prdebate: January 2010 Archives

Thanks to everyone who read and participated in our virtual panel last week! I'm sorry to report that you're back to Just Me now. Shoes over Schubert, if you will.

If you find yourself missing my co-panelists, start reading Matthew's excellent blog Soho the Dog, check out Michael's special-by-any-definition University Musical Society series in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or--now that you know him--go see Jonathan in concert and buy his most recent CD. Which happens to be Schubert, not shoes, and is Grood - great and good. I'm not sure how you can support James and his artists directly, but buying him a Maker's Mark (neat) the next time you see him at a concert should do the trick.

Thanks again! If you'd like to access the panel in the future, go to http://www.artsjournal.com/lifesapitch/prdebate/.

On Thursday night, my soon-to-be 82 year old Iranian grandmother sent me the following text:

Hi amanda joshua bell and his friens are on pbs live in kincolon center iam having blast watching him

I called her yesterday to discuss birthday plans for the big 8-2 (chugging contests, Chippendales, etc.), and she was still so excited about seeing Joshua Bell on PBS that she refused to talk about anything else. "I didn't watch it," I said. "YOU DIDN'T WATCH IT??" "Um, no, I missed it. I'm sure it will be on some other time." "Yes, tomorrow at noon. I'm going to watch it again." "OK, OK - I'll DVR it." "It was so great, Amanda. He was there on TV with all these singers who are so much better than American Idol and I thought, Amanda knows him! I know him!."

It's true: a few years back, Noona met Joshua Bell backstage at a Carnegie performance. "This is my grandmother," I said. "Grandmother?" he replied incredulously, which of course gained him one loyal fan for life.

Something happens when you see someone you know perform, and as it turns out, you don't even have to really know them. The actor Paul Dano went to the same ballet school and and swim club as I did growing up. I can't recall a word I said to the man, but whenever he pops up in a movie I think, "Ah! I know him!" Of course I don't know him, but I know many things having to do with him, many things surrounding him, and that's enough to elicit a personal, excited reaction from me. Just when the summer film Taking Woodstock started to get slow, there was Paul Dano in a VW van! My sister and I both perked up in the movie theater, "Paul Dano!" we jerked forward in our seats and looked at each other. "Who?" our friend snapped. "We know him!" we shout-whispered in unison. And as I said, we don't. 

In addition to loose and not so loose, quasi-personal ties (David Letterman lived down the road from us growing up, my college e mailed us all about our fellow alums who are going to the Olympics, I've seen Drew Barrymore twice in the same West Village Starbucks), the amount of access we all have to mainstream celebrities also creates in us a sensation of knowing people we don't actually know. My entire family talked about Tiger Woods' marital problems at Christmas dinner like he was That Cousin We Never See who Just Can't Get it Together. We are exposed to a tremendous amount of information about celebrities in sports, movies, television, and even theater, and guess what? People seek out and spend money on those things.

On Wednesday, Jonathan wrote the following:

Then there is a whole other kind of special: the human interest special. The feature-story-in- another-section-of-the-paper special. The "get-to-know-the-artist-away-from-his-instrument" special. And while I see the value in this, at least from a marketing perspective, it makes me uneasy. This is a blog about PR, and so I know I'm outlining a rather radical position here, but I feel it's important, so here goes:

Sunday night, while stranded at the Toronto airport, I found myself watching the Golden Globes, of all things. Meryl Streep, in accepting her award, made a charming comment about being mistaken for an extraordinary woman because she's played such a long string of them, and then, as a corollary, said that she thought of herself as a vessel, through which these characters came to life. And it occurred to me that while I've seen her in plenty of movies, I know very little about her, and that that mystery probably makes it much easier for her to disappear into a role - and for me, her audience, to buy it. I won't name names, but I imagine we probably all can think of certain fine actors - likely of a younger generation - in whom it is very difficult to suspend the disbelief necessary to appreciate their performances (or, rather, appreciate them as something deeper than "performances"). Their every move is broadcast to us by the media; they never become characters because they are always their personae. (We don't really know them, of course, but we are encouraged to think that we do, and that's the point. And I assume this happens because everyone in the equation - the actors themselves, their representatives, the people marketing their movies, and the media - feels they are gaining something by it.)

