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Though I have previously complained about people e mailing me personally with items that they should really post as comments, I have to admit that my afternoon was made when I received a personal phone call comment from Leila Getz at the Vancouver Recital Society. She said she had read yesterday's post on concerts being promoted as special events, and noticed that she actually uses the word "special" in her marketing materials. "And why am I telling my audience that one concert is more special than another??" she asked. She also pointed out that "special" is often a word we use to promote things that aren't selling; that is, "special" as in a sale.

So our friend Leila has one week to complete the copy for her season brochure and is looking for another word to describe the...big deal?....first concert of the season with the performing artist who...perhaps has a higher fee?...than other artists on the series.

OK, comment and help, please.

Her blog is here, and includes gems like, "Remember that iPod Touch that I confessed to stealing from my husband? Well, now that I'm back in the swing of things, I barely get time to listen to it...and in any case, I've been listening to Murray Perahia practising in my living room for the past few days."

At least we can all agree that Murray Perahia practicing in one's living room is special, no air quotes necessary.

It was cold, wet and windy in Manhattan on Friday night. I probably should have gone to see the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, but what I really wanted to do was dust on the minimum mineral make-up required to be viewed in public, garb myself in some kind of fashionably bulky wool and go to dinner with a friend I've known since we were 12. As usual, my old stand by Dinosaur BBQ was booked solid on a Friday night, so with an amazing quickness, seeing one of, if not the, best orchestras in the world at one of, if not the, best halls in the world turned into Dinosaur BBQ take-out while watching Ratatouille with Meg in matching Dartmouth sweatpants.

As we were plating our Sweetheart Deal ribs, I said to her, "You know, I'm probably missing the concert event of the year right now." "I'm sure there'll be another one next week," she replied. Of course, she's right: the number of times I've felt pressured to go to a concert just because I know everyone will be talking about it at the next industry fete is ridiculous. At several life points, I've actually considered just lying and telling everyone I did go to "that Cameron Carpenter concert at Trinity Church on Halloween" and "the Zankel show where Jeremy Denk played the Concord AND Hammerklavier sonatas."  I've heard so much about both I could probably convince people I had performed the concerts myself at this point. I suppose it's a rich man's problem; there are so many things to do in New York that one could essentially experience the X of a lifetime every night.

I saw three excellent classical pianists last week: Jonathan Biss, who performed at the club (le) poisson rouge with my client Gabriel Kahane, Leif Ove Andsnes, and Pierre Laurent Aimard, both of whom played at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. I went in knowing two out of three would be "special."

Let's start with concerts that I was told would be special. The Jonathan Biss CD release concert (for this album) featured an opening set of Gabriel's original chamber pop-ish songs, Jonathan playing Janacek, Kurtag and Schubert, and finally Jonathan and Gabriel performing Schubert songs together. I would say the venue, set-up of the concert, and repertoire choices were what "promised" to make the evening special. What actually made it special, to me, was the reverence of an audience that included Richard Goode, Gary Graffman and my other client Eric Owens for all the music heard that night nearly equally. In the Leif Ove Andsnes' Pictures Reframed concerts on Friday and Saturday nights at Alice Tully, Andsnes performed Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," among other works, accompanied by projections by South African video artist Robin Rhode. What "promised" to make these concerts special was six massive screens, the projections themselves, and Andsnes' reputation for not doing "crazy" projects like this one (and yet, here he was). What made it special, to me, was how dark it was in the theater and a story Andsnes told in the post concert discussion about a Russian pianist who started playing recitals with just a desk lamp on the instrument.

On Sunday, Pierre Laurent Aimard performed an ordinary recital for Pierre Laurent Aimard; for another pianist, a second half of Beethoven and Stockhausen with a Webern encore may have been special, but it's what we expect from him. You should know that I would pay to see Aimard wash dishes, and I have never attended a concert of his that was not excellent. My point, though, is that this particular recital wasn't presented to me as a special event.  Great pianist, great program, great hall, great piano, great concert. No singer/songwriter in a West Village club, no video artist projections.

