tickets: visit http://www.33variations.com/
specialoffer2.html Location: Eugene O'Neill Theatre
230 West 49th Street
(Between Broadway and 8th Avenue)
Similarly, MoMA is offering museum members a discount to the play Impressionism on Broadway.
I reached either the highest or the lowest point of my career this week.
A journalist has been wanting to write about my client Gabriel Kahane for some time now, and e mailed asking for assistance crafting a specific story about him. I responded with a paragraph or so about a piece I thought would fit nicely both with the publication he was pitching and with what was going on in a sliver of the industry, focused on Gabriel. The journalist wrote back and said thanks so much for your help, but unfortunately my idea was just "too interesting" for his editors. I like this writer very much, and in his defense he did put "too interesting" in quotes, signaling that he understood how ridiculous that response sounded. But...really? Is this where we are?
Let's make a list: what are the best responses from journalists about why they can't write the story you've pitched? I'll start -
1. Your pitch was too interesting.
A journalist has been wanting to write about my client Gabriel Kahane for some time now, and e mailed asking for assistance crafting a specific story about him. I responded with a paragraph or so about a piece I thought would fit nicely both with the publication he was pitching and with what was going on in a sliver of the industry, focused on Gabriel. The journalist wrote back and said thanks so much for your help, but unfortunately my idea was just "too interesting" for his editors. I like this writer very much, and in his defense he did put "too interesting" in quotes, signaling that he understood how ridiculous that response sounded. But...really? Is this where we are?
Let's make a list: what are the best responses from journalists about why they can't write the story you've pitched? I'll start -
1. Your pitch was too interesting.
From the Financial Times via You've Cott Mail, more good stuff from our European friends:
The latest, and perhaps most ambitious, innovation in the world of classical music is that of the digital concert hall. Last year MonteVerdi.tv established a virtual forum for enthusiasts and musicologists, offering downloads and a live monthly broadcast, but the most comprehensive project so far was launched by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra this January with sponsorship from Deutsche Bank. Under the tagline "Any Place, Any Time" their website offers live concert streaming for €9.90 per performance, or a season ticket and unlimited archive access for €89. So far the project has proved popular - around 2,500 people tuned into the first concert and more than 10,000 have now registered - but the jury is still out as to whether it marks the further democratisation of classical music or an added threat to its future.Click here to check out the digital concert hall. The site includes a stream test where users can check to make sure they are satisfied with the video and audio quality before buying a ticket.
The Berlin Philharmonic already had quite a reputation for trailblazing - in 1980 it became the first orchestra to produce a classical CD, under conductor Herbert von Karajan - and its current artistic director and chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, is a technophile. But as Rattle himself explained in a recent press release, the aim was not simply to pioneer a new concert-going experience but also vastly to increase the public's access to the orchestra, and to music in general: "We've been thinking over these last years: how will people want to receive art in their own houses? And we more and more thought that it was people just expecting [it] to be there - like water."
...Furthermore, there are no rustles and snuffles from neighbours, and there's no need to dress up (in fact, there's a subversive pleasure to be had from attending a concert in your pyjamas). In short, you can be thoroughly anti-social, and therein lies the problem: will people still support their local symphony orchestra if they can watch the Berlin Philharmonic in their own sitting-room?
Excerpt from Nico Muhly's recent post:
I had this piece in LA, right, a few weeks ago. And the organization putting it on has what I guess is a publicist whose email address is at AOL.com. It is a truth universally acknowledged that when people still have an AOL address they are either some kind of a genius or a crazy person. Anyway, I've been getting emailed reviews of the show by this AOL address, and it sent one the other day that is so outrageous that it took me three full reads through to see if it was written by an Illiterate Person or if it had been Google Translated from the original Hungarian...(Un?)related: four out of my seven clients have AOL e mail addresses.
Arguably the least moving item was the last one, billed as a West Coast premiere, Expecting the Main Things from You by very young composer Nico Muhly from outtakes of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass that offers shards of interest but also relishes grinding the listener's ear just a bit too much. Lesser grinding would be most welcome. The entire Master Chorale gave us its best, with instrumental accompaniment from a chamber band led by violinist Ralph Morrison.