Now, the analogy to classical music is an imperfect one, but not so imperfect that it isn't worth making. We performers are interpreters. Re-creators. Vessels, if you will. The performer's feeling for the music comes into it - how could it not? - but in the greatest performances I've heard, the person or people playing have seemed to disappear, and my feeling that I was connected purely to the music I was hearing was absolute. And the more of a persona the person onstage has cultivated, the harder it is for this magical disappearance to take place. To put it bluntly, rather than a vessel through which the music is communicated, he or she becomes an obstacle between the audience and the music.

 
(Click here for his entire post.)

While Jonathan may not know a lot about Meryl Streep, he certainly could if he wanted to. In fact as I type, her smiling, annoyingly you-probably-wake-up-looking-like-that photo is staring up at me from the cover of Vanity Fair. When an actor can't lose him or herself in a role, I don't blame tabloids and gossip blogs, I blame being a lesser actor.  And it's true: most people are lesser actors than Meryl Streep. Similarly, if you buy a ticket to see Susan Graham perform because you read somewhere that she hangs out in cigar lounges, and then that's all you can think about when watching and hearing her, she's not giving a worthwhile performance. Having seen Susan Graham many times in many different settings, I assure you cigars will be the last thing on your mind when she's on stage.  But why not have that information out in the world? Why not give audiences the materials to feel like they know the person on stage if that's what they need to begin to relate to the music?

I think classical music is great. James, Jonathan, Matthew and Michael have all told us here that they think classical music is great. Most people reading this blog probably think classical music is great. But it bears pointing out that most of the population immediately assumes this music is inaccessible to them. There aren't lyrics to relate to, for example, and when there are, they're probably in a different language. Most of what is performed by major orchestras and top soloists was written a hundred or hundreds of years ago; what could that possibly have to do with me? And of course it's true that music written a hundred years ago without lyrics can affect someone, but if a shutting-down, a brushing-off, occurs before even setting foot into a concert hall, how will anyone new ever discover this?

My sister Aliza, frequently utilized and referenced on this blog as A Shining Beacon of Pop Culture Knowledge and All-Around Normality, has been reading our discussion this week. She e mailed to ask when Jonathan was next playing in New York. "February 10th at the 92 Street Y," I told her. "Are you going?" "Yup." "Can I come? I'm curious to see him play." She has no musical reason for going to this concert, but in a delicious irony was intrigued by someone who wrote that he hopes his performance will have nothing to do with himself. Far from being an obstacle to understanding the music, the person, for Aliza, is the way into it. Can she have a great experience solely because she "knows" Jonathan and having nothing to do with his playing? Will "knowing" him, however little, actually help with the appreciating of the playing, or is its only usefulness getting her in the door and then his playing is on its own to win her over for the long-term? And among these things, what is he, as a performer, comfortable with, and does he even have the right to judge?

I had a decidedly unsuccessful career as a high school swim team member. Mostly I stood on the deck and cheered (publicist?), but occasionally they'd let me take part in a relay.  And relays were the most exciting part of the meets: so much drama and energy and team spirit. Leads could be lost and regained, false starts abounded, the other three participants got to stand right there around the block and cheer - it was great.  Throughout this week, I've been thinking that this whole process is a bit like a relay race. We hope the manager can get us a healthy lead, the presenter takes it from there, the publicist and journalist set up the big finish, and the musician, the anchor, brings it on home. Sure, everyone's relay team is different, and depending on the situation some legs are stronger than others, but throughout, communication, passion and lots of hard work are key. Which is why I want to thank our four virtual panelists--James Egelhofer, Jonathan Biss, Matthew Guerrieri and Michael Kondziolka--for taking time out of their already over-saturated schedules to participate this week. Now get back to work!


Jonathan responds to this post in the comments.

Wow...so many complex questions...and so little time this week.


She IS a cruel, cruel blog-mistress.  (I think I like it.)
 
Seriously, as I divulged in my first post (ever), I am new to this blogging thing.  So...up went my first submission Monday night...next thing I know, it's Thursday, and the tidal wave of commentary has hit.  I will try to get caught up now by addressing some of the pointed questions to me...and some of the more general ideas bandied about.  Let the jibber-jabber begin.
 