What happens when an audience member buys a concert ticket expecting that concert is going to be a special event? 1. An audience member can leave claiming the concert was special even if it actually wasn't. 2. An audience member can find something special in it that was not intended to be special. 3. An audience member's expectations can be met or even exceeded by exactly what they were told they would see, and let's not forget 4. An audience member can be completely let down and never take a chance on something "special" again.  Special concerts that naturally build buzz in advance, sell tickets easily, and then don't actually play to their "special" potential could spell more disaster for a presenter in the long run than "normal" concerts that meet or even exceed expectations. 

What do presenters and performers have to do--if they "have" to "do" anything at all--to make a performance special, and how much of what makes something special is out of their control? Beware the Presenter or Performer Who Tries Too Hard To Be Special; like most things in life, no good comes from trying too hard to be something you're not. And what if most things that make concerts special are out of presenters' or presenters' control? A concert could be special because someone was on a first date with his or her future spouse, and they might not realize how special that concert was until years later. Someone could be one of twenty people in the audience, and the very fact that no one knew about something that turned out to be so amazing could have made it special. In that case, the 20-tickets-sold concert would have been categorized as a failure for the presenter, but perhaps a great success for the small audience who got to see it.

And then there are nights when you're just not in the mood to see a concert and are completely blown away by something. Or you see an artist--maybe one you work for--who you've seen fifty times and suddenly that night is the special for unexplainable reasons. I don't know what guarantees a special experience or who, if anyone, is responsible for guaranteeing it. All I know for sure is that the mac 'n cheese from Dinosaur BBQ is always special, more so when eaten at home in 5-year-old sweatpants.

I'll be stepping in for someone on an OPERA America "Making Connections" panel tomorrow night, Shock of the Day being that the panel is on social media. My co-panelists are Brian Dickie, General Director of Chicago Opera Theater, and Erik Gensler, president of Capacity Interactive, both of whom are Famous on the Interweb.

Here's the information:

When: 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., followed by a reception that I won't be at because I'll be at **DREAMGIRLS** at the Apollo.
Where: 330 Seventh Avenue, 16th floor (at 29th Street)
Fees: $5 for members/$10 for non-members (pre-registration),  $10 for members/$15 for non-members (at the door)

I figure my photo will be on the OPERA America website between Joyce DiDonato's and John Conklin's some time on Thursday.

A few awkward publicist things on a gloomy Wednesday!

First, a journalist forwarded the following (amazing) press release the other day:

Susan Boyle will return to the states this month to perform the title track off her forthcoming album 'I Dreamed a Dream' (Columbia) on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" on November 10. Then, to celebrate the album's global release, on November 23rd, Boyle will make her live morning TV debut singing "TK" on NBC's "Today Show." (FRAN - Can you confirm the song?)

Produced by Steve Mac (Leona Lewis, Kelly Clarkson), Boyle's album debut 'I Dreamed a Dream' is out November 23rd ( Columbia). The 12 track collection features her signature songs "I Dreamed A Dream" and "Cry Me A River," as well as her haunting rendition of Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses," Madonna's "You'll See," The Monkees' "Daydream Believer," and "Who I Was Born To Be," an original recording written especially for Susan.

I went to WhiskyFest NY with my dad last night (because WhiskyFest is the new Bronx Zoo?).  This photo is blurry, but you may notice the crowd at the Marriott Marquis last night bears an uncanny resemblance to Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart" soloists:


I wonder how my Cecilia Bartoli castrato CDs would have sold there.

First, a story: Once upon a time, there lived a fair(ly) young princess who blogged about classical music PR from her Happily Ever Harlem tower. On one particular morning, she used a word to describe a Dragon of Industry that angered him. In retrospect, a less cavalier synonym would have conveyed her point, but it was too late: the Evil Wizard Internet had swept up the post and the Google Alert Fairy had delivered The Word to everyone who would read it. Now the Dragon protects his cave, because the Blog Princess cannot be trusted and may actually be a Poison-Apple-Wielding Blog Witch in disguise. They would all basically live happily ever after, but not together. The End.