LESSER GRINDING WOULD BE MOST WELCOME! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS! So genius. I don't care if it was translated from Hungarian. This is a Precious Treasure. Other things: "very young." And: "outtakes" from Leaves of Grass - you know, a stanza here and there he left on the cutting room floor.
Anyway, this is an amazing document well worth a full read. It's deliciously garbled and he said Lesser Grinding Would Be Most Welcome. I also just love that some AOL address emailed it to me, like, "just FYI!"
Nobody likes a fat publicist, so I've been subjecting myself to these absurd Zumba classes on Thursdays and Sundays at my gym. Click here to see what I decidedly don't look like doing it (although I do bear an uncanny resemblance to that woman in the back in the lime green top). I would characterize Zumba as dance, though the whole thing is so branded (the word "Zumba" pops into the songs, the instructor wears "Zumba" gear...) that it's probably closer to aerobics. It is dance-esque, though, which had me thinking mid-shimmy #17 on Thursday that dance was more accessible than classical music because people can do it as exercise.
I have a picture somewhere in my iPhoto library of Hilary flexing her arm muscles and me flexing my arm "muscles"; suffice to say, she has more definition than I do. Eric and The King's Singers probably have much better stomach muscles (no matter how many Pilates classes I may suffer through), and Hélène and Gabriel certainly have stronger handshakes. Having just seen Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" at Lincoln Center last week, I'm certain percussionists have great upper bodies (there's one musician stage left during the piece who has to shake a maraca with his right arm/hand for about five minutes straight...ouch...). Playing an instrument is exercise. Singing is exercise. The New York City Ballet has a workout video, so why don't The King's Singers? Why doesn't So Percussion?
To see if such a thing existed, I Googled "music exercise". The results were all about music to exercise to, not playing music as exercise. I then Googled "playing music as exercise", and again got a series of results about how people exercise better/differently when music is playing. Is it possible that no one has made a music-as-exercise DVD? Podcast? Gym class? There could be a percussion section for upper body strength, a keyboard section for hand strength...cello/harp section for leg strength...
Have I gone off the deep-end, or do we think there's something to this?
I have a picture somewhere in my iPhoto library of Hilary flexing her arm muscles and me flexing my arm "muscles"; suffice to say, she has more definition than I do. Eric and The King's Singers probably have much better stomach muscles (no matter how many Pilates classes I may suffer through), and Hélène and Gabriel certainly have stronger handshakes. Having just seen Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" at Lincoln Center last week, I'm certain percussionists have great upper bodies (there's one musician stage left during the piece who has to shake a maraca with his right arm/hand for about five minutes straight...ouch...). Playing an instrument is exercise. Singing is exercise. The New York City Ballet has a workout video, so why don't The King's Singers? Why doesn't So Percussion?
To see if such a thing existed, I Googled "music exercise". The results were all about music to exercise to, not playing music as exercise. I then Googled "playing music as exercise", and again got a series of results about how people exercise better/differently when music is playing. Is it possible that no one has made a music-as-exercise DVD? Podcast? Gym class? There could be a percussion section for upper body strength, a keyboard section for hand strength...cello/harp section for leg strength...
Have I gone off the deep-end, or do we think there's something to this?
Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here...and I have the biggest news ever. One of my many sources, NYTimez1851,
sends us this: spotted on the set of a hit TV show, script in hand:
theater critic Charles Isherwood. Was it only a five years ago our
It-Boy mysteriously disappeared for quote "The New York Times"? And just as suddenly, he's on television. Don't believe me? See for yourselves: lucky for us, The CW will have proof. You know you love me. xoxo.
I locked myself out of my apartment last night en route to the laundry room. Fortunately, my neighbor Kenny (also known as "Dog") works in the building, so he called his co-worker to say we had a "911" on the 23rd floor. My sister Aliza - who was coming over for dinner at this exact moment - and I then waited in Dog's apartment, where he and his friend were watching the VH1 show For the Love of Ray J.
"Who's Ray J?" I asked. "See!" Dog's friend said emphatically. "This is just what T.I. was talking about in that interview. Nobody knows who these people are outside of the hip hop community." "That is exactly my problem with classical music!" I exclaimed, shaking my head and wildly gesturing with my hands. The room nodded in support.