Amanda asked:
 

I'm interested to hear from Michael about how well he feels he knows the artists he brings to Ann Arbor, since he spends short but concentrated amounts of time with them.

 
Hmmmm....the dreaded and nuanced meaning of the word "know".    If you mean "as people":  very well; uncomfortably well (really); kinda well; not at all - the entire spectrum.  If you mean "as artists" then I would like to think that knowing in the sense that I am familiar with a person's artistry minimally reaches the "kinda well" threshold, but there too, I sometimes take risks by committing to someone whose work I less than "kinda know", but have other reasons to be curious about.  Personally knowing an artist and developing a relationship can be a double-edged sword.  At times very rewarding, sometimes humbling, sometimes uncomfortable, and sometimes beside the point.  (I certainly don't need to recount the bubble-bursting experience that we all have probably had in some fashion when meeting someone whose work we really respect and learning that he or she is a _____________.)  I ALWAYS try and separate the work from the person.  Honestly though, I am also aware that the truly less-than-pleasant often have to ultimately jump through a higher hoop when it comes to a return engagement.  And jump they do...and jump we do.  After all, when it's good...it's good.
 
This knowing question becomes more complex the more I ponder it.  Upon the five minutes of reflection I have just engaged in, I do make two very big distinctions when it comes to the importance of personally knowing an artist: 
 
1) is the artist essentially interpretive or creative.  Ultimately, I need to know far less about the inner-workings or sensibilities of an interpretive artist than I do a creative artist.  With an interpretive artist, the proof is in the interpretive pudding; with a creative artist, I often times find myself in a position of wanting to support his/her "new work" or "next project" - composer, improvisatory player, dance maker, performance artist -- and final decision making is often times based on a personal discussion of ideas or intent.  I certainly don't intend for this to sound so black and white.  OF COURSE, this can also be critical in working with interpretive artists as well, especially when it comes to project-based or conceptual work, but it is MORE critical with the former; 
 
2) is the artist already established on a clear career path...or just starting out?  Younger performers, regardless of their interpretive OR creative endeavor, demand our (presenter's) attention as they need sounding boards, mentors, experts, colleagues...."professional friends".
 
AND all this being said, a good presenter is ALWAYS a good host...period.  And the process of getting to know one another which is the result, I am happy to report, is most often a joy.
 
Interestingly, this forum does offer a kind of remove from the charged world of the performance environment within which to ask questions...so, I can't resist Jonathan:  How important is it to you to get to know a presenter who has invited you to play for their audience?  (Full disclosure everyone:  the last time Jonathan was in Ann Arbor, I was traveling and missed his Hill Auditorium recital, and have never MET him...I do not KNOW him personally.)
 
 
Then, O Mistress Mine posed:
 

So to our esteemed virtual panel I ask, whose responsibility is it to make a concert special? The artist's? Their manager's? The presenter's? The PR and Marketing departments'? The production team's? Or maybe we should all stay out of it and let concert-goers decide for themselves what's special to them; perhaps our versions or what's going to be special shouldn't factor in at all. Should concerts even be considered special occasions, or would it be better for the industry if they were part of people's everyday lives?

 
Shucks...more gray.  Everyone plays a role, of course.  Remember, it takes a village.  YES, manager communicate critical planning info, and PR and marketing departments disseminate, frame and voice that info to ensure that an audience arrives at the special event.  That is of no small importance...but also seems pretty obvious.  Less clear, but very important, I believe, is the role of the production department in making the event rise above the ordinary.  Care and understanding backstage can make or break an event; respect for the extraordinary demands placed on an artist when he or she walks on stage is of paramount importance.  (I know, it all sounds a little precious maybe...but I actually believe this is true.  And I see the fruit that this approach bears over and over again in my own auditorium.)  I have also always pretty much sympathized with those dreaded diva shenanigans backstage as either veiled nerves OR the necessary need to command an inner authority before walking into that pool of light.  Speaking of light...production departments can also make all the difference to the audience's sense of specialness when it comes to the stage look.  One of my fellow guest bloggers talked about "special lighting" as an enhancer...it's a no brainer...and can really imprint a "memory picture" of that which is otherwise ephemeral.
 
Manger...check; PR/Marketing...check; production dept...check.
 