________


MySpace exploded on the scene when I first started working at IMG Artists. Each department got an intern, and while I was looking through Old Fashioned Resumes, a colleague of mine was clicking through MySpace pages. "We'll learn more from here than we will from those resumes," he advised. Onto MySpace I went, and lo and behold, there we had potential employees double-fisting 40s, girls kissing girls, and lots of...*exciting*...Halloween costumes. Not ideal for a publicity intern, although I guess that depends on how one defines "publicity." For those of you who don't know, unlike Facebook and like Twitter, MySpace pages are viewable by the public; that is, you don't have to be a member yourself to see what people have posted there. While Facebook is private, so many people have joined at this point (and can have secret accounts) that "private" is essentially public.

Around this time, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc. featured stories about how Facebook and MySpace were affecting job interviews and college admissions. Students would spend a lifetime building the perfect college application only to have their young life's work squandered by some choice language on a friend's Facebook wall. Similarly, artists, publicists and managers can spend their days putting forth the best possible image for themselves and their clients, but one Tweet about hating a venue, one blog post about a journalist, and everything we've all be working for can be spoiled. And as a publicist friend once e mailed to me, "I can make my client look good, get her on TV, protect her image, but I can't help her if she wants to Tweet about True Blood getting her all hot and being a metaphor for her life." True Blood, the Downfall of Us All. (Which reminds me: Eric the Vampire, c-a-l-l me.)

I follow Imogen Heap on Twitter because, while I don't love her music, I think she or someone on her team is a marketing genius. My fellow ArtsJournal blogger Andrew Taylor over at The Artful Manager writes about the success of her most recent album here. Consider yourself warned, Heap: I fully plan on stealing you Flickr album art competition at some point. Yesterday, though, Imogen Heap got my publicist hackles up when she Tweeted this:

Gonna see a doctor tmw morning. Feeling pretty shocking but my throat is having the most trouble. Not good I'm afraid. Not good at all :( x 3:49 AM Nov 8th from Tweetie

Maybe we in the classical music industry are just more (spoiler alert) conservative than other music industries, but I couldn't help but think of the ramifications if, say, soprano Danielle de Niese had posted this same thing on her Twitter feed. Her manager would have gotten twenty phone calls, probably within an hour. The Times writers who follow her on Twitter would probably have mentioned something to the Arts, Briefly editors. Her publicist would have had to do damage control for a week. Rumors that she was getting surgery would have started flying.

Imogen Heap did, in fact, cancel her concerts. She Tweets:

I'm so so sorry but I'm cancelling tonight's show. Just seen the doctor. Throat's not in good shape. More soon. Really gutted. Bad start :( about 19 hours ago from Tweetie

No...@therealahhmee, don't leave! I'm so sorry. I'm not gonna make it tonight. I feel awful to disappoint you and everyone else. X xabout 19 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to therealahhmee

Hoping to do tomorrow's show. Will sleeeeep lots. Santa barbara... Will let you know about rescheduling or refund. This is so crap!! Xxx about 19 hours ago from Tweetie

Well, this made me think: yes, she's revealing that she's sick and ultimately canceling her concerts, but maybe telling her 1,250,481 (!!!) followers herself lessens the blow. Would they rather read it from her "personally" with x's and o's, or get a formal e mail from a promoter telling them their tickets would be refunded? Who can stay mad at someone who says they're "Really gutted," after all?  And let's not forget how composer Nico Muhly said the New York Philharmonic's website looked like a Tampax ad in an interview with the Boston Globe and then reiterated the sentiment on his blog in September 2008. The epilogue to this story is, of course, that the New York Philharmonic paid for and will premiere a new work by Nico this spring. In both cases, no damage done, not damage control required.