We went on to discuss the Chris Brown/Rihanna situation; are they married, were the bruises worse the next day, why would anyone go for the ear-bite, and - perhaps most importantly - where were we all getting our details from. Aliza had gotten her information from Perez Hilton. Dog had gotten his information from a friend of Chris Brown's cousin who lives in the neighborhood. Dog's friend had gotten his information from World Star Hip Hop. I had gotten my information from Aliza. A general gossip blog, a specific industry blog, a source with a few-times-removed relationship with the artist, and a friend/family member; here we have evidence of at least how many different platforms a story has to hit for it to be generally known by everyone. It is also interesting to note that none of us got our information from a newspaper or television.
N.B. In addition to various publicity lessons, this tale also teaches us how easy it is to break into a New York City apartment with a hammer and a metal rod while keeping a lock completely intact.
"Who's Ray J?" I asked. "See!" Dog's friend said emphatically. "This is just what T.I. was talking about in that interview. Nobody knows who these people are outside of the hip hop community." "That is exactly my problem with classical music!" I exclaimed, shaking my head and wildly gesturing with my hands. The room nodded in support.
We went on to discuss the Chris Brown/Rihanna situation; are they married, were the bruises worse the next day, why would anyone go for the ear-bite, and - perhaps most importantly - where were we all getting our details from. Aliza had gotten her information from Perez Hilton. Dog had gotten his information from a friend of Chris Brown's cousin who lives in the neighborhood. Dog's friend had gotten his information from World Star Hip Hop. I had gotten my information from Aliza. A general gossip blog, a specific industry blog, a source with a few-times-removed relationship with the artist, and a friend/family member; here we have evidence of at least how many different platforms a story has to hit for it to be generally known by everyone. It is also interesting to note that none of us got our information from a newspaper or television.
N.B. In addition to various publicity lessons, this tale also teaches us how easy it is to break into a New York City apartment with a hammer and a metal rod while keeping a lock completely intact.
The following occurred a few years back in the management comp seats at an orchestra performance that included a world premiere:
There are, of course, a hundred stories like this. If you are critical of a performance while still within the venue walls, inevitably you're going to be on the water fountain line behind the concertmaster's Great Aunt Susie. Or worse, sitting behind the composer or the soloist who just played on the first half of the program. My mom always says that the truest reviews of a Broadway show come from the Ladies Room (/ the line for the Ladies Room) at intermission. People - perhaps just women? I've not experienced the Men's Room but welcome any intelligence on the matter from the men reading - seem a bit more frank in that setting than they are at their seats.
At one intermission, a journalist I had literally met the night before walked up and started searing me about my client. Loudly, and in front of another journalist I had been talking to. He was angry! Really angry that he wasn't enjoying the concert. (Note: it's not as if he wasted his money, as he had press tickets.) I disagreed with his opinion, as did the other journalist, and he snapped that publicists don't always have to enjoy their clients' performances. I said thank you for that permission, and wondered why he didn't save his criticism for his review. After the concert, I heard him laying into some other poor soul he (presumably?) knew about the performance, and again found it curious: he has a platform for criticism that he actually gets paid for, so why the need to personally go from audience member to audience member, spreading negativity?
Perhaps performances should be like voting sites; no political buttons, sweatshirts, signs or discussion about the candidates within X feet of the booths. After the Can Our Son Sit Here Incident of 2005, I've learned to keep my mouth shut until I'm a safe distance from the venue (and the popular post-concert hang-outs), and actually get jittery when my friends start being negative too soon after/during any performance, not just one of my clients'.
Do we think the "reviews from the Ladies Room" are a publicist's problem? If so, is there some deft way to manage them?
Amanda, flipping through program, sees composer's headshot: He's hot.
Friend: Good thing, because his music sucks.
Amanda, squints and sees composer up in a box: Oh, not as hot in person.
Friend: Too bad, because his music sucks.
[first half of the concert begins, ends, intermission comes]
Nice older gentleman, gesturing to the empty seat between him and his wife and Amanda and her friend: Excuse me, would you mind if our son came and sat here?