That brings us to artist's and audience member's responsibility to this specialness equation. One easy...and for me, appropriate answer, is that we can never really know...thus all the wonderful flailing about on this blog in an attempt to answer the question.  I guess that the fact that it IS ultimately an unanswerable mystery is one of the reasons it is so cherish by some...me included.  But, not to let myself off the hook too easily, there are certainly things that we know are part of this murky equation:
 
Beyond being ABLE to communicate something, the artist has to HAVE something to communicate...or, put another way, musically voice some kind of opinion...have a point of view...about his/her chosen repertoire.  This almost always comes across as a kind of performative conviction that demands attention.  Artists shouldn't perform music they don't ultimately care about...even if the repertoire "makes for a good program".  Audiences can smell ambivalence.  I would much rather hear a "lesser" performer launch into something they really care about, than one of the greats "phone it in."  This might seem like too obvious a point...but...I see it all the time.  (LMO, indeed.)
 
But, I think that the whole calculus for "achieving a sense of specialness" is placed too heavily on the artist's shoulders. (An interesting audience values and impact research study my organization helped commission referred to this achieved specialness as "flow"...WOW!!)  The one thing that is clear is that it is a 50/50 proposition...artist/audience member...and that there are many contributing factors well beyond the performance that play a role. 
 
I am pretty surprised how unaware audience members are of their own responsibility in preparing themselves to possibly have a special experience.  (Or their own culpability in undermining it.)   The process of opening one's self up to the experience...in my mind it is a kind of "unclenching"...is hard, and getting harder it seems.  Helping audience members understand that they need to meet an artist half way is a start.  (I take a lot of grief from some colleagues because I need to be at the theater early to ensure that I have a buffer of time to "let go" and prepare myself for the performance.  I see it as my responsibility in meeting the performer half way.)  And then there are the extra-musical, circumstantial, knowledge-based, and serendipitous things that intervene that also add up to the memorable experience.  For some of us, it is hard to accept that sometimes it has NOTHING to do with the music.
 
And what about perceived and real value and its role in the specialness equation?  I am not sure if when one adjusts ticket prices from current day dollar values and compares them to the past, if they are truly MORE expensive...but it certainly seems so.  And when an experience is fundamentally MORE expensive and, therefore, NEEDS to be assigned more value in dollar terms...what kind of pressure is that putting on the experience to be special.  The currency of time seems to also be at an increasing premium...therefore, more specialness pressure.
 
Enough flailing for the night...
 
A special shout out, though, to Matthew and his reminding us of the radical nature of the continuum that we all connect with every time we sit at a concert house listening to "classical" music....or, really, music period.  It is one of favorite things about going to concerts...the imagining I find myself lost in...it feels like time travel to me...those who listened before me...those who sat in my seat once upon a time...and, yes, those who will listen in the future.  It makes me feel connected in a way that few things do.  So there, even for me, it isn't ALWAYS about the music or performance itself, but sometimes what the music conjures...


Jonathan responds to this post in the comments.

Jonathan asked:

[G]iven your desire for each audience member to have an authentic, individual experience, who are you writing for when you review concerts, and what do you hope your readers' relationship to your writing is?

Being a critic is weird. All you can really do is write what your own individual reaction is, and hope it has a little bit of resonance with a reader or two. I think if you try to anticipate the reader's response--by either deliberately going with the flow, or going against it--you turn into either the worst kind of shill, or the worst kind of scold. So I guess I'm writing for people who are interested in expanding their own listening technique by eavesdropping on how someone else does it. I don't think my ears are any better than anyone else's, but they've at least had more practice than most, so I try and articulate exactly what it is I listen for, what I notice, how much historical information I think is worth bringing to the table. I think one learns to listen the same way someone learns to compose--you start off with a vague sense of what you like, then you try a bunch of different things in order to hone in on it. And those things can and do include flat-out imitation. I tried on a lot of other people's ears via criticism when I was working out my own relationship with music.