So I, as a publicist, am torn: MySpace (at one point), Facebook, blogs, tumblr accounts and Twitter are all fantastic ways for artists to connect with current and potential audiences, and when used well can be a more powerful PR tool than a major newspaper feature. On the flip side, though, we all get lulled into a false sense of security with these things. This morning, for example, I almost Tweeted, "Do you think my neighbors can hear me singing 'Giants in the Sky' in the shower?" Backspace, backspace, backspace; you are a PR PROFESSIONAL, Ameer - you know better than to put anything about THE SHOWER on the Interweb! (Of course now I just did, so apparently I do not know better.) 

Incidentally, this goes both ways.  During the World Series, I noticed that one New York writer implied on Twitter that he would rather watch the next evening's baseball game than review the (presumably boring) concert he was assigned to. If it had been my client's concert and it was "in print" that the critic reviewing didn't really want to be there? I would be furious and dead-set on requesting another writer or none at all.

You get sucked in. You think no one's "actually" reading (they are) and you think no one "actually" cares (they do). As mentioned above, I've gotten myself into trouble with some folks in The Industry with this blog. Sure, some of my in-the-doghouse episodes come down to differences in opinion about a publicist having a blog, but some of them are squarely my fault. Would I say things I write here in an interview with a newspaper, blog, radio station or magazine? Mostly, but not entirely. Why not control the media we can actually control?

From the Globe and Mail, headline: "COC Boss Scoops his Own Publicist":

The Canadian Opera Company is usually tight-lipped about its plans beyond the current season. I thought the tradition would continue under Alexander Neef, the diplomatic young German who took over as the Toronto company's general director last year.

Boy, was I wrong. Neef's blog on the COC website is chock full of hints, tips and informal announcements about his agenda for future seasons, including the following...

"He's interested in giving some hints along the way," says COC director of public relations Claudine Domingue, who usually tries to keep the lid on insider tips about the company's plans. "I think he enjoys letting people see a little behind the scenes."

Neef's prolific July entries are sprinkled with names of the eminent singers, directors and talent agents he encounters at lunch or at performances in Paris and London. The name-dropping is often followed by a more or less direct statement of that person's role in future COC seasons.

For Monday, how artist Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and blogs can cause more trouble than they're worth. As I like to say to one of my clients when we're in public places and spaces, "Lock it down!"

I've been working on two ridiculous things. You know how CD release concerts are usually/mostly boring? Or at the very least, exactly the same as the last one you went to? Right, so, next week and the following week, two people I work for are mixing it up a bit. Both these events are free as birds. 


I'm already planning my hilarious out-of-office autoreply for that day.

And now for something completely different, since Cecilia Bartoli isn't touring in the States this season, we're having a virtual ("  ") release party for her on Monday, November 16th. The release party, at (le) poisson rouge in (le) West Village, will feature a video recording of Cecilia performing selections from her new album, Sacrificium. The concert was recorded on September 10th, 2009 at the court theater of the Reggia di Caserta. The party will include silly door prizes and a drink called "The Castratini".

Keep in mind both these things could be completely unattended and I will go crawling back to the sell-tickets-to-a-live-concert-to-celebrate-a-release-in-one-place method after pounding Castratinis alone. I'll keep you posted.

My client Eric Owens had a recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall last spring. Typically, I was doing seventeen things at once, two of which were working with Carnegie's Creative Services department on Eric's program and e mailing Hilary Hahn a photo of a dog wearing a yarmulke. No particular reason for that latter task.

The person I was working with at Carnegie asked which photo of Eric I wanted in the program. I cut and pasted the URL of a recent photo of Eric from the IMG Artists website and sent it off to him. I received an e mail back saying, "Attached is what we have on file for Mr. Owens. I'm not sure you want us to use the photo below."

That would be...of a dog wearing a yarmulke.

Amanda the Consummate Professional strikes again! What PR prowess. What charm, what grace!

Yesterday, I e mailed someone at Decca a response that was meant for someone else at Decca. Something like, "I just don't think that naked statue photo screams 'party'" as a reply to an iTunes question. On the ball yet again! My own incompetence made me think: a while back, we collected a list on Life's a Pitch of the things that annoy journalists about publicists (here) and that annoy publicists about journalists (here). Now I want a list of everyone's biggest PR bloopers. Come on...publicity is funny!