Amanda/Friend: Sure, no problem.
[older gentleman waves to his son in the box, composer comes downstairs and takes his new seat]
There are, of course, a hundred stories like this. If you are critical of a performance while still within the venue walls, inevitably you're going to be on the water fountain line behind the concertmaster's Great Aunt Susie. Or worse, sitting behind the composer or the soloist who just played on the first half of the program. My mom always says that the truest reviews of a Broadway show come from the Ladies Room (/ the line for the Ladies Room) at intermission. People - perhaps just women? I've not experienced the Men's Room but welcome any intelligence on the matter from the men reading - seem a bit more frank in that setting than they are at their seats.
At one intermission, a journalist I had literally met the night before walked up and started searing me about my client. Loudly, and in front of another journalist I had been talking to. He was angry! Really angry that he wasn't enjoying the concert. (Note: it's not as if he wasted his money, as he had press tickets.) I disagreed with his opinion, as did the other journalist, and he snapped that publicists don't always have to enjoy their clients' performances. I said thank you for that permission, and wondered why he didn't save his criticism for his review. After the concert, I heard him laying into some other poor soul he (presumably?) knew about the performance, and again found it curious: he has a platform for criticism that he actually gets paid for, so why the need to personally go from audience member to audience member, spreading negativity?
Perhaps performances should be like voting sites; no political buttons, sweatshirts, signs or discussion about the candidates within X feet of the booths. After the Can Our Son Sit Here Incident of 2005, I've learned to keep my mouth shut until I'm a safe distance from the venue (and the popular post-concert hang-outs), and actually get jittery when my friends start being negative too soon after/during any performance, not just one of my clients'.
Do we think the "reviews from the Ladies Room" are a publicist's problem? If so, is there some deft way to manage them?
I am that girl. Odds are, if I see a revival of a musical I will know most of - if not all of - the songs.
Sitting at West Side Story last night, I not only knew every lyric, but could hum all the musical interludes as well. (My beatbox-esque execution of "Mambo" while waiting for a cab after the performance was especially inspiring.) And since the West Side Story choreography CAN NEVER BE CHANGED thus trapping us in the late-1950s until the end of the known universe, I generally know the dance numbers as well.
Assuming Joe the Audience Member isn't familiar with West Side Story to these embarrassing extremes, chances are he would be generally aware of various aspects of the musical anyway: it's based on Romeo and Juliet, it's about warring gangs, it takes place in New York City, the choreography involves snapping, and somehow, someday everyone has heard "Somewhere", somewhere. And probably "Maria", "I Feel Pretty" and "America" to boot.
Does knowing a work either intimately or remotely make for a more or less enjoyable performance experience than not knowing it at all? Or will we simply like what we'll like, whether or not we're already familiar with it?
My mom and I saw Rent in previews the day the original cast album was released. Consequently, we had not heard any of the music going in (we didn't have internet at home at that point), though of course we knew the plot (La Boheme) and recognized strands of Roger's one great song ("that doesn't remind us of Musetta's Waltz") within the first 5 minutes of the show. I also saw Spring Awakening in previews, though thanks to the excellent A/V content on the show's website had listened to a few of the songs and watched the "Bitch of Living" video. [As an aside, that album was the last physical CD I ever bought. I pre-ordered it on Amazon after seeing the show.] Spring Awakening is based on a play by the same name by Frank Wedekind which I had neither seen nor read before going to the musical version, but presumably one could have in addition to seeing/hearing the streaming web content. Those are two of my favorite musicals to this day, and I went in almost-cold.
[title of show] was the last musical I went into knowing not one note of the music. It was the same with Curtains before that. Both albums were available before I saw the shows, I just didn't buy them, for no reasons in particular. Would I have enjoyed either show more if I knew the music? I loved [title of show], so bought the album a soon as I got home to my computer, and I was "meh" on Curtains, so never bought it.