I think that gets back to that tension between inherent specialness and manufactured specialness. One of the things that's inherently special about classical music is that it has a lot of history, and that a lot of that history never becomes obsolescent. It's the sort of thing that often gets rather fuzzily incorporated into the the term "timeless," or pejoratively incorporated into the term "old." But I think that aspect of classical music is one of the most radical things about it, the fact that it puts you into such a wild and far-reaching continuum--that a lot of those ears I can try on so effortlessly are listening from vantage points decades or centuries away from mine. Frankly, I like being plugged into that much possibility every time I go to a concert. (Whenever I hear Beethoven, for example, I always remember that Friedrich Engels liked Beethoven. Take that, Che-t-shirted hippies!) Jonathan, you were using the term "vessel," which I think hints at that aspect, but give yourself credit: it's more active than that. Performers are like the bioengineers in Jurassic Park. Classical music might be a dinosaur, but bring that dinosaur back to life and let it run amok in present-day culture? I'd say that's a special concert.

Amanda asked

about reviewing a concert of an artist [I've] met or heard significant buzz about versus reviewing a concert of an artist whom [I know] nothing about

This is the risk of "special" concerts--the more hype there is, the more the review is going to be about whether or not the concert lives up to the hype. The risk can pay off--Dudamel, e.g.--but can also distract. (Lang Lang and his sneakers, &c.) There are composers and performers I keep my eye out for because of buzz, but there are also those I keep my eye out for because I happened to hear them and wanted to hear them again. And I'm more likely to take or create the opportunity for promotion in the second category. The trick then, maybe, is generating enough specialness to get people in the door but not so much that it gets in the way of making fans within the concert, because that does more in the long term. Personality can certainly get people in the door, but if you can't channel that personality into a memorable musical experience, it'll only get them in the door once.

Incidentally--Moe is the actual dog. "Soho the Dog" was lifted from Sir Michael Tippett--not so incidentally, a musician who really knew how to let his personality shine through in his work. (And be careful asking for a conversation on Boccanegra--I can blather on for hours.)

Anne Midgette weighs in on the discussion over on her blog The Classical Beat:

I do think it's unfortunate, though, when there's no sense of a person behind the playing. Classical music can suffer from a sense of entitlement: there's an idea that the music is so great it's enough just to play it, and everyone should be in awe. Yes: the music is that great. That's precisely why the performer has to work so hard to delve into it, to bring it across, to make it more than merely notes executed well. (The same thing, incidentally, holds true of reviews: in an ideal world they should be more than merely obedient reports.) As for the extra-musical aspect: historically, audiences have always been hugely interested in the figure of the performer on a personal level. To say that this aspect should be off-limits, or is not relevant, is to draw an artificial boundary.

But how far, in our age of media saturation, do you go? Are people in Washington this month going to be more likely to go hear Jeremy Denk if they read his blog (they should!), or Augustin Hadelich if they know he was badly burned in a house fire when he was in his teens, or Anne Schwanewilms if they know that she was involved in the story of Deborah Voigt and the little black dress? Even more to the point, for marketers: How do you distinguish Garrick Ohlsson from Emanuel Ax in the season brochure in a way that would help a first-time ticket buyer to understand which of the two he might rather hear? (That question is usually answered, in practice, with the egregious overuse of terms like "great," or "leading pianist of his generation.") 

Click here for Anne's entire Smart-and-Good-As-Always post. 

Amanda is, as she says, the Blog Mistress, so I'm starting by responding to her latest post. (I'm also going to try to fold as many points as possible into this post as it may be my last - I don't have any more transatlantic flights this week which will provide me with hours to write/a valid excuse not to practice.)

In answering Amanda's question about where the responsibility for making concert presentations special lies, I'm going to return to one of my original points (fine, OK, Alex Ross' point, which I seem to have unofficially co-opted): the presentation doesn't have to be "special," or different -- it has to be musical, and in making that the case, there is responsibility on all sides, but the buck stops with the artist. This means thinking about many things. One (and this is Alex's specific example - I hope we don't get into a copyright situation) is lighting, which can create or destroy an atmosphere, and should not, to use an obvious example, be bright and clinical when the subject of the music is death (and perhaps transfiguration). Another is applause: it seems clear to me that there are certain pieces which are entered into more effectively from silence than from a room full of clapping, and other pieces which lead into silence, and should be concluded that way. One can make these requests of an audience, and at the very least, it will force them to listen differently, and just as importantly, think differently about what it means to listen -- really listen.