Comment anonymously or as your proud, mistake-making self here.

Let me first say that I hope this blog entry doesn't ruin my sister's chances of marrying Jorge Posada.


I noticed these Jorge Posada/Mayor Bloomberg ads on The Awl last Tuesday. "Did they press 'submit' on those ads the as soon as Posada caught that last Rivera pitch on Monday night?" I wondered. Some deft Google work on my part determined that no, the ads had been running since the end of September, neatly timed with the release of Posada and Mrs. Posada's (err...sorry, Aliza) book. New York Magazine reports that jointly, the Posadae endorse our current Mayor--though poor Mrs. P. doesn't get her photo in the banner ads--saying in a press release, "He can hit, throw, field and lead a team, all without missing a beat. We proudly pledge our support to the City's all-star Mayor, Mike Bloomberg."  Oh-boy.

I have never worked in politics, but as a casual observer who thinks a lot about publicity, I don't think it's a good idea to have a player from only one New York sports team endorse you. Sure, the Mets were an unmitigated disaster this season, but that's hardly germane to their having many, many fans who are voters.  I asked my friend Ben Wyskida, Publicity Director for The Nation (see the **exclusive** Life's a Pitch interview here) for his thoughts:

"The Yankees are Manhattan's team and Bloomberg is Manhattan's Mayor. I'm not sure what a Mets fan would think of this. Also, I wish these ads reminded voters what a horrific stadium deal Bloomberg cut with the Yankees, costing the city millions in revenue and leaving school children in the Bronx playing baseball on Staten Island, instead of on the new parkland they were promised. But they won't. Frankly, I do think in local politics it's good to get sports heroes involved, but you have to get a few, from the different teams."

Moving on from Bloomberg's PR choices, I was thinking about how interesting it is every time a baseball player (orchestra player, ensemble member) is pulled out of their group into the solo spotlight. I don't think I've ever seen Posada on his own; Jeter, yes, all over the place, including in bobblehead form on my desk and in my dreams every night, but not Posada. I spent a good chunk of last week in Utah with my clients The King's Singers. Even when a new member joined the group last year, we didn't concentrate the press on him. Sure, he did a few interviews about "being the new King's Singer," but the focus was on how his joining would affect the group, what the group's process for selecting a new member was, what was ahead for this new incarnation of the group. Watching two of their concerts last week, I noticed that the individual members don't even bow after one has a solo. The soloist may gently nod slightly more than the other members during the applause, but even in performance the emphasis is completely on the group.

On the one hand, I think orchestras, baseball teams and ensembles are significantly more interesting to watch when you know the personalities and interests behind the players. One of the New York Philharmonic musicians, for example, was profiled in Runner's World because he is, you guessed it, a runner. Similarly, one of The King's Singers, Paul Phoenix, loves cars; would his being profiled in Car and Driver help the group reach a different audience? Of course. Would I, as the group's publicist, feel strange about pitching a solo profile of him without pitching solo profiles elsewhere for the other five? Absolutely. I felt weird typing his name just now! David Hurley, Timothy Wayne-Wright, Philip Lawson, Christopher Gabbitas and Stephen Connolly - there! Now I've mentioned them all.

I'm curious to hear how other publicists for organizations and ensembles handle this. Is it more effective to divide and conquer--that is, pitch stories for individuals when and where they come up--or to push a group's image and persons-alities above all else?  Individuals are what make the groups, and basically everything in this world, interesting, but the group is what's powerful and, ultimately and presumably, what people want to see and hear.  How much stronger would a Yankees endorsement of Bloomberg have been, for example, rather than just a Jorge Posada endorsement?

All that said, let's go Yankees! It is my opinion as a Public Relations Professional that winning the World Series in your new stadium will result in Good Publicity. That's a little free advice from me to you, Joe Girardi.