But when a song comes on at a bar and you know it, the familiarity gives you a small buzz. Same with live performances by artists of any genre; you can't not smile when a song you've heard and like begins from the stage. There is no doubt in my mind that the audience will be energized when the song "9 to 5" is performed in the musical 9 to 5. The role of Emile de Becque in South Pacific is nearly impossible to play because the actor in that part has to sell the most famous - if not the only universally-known - song in the entire work, "Some Enchanted Evening", in the first scene of the musical. It's all downhill from there familiar melody-wise.
And what if a song is so well-known as performed by one artist - Elaine Stritch singing "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Company, for example - that any other interpretation is doomed to disappoint? That was the miracle of Jennifer Hudson in the Dreamgirls movie; did not see it coming that someone could create a new touchstone version of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going". Even when bands play acoustic or solo shows and you think, "well that's not what it sounds like"; is the thought, "and I like it better", or are you too caught-up in it sounding different?
The two pieces I had heard before at the "downtown music" concert at Alice Tully on Tuesday were Julia Wolfe's "Lick" and Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians". Were those my two favorite performances of the evening because I had heard them before, or would they have been my favorites anyway? [David, yours was my third favorite I swear.] And if the answer is "because I had heard them before", then what should presenters be doing to get the music that ticket holders are going to hear into their ears before the performance date?
Sitting at West Side Story last night, I not only knew every lyric, but could hum all the musical interludes as well. (My beatbox-esque execution of "Mambo" while waiting for a cab after the performance was especially inspiring.) And since the West Side Story choreography CAN NEVER BE CHANGED thus trapping us in the late-1950s until the end of the known universe, I generally know the dance numbers as well.
Assuming Joe the Audience Member isn't familiar with West Side Story to these embarrassing extremes, chances are he would be generally aware of various aspects of the musical anyway: it's based on Romeo and Juliet, it's about warring gangs, it takes place in New York City, the choreography involves snapping, and somehow, someday everyone has heard "Somewhere", somewhere. And probably "Maria", "I Feel Pretty" and "America" to boot.
Does knowing a work either intimately or remotely make for a more or less enjoyable performance experience than not knowing it at all? Or will we simply like what we'll like, whether or not we're already familiar with it?
My mom and I saw Rent in previews the day the original cast album was released. Consequently, we had not heard any of the music going in (we didn't have internet at home at that point), though of course we knew the plot (La Boheme) and recognized strands of Roger's one great song ("that doesn't remind us of Musetta's Waltz") within the first 5 minutes of the show. I also saw Spring Awakening in previews, though thanks to the excellent A/V content on the show's website had listened to a few of the songs and watched the "Bitch of Living" video. [As an aside, that album was the last physical CD I ever bought. I pre-ordered it on Amazon after seeing the show.] Spring Awakening is based on a play by the same name by Frank Wedekind which I had neither seen nor read before going to the musical version, but presumably one could have in addition to seeing/hearing the streaming web content. Those are two of my favorite musicals to this day, and I went in almost-cold.
[title of show] was the last musical I went into knowing not one note of the music. It was the same with Curtains before that. Both albums were available before I saw the shows, I just didn't buy them, for no reasons in particular. Would I have enjoyed either show more if I knew the music? I loved [title of show], so bought the album a soon as I got home to my computer, and I was "meh" on Curtains, so never bought it.
But when a song comes on at a bar and you know it, the familiarity gives you a small buzz. Same with live performances by artists of any genre; you can't not smile when a song you've heard and like begins from the stage. There is no doubt in my mind that the audience will be energized when the song "9 to 5" is performed in the musical 9 to 5. The role of Emile de Becque in South Pacific is nearly impossible to play because the actor in that part has to sell the most famous - if not the only universally-known - song in the entire work, "Some Enchanted Evening", in the first scene of the musical. It's all downhill from there familiar melody-wise.
And what if a song is so well-known as performed by one artist - Elaine Stritch singing "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Company, for example - that any other interpretation is doomed to disappoint? That was the miracle of Jennifer Hudson in the Dreamgirls movie; did not see it coming that someone could create a new touchstone version of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going". Even when bands play acoustic or solo shows and you think, "well that's not what it sounds like"; is the thought, "and I like it better", or are you too caught-up in it sounding different?