The most important aspect of this, I think, is programming. A good program - a musical program - should be constructed in such a way that one's hearing of each piece is -- altered? enhanced? challenged, I think -- by what came before it and what comes after. This doesn't mean that every program has to be all over the map: to address Alex Benjamin's comment, the last 3 Beethoven Sonatas make for an extraordinary listening experience, in part because of a certain uniformity of extraordinary language. But each of the last 3 Beethoven Sonatas threw down a kind of gauntlet for all piano music that came after it, and it is in fact extremely easy to find 19th/20th/21st century music of an inarguably high quality which makes for an arresting pairing with any one of the three. (And a serious fringe benefit is that the diversity serves the artist as well: playing new music will deepen your understanding of late Beethoven, and vice versa. Or: what's good for the listener is good for the player.)

But before leaving this topic, I have to say, beating a dying horse, that I found it slightly dispiriting that Amanda's LMO list included lighting, program books, artist appearance, and usher attire, but made no reference to the way the music sounded. Because my feeling is that while all of these issues are important, they are side issues. Or: If the playing was memorable, the concert was not LMO; If the playing was not memorable, none of the rest of this is going to be make the slightest bit of difference.

Switching gears, I'd like to turn my attention to Matthew's excellent post. I share many of the same concerns, particularly about the many ways listeners' expectations are manufactured. I think often about how to give an audience useful context for what they are going to hear, without telling them what they should think/feel about it. It's a tightrope act, honestly.

So here are my questions: given your desire for each audience member to have an authentic, individual experience, for whom are you writing when you review concerts, and what do you hope your readers' relationship to your writing is? I hope it doesn't seem impertinent to ask. It's just that I've always been fascinated by criticism -- musical and otherwise -- but I've never seen a discussion of its aims, and I think this could be a great forum for it.

Once that's out of the way, we can talk about Simon Boccanegra, my hope that you'll create a cartoon for this week's discussion, and the vexing question of whether your dog is named Moe or Soho.


James responds to this post, and then Jonathan responds to him, in the comments.

If I may--and I may, because I am the Blog Mistress--I'd like to steer the conversation toward classical music concert presentations. If I may--and again, I may---I'm going to quote my own blog entry from November:

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.

Is a pianist-on-a-bare-stage-playing-a-recital-with-regular-lighting special? I suppose you could end up sitting next to the person you're going to marry, and then it would be retroactively special. But on its own, is it special?

My friend Christine from college had the same last name as the Dean of Admissions, and because of the way the Dartmouth e mail (ahem, "Blitzmail") system autofilled names, she was the recipient of many amazingly inappropriate mails. Which naturally she forwarded to all of us. There was one e mail about some applicant with connections in which the dean wrote, "This is strong, but as we say, LMO: Like Many Others."

How many concerts have you seen in the past month (week?) that were LMO? Similar looking musicians? Same repertoire? Same lighting, stage set-up, program book layout? Similarly dressed ushers? Same CDs in the gift shop?  How do classical critics stand it, I often wonder.

So to our esteemed virtual panel I ask, whose responsibility is it to make a concert special? The artist's? Their manager's? The presenter's? The PR and Marketing departments'? The production team's? Or maybe we should all stay out of it and let concert-goers decide for themselves what's special to them; perhaps our versions or what's going to be special shouldn't factor in at all. Should concerts even be considered special occasions, or would it be better for the industry if they were part of people's everyday lives?

If you're just joining us now for the virtual panel on specialness that friends and colleagues have described to me as "intense," "required reading," and "wordy," here's what's been going on this week. If you could hear Benjamin Linus' voice in your head when you read this, that would be great.

Previously, on Life's a Pitch.