The two pieces I had heard before at the "downtown music" concert at Alice Tully on Tuesday were Julia Wolfe's "Lick" and Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians". Were those my two favorite performances of the evening because I had heard them before, or would they have been my favorites anyway? [David, yours was my third favorite I swear.] And if the answer is "because I had heard them before", then what should presenters be doing to get the music that ticket holders are going to hear into their ears before the performance date?
Skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles
There are few things I enjoy more than marketing initiatives that generate press. From Gawker, brought to my attention by James and Aliza:
There are few things I enjoy more than marketing initiatives that generate press. From Gawker, brought to my attention by James and Aliza:
It would be hard to come up with a cheaper ad campaign: Mars' new fruit-candy promotion consists of redirecting its homepage to a Twitter search for "Skittles." Successful? Wildly.
A Skittles logo floats on top of the Twitter page, and sometimes Mars redirects to YouTube or Facebook instead of Twitter. The campaign is about as bargain-basement as you can get: Mars doesn't need a TV buy, ad agency or even much Web design work.And Twitter users are, as planned, including the word "Skittles" in their posts in order to have the honor of appearing on the Skittles.com home page.
...In other words, Mars has reduced its advertising nearly, but not quite all the way, to mindless repetition of a single word.
Not surprisingly, marketers (marketeers?) are skeptical of the risks Skittles is taking by hardly monitoring content about their product:
Other experts say Skittles is taking the wrong approach to social media. Instead of encouraging teens to have a conversation about Skittles, it is encouraging false conversations about the brand, says Shiv Singh, vice president and global social-media lead at Razorfish, a digital-marketing firm owned by Microsoft. "Everyone is having a field day and writing 'Skittles' on Twitter just to get attention," he says.
Sure enough, the site became the target of Internet pranks on Monday. The way the "Chatter" portion of the Skittles.com site is built, any Twitter user who mentions the word "Skittles" is featured on the homepage.
At least one Web site has been launched by pranksters encouraging Web users to post negative comments about the candy. The comments range from the thoughtful to the outlandish. "Skittles taste terrible. If you eat Skittles you support killing kittens and puppies," wrote a Twitter user named kingshane. (from The Wall Street Journal)
I personally think this demonstrates Skittles' complete understanding of social media (" "), runaway negative commentary and all. There is nothing more nails-on-the-chalkboard than arts organizations' unnatural attempts to utilize Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, etc.. We Should Have a Blog, someone says at a staff meeting, and a blog on an organization's website on which press releases are posted once a month is launched. A marketing director's 15-year-old-son mentions "Facebook" at the dinner table, and suddenly there's an organization page devoid of voice. These sites need to be utilized the way they are intended to be utilized; they won't change for you! Identify what you specifically hope to achieve marketing-wise - beyond simply getting young butts in seats - and then figure out which sites fit best with your organization's unique personality and needs. You shouldn't launch a YouTube channel just because the ballet across the street has one; maybe Twitter works better for you. ["If the ballet company across the street told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"] And if there's no one on staff who can naturally participate in so-called social media, reach the youth of America some other way. Or, better yet, see if that marketing director's son needs an after-school job.
UPDATE, 5:30 pm on Thursday: Greg Sandow tells me that conductor Michael Christie is tweeting about how bad orchestras' Twitter pages are! Christie tweets, "Recently agreed to follow a few orchestras. Not sure how I feel about be bombarded with marketing stuff rather than people's thoughts." and then "Atlanta has picture of Spano. I want to hear from him not marketing people." I stand impressed by Christie's candor. Speaking of which, he's also just commented on a post over on Greg's blog, which is a dangerous game as we learned from Cleveland. A reader just asked if the Brooklyn Philharmonic has been paying him (!!!); someone page a publicist!
Apparently, copy editing does not = "recession-proof".
Now, I'm more than happy to answer fact-checkers' or writers' follow-up questions, but a freelance writer e mailed yesterday, attached an album review for one of my artists and asked, "Please read it over, mostly for fact-checking, misspelling, dangling participles, comma faults, etc. Anything egregious. You needn't feel compelled to comment, but any help would be welcome."
Sure, I'll help: you missed a star on the end there!
Now, I'm more than happy to answer fact-checkers' or writers' follow-up questions, but a freelance writer e mailed yesterday, attached an album review for one of my artists and asked, "Please read it over, mostly for fact-checking, misspelling, dangling participles, comma faults, etc. Anything egregious. You needn't feel compelled to comment, but any help would be welcome."
Sure, I'll help: you missed a star on the end there!
From You've Cott Mail:
New York Sun's arts section to rise againNo mention of a web version, eh? Clearly now is the time to launch a print-only publication.
From Crains New York Business, 2/28/09
The New York Sun may not be rising again, but its arts coverage is about to have a resurrection of sorts. Manhattan Media, publisher of weekly freebies New York Press, West Side Spirit and Our Town, is launching monthly supplement City Arts, which will feature former arts critics and writers from the Sun. The alumni include Lance Esplund, Brice Brown, Jay Nordlinger, Joel Lobenthal and Marion Maneker. The 24-page publication will debut March 12. Manhattan Media has also hired two sales executives who specialized in arts advertising at the Sun. The six year old five-day-a-week broadsheet folded in September. Though it never turned a profit, it was prized for its arts coverage and carried ads from galleries and museums. City Arts will have a print run of 65,000 copies.
I rarely go to the ballet. It lives in that silvery area between work and not-work, so I tend to just not think to buy tickets. On Saturday afternoon, though, my friend Rebecca had tickets to New York City Ballet's 21 Century Movement program, and I was more than happy to tag along. Impressions, in no particular order:
"Different" is nice, but it sure isn't pretty.
I cannot say enough positive things about New York City Ballet's logo and current ad campaign. The clean lines of both the fade-to-black block font and the provoking but elegant photos are striking and intriguing. One gets the sense that this is traditional ballet (the dancers in the ads are wearing "normal" ballet costumes and leotards) at its finest but with an edge.
New York City Ballet has managed to convey a contemporary image without
losing its original identity, which is really quite remarkable and rare for performing arts organizations.
"Pretty" is what it's about.
There's always a lot of talk about how orchestra members shouldn't wear tuxedos and black dresses; it makes the art form seem stodgy and culturally irrelevant. (See Greg Sandow's discussion of the topic here.) I would have tended to agree until I saw Saturday's program. The first piece - Jorma Elo's "Slice to Sharp" - featured dancers in sleek, blueish piped leotards (photo here) and, while performed to pieces by Biber and Vivaldi, was modern. Next came Peter Martins' take on Adams' "Hallelujah Junction" (photo here), and again, the costumes were clean and contemporary. Third on the program was the the world premiere aspect of the afternoon: Melissa Barak's "A Simple Symphony", performed to the 1934 Britten piece of the same name. The curtain went up and behind it was the most traditional ballet tableau one could have possibly imagined (photo), and the entire audience gasped with delight. Right or wrong, this is what people apparently came to see, even in a program called 21st Century Movement. Tutus and cavaliers and pink pink pink and flower trim. This made me think: if I went to the NY Philharmonic and all the players were wearing jeans and hoodies, would I feel like I was missing out on The Concert Experience? Would I feel a bit cheated? I shocked myself by answering "Maybe a little..." in my head. What if I don't want to relate to the ballerinas? The musicians in the orchestra? They are, in fact, not just like us. If I wanted a world without tutus and tuxedos, perhaps I would have gone to see a movie. To promote escapism or not to promote escapism...
And though she was twenty-two, though she was twenty-two, though she was twenty-two.
Has everyone seen the New York City Ballet's YouTube channel? It inspired me to encourage channels for Hilary and The King's Singers. My favorite part of New York City Ballet's channel is the footage of the dancers in performance when they were little kids. Incidentally, this same footage was playing on flat screen TVs in the lobby of the David H. Koch Theater. Beyond just being well, adorable, this footage is inspirational for children who come to the ballet, and thoroughly entertaining for...let's say "retired" "ballerinas"...like myself, whose fathers have tapes and tapes of similar footage in an attic somewhere. I'm trying to get my hands on childhood performance footage of my clients now, too. I would love to see footage of orchestra members playing their instruments as kids, in a hall's lobby or on an orchestra's YouTube channel.
And he'd say, "Maggie, do you wanna dance?"
Sadly, I didn't see the 21st Century Movement program mentioned on contemporary music blogs like The Rest is Noise or Sequenza21. It's entirely possible that the program was pitched to these writers and just not picked up, but I find it hard to believe that a program that included Britten and Adams (not to mention Shostakovich and Biber) wouldn't at least be mentioned a few places if brought to writers'/editors' attentions. The house on Saturday afternoon looked pretty full, so perhaps the ballet doesn't need the extra coverage. But when we have pure and creative crossover like Saturday's program, I really hate to see missed other-genre press opportunities.
"Different" is nice, but it sure isn't pretty.
I cannot say enough positive things about New York City Ballet's logo and current ad campaign. The clean lines of both the fade-to-black block font and the provoking but elegant photos are striking and intriguing. One gets the sense that this is traditional ballet (the dancers in the ads are wearing "normal" ballet costumes and leotards) at its finest but with an edge.
New York City Ballet has managed to convey a contemporary image without
losing its original identity, which is really quite remarkable and rare for performing arts organizations."Pretty" is what it's about.
There's always a lot of talk about how orchestra members shouldn't wear tuxedos and black dresses; it makes the art form seem stodgy and culturally irrelevant. (See Greg Sandow's discussion of the topic here.) I would have tended to agree until I saw Saturday's program. The first piece - Jorma Elo's "Slice to Sharp" - featured dancers in sleek, blueish piped leotards (photo here) and, while performed to pieces by Biber and Vivaldi, was modern. Next came Peter Martins' take on Adams' "Hallelujah Junction" (photo here), and again, the costumes were clean and contemporary. Third on the program was the the world premiere aspect of the afternoon: Melissa Barak's "A Simple Symphony", performed to the 1934 Britten piece of the same name. The curtain went up and behind it was the most traditional ballet tableau one could have possibly imagined (photo), and the entire audience gasped with delight. Right or wrong, this is what people apparently came to see, even in a program called 21st Century Movement. Tutus and cavaliers and pink pink pink and flower trim. This made me think: if I went to the NY Philharmonic and all the players were wearing jeans and hoodies, would I feel like I was missing out on The Concert Experience? Would I feel a bit cheated? I shocked myself by answering "Maybe a little..." in my head. What if I don't want to relate to the ballerinas? The musicians in the orchestra? They are, in fact, not just like us. If I wanted a world without tutus and tuxedos, perhaps I would have gone to see a movie. To promote escapism or not to promote escapism...
And though she was twenty-two, though she was twenty-two, though she was twenty-two.
Has everyone seen the New York City Ballet's YouTube channel? It inspired me to encourage channels for Hilary and The King's Singers. My favorite part of New York City Ballet's channel is the footage of the dancers in performance when they were little kids. Incidentally, this same footage was playing on flat screen TVs in the lobby of the David H. Koch Theater. Beyond just being well, adorable, this footage is inspirational for children who come to the ballet, and thoroughly entertaining for...let's say "retired" "ballerinas"...like myself, whose fathers have tapes and tapes of similar footage in an attic somewhere. I'm trying to get my hands on childhood performance footage of my clients now, too. I would love to see footage of orchestra members playing their instruments as kids, in a hall's lobby or on an orchestra's YouTube channel.
And he'd say, "Maggie, do you wanna dance?"
Sadly, I didn't see the 21st Century Movement program mentioned on contemporary music blogs like The Rest is Noise or Sequenza21. It's entirely possible that the program was pitched to these writers and just not picked up, but I find it hard to believe that a program that included Britten and Adams (not to mention Shostakovich and Biber) wouldn't at least be mentioned a few places if brought to writers'/editors' attentions. The house on Saturday afternoon looked pretty full, so perhaps the ballet doesn't need the extra coverage. But when we have pure and creative crossover like Saturday's program, I really hate to see missed other-genre press opportunities.
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AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
rock culture approximately
critical difference
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dog Days
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
No genre is the new genre
Performance Monkey
David Jays on theatre and dance
David Jays on theatre and dance
Plain English
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Real Clear Arts
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Creative Destruction
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PianoMorphosis
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Public Art, Public Space
Another Bouncing Ball
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