Jonathan issued a throwdown about how the human interest press publicists dream of actually distracts audiences from the music. He writes, "the more of a persona the person onstage has cultivated, the harder it is for this magical disappearance to take place." After I punch some hanging meat and run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum, I will respond to that. I asked Matthew if the competition for concert and album press coverage essentially tells audiences and buyers what's special in the same way a marketing brochure does. He responded in a comment that most of his preview pieces were actually assigned by an editor, and that even when a performer or performance is profiled, he approaches the subject from a musical standpoint.  James and Jonathan were asked to what extent a manager needs to know things about his or her clients beyond their repertoire and playing. James explained that an artist's priorities--musical, career, personal--are what matters most in his managing of their career. He also points out that managers and bookers need to know presenters' priorities as well. Jonathan responded in a comment that while he does discuss non-musical aspects of his life with his manager of 13 years, he is unsure how those conversations factor in to her discussions with presenters. I'm interested to hear from Michael about how well he feels he knows the artists he brings to Ann Arbor, since he spends short but concentrated amounts of time with them. James also responds to Jonathan's post on audiences knowing artists, writing, "there are performers who are terrifically in demand about whom we know practically nothing of their lives outside of performance and who do not bring that kind of potentially-obstructive personality to the stage, and there are commercially more-than-viable performers who have chosen to make their persona an open book in everything they do."  Maybe Matthew can weigh in about reviewing a concert of an artist he's met or heard significant buzz about versus reviewing a concert of an artist whom he knows nothing about.

Let the smoke monsters, polar bears, and ghosts of Jack's dad commence.

In response to Amanda's question (James: to what extent do you feel knowing about your clients' both musical and non-musical pursuits helps you pitch them to presenters? What prepares you to defend their uniqueness, or sometimes, is uniqueness not what a presenter is looking for?), I have to start with my favorite dodge away from oversimplification: it depends.

On the most basic level, greater knowledge of what my artists care about is always helpful to me.  It helps me talk to them, it helps me talk about them, it helps me get through the day by reminding me what we're all after.  However, beyond that most basic level, it gets far more complicated, because they all care about different things; of course they all care foremost about making beautiful music, but every factor that goes into that process has different priority and preference for each of them.  Maybe the most important thing is to focus on the specific repertoire they are most excited about playing at that time, and all else is secondary.  Maybe the most important thing is to work with the conductors and collaborators they most enjoy, and the repertoire can be chosen slightly more broadly.  Maybe the most important thing is to build a schedule around a certain project that takes up a lot of time both in its preparation and its execution, and the simple logistics of scheduling cause that to be the most important factor.  &c.

The bigger and further complication is, as Amanda suggests, that in addition to each artist having differing priorities, each target that we might be pitching to also has its own set of priorities.  I'm sobbingly grateful to the booking agents that I work with, as they are able to keep track of the huge range of possibilities much better than I can; some presenters (more at the moment than I would hope for) must keep their costs as the primary concern and book based on that, others have a very specific audience they're targeting, others have an individual taste based on which they make their decisions, others want to try to be as broad as possible in terms of styles/instruments/repertoire over the course of their seasons.  &c.

So in an attempt to find activity for a particular artist, we try to match up everything we know about that artist or that they want known about them with everything that the pitchees are looking for.  Obviously.  Now you know why managers get the big bucks.  But I hope I've reasonably summarized why this is not as simple as it sounds.  Although I always feel that I could talk for days about what makes each artist unique and why they are doing the things they're doing (musical or not), sometimes the other end of the phone or email might not be interested in nearly that much information.  It may be that I'm speaking to a concert presenter about a younger artist who is not yet on the radar of that presenter, and although there are many interesting and potentially relevant points to discuss, that presenter only has a certain amount of money to spend in their budget and just needs to know that they can find a pianist for that fee.  Or they need a female violinist to play Bach as part of a season-long festival that is weighed too heavily towards male performers at that point.  In these cases, knowledge is always power, but only some of the knowledge might be relevant to the situation.
 
And to look at Jonathan's question for a moment, about (in brief) the kind of special created by a performer acting as a sort of invisible vessel vs the kind of special created by a performer who remains very... um... present? in the act of performance and of everything else they do: this to me is related and part of what I was trying to say in my initial post about trying to separate "special" from a dichotomy.  I think (hope?) that we can all name right now multiple performances that have moved us and fall into one or the other category, and maybe we demonstrate a certain preference in the balance.  But when it comes to the commercial implications of this, it seems to me that it does not sort any more simply than it does in my personal experience-- there are performers who are terrifically in demand about whom we know practically nothing of their lives outside of performance and who do not bring that kind of potentially-obstructive personality to the stage, and there are commercially more-than-viable performers who have chosen to make their persona an open book in everything they do.  With each of these performers, and I've heard a lot of it directly, there are people who CAN'T STAND what they do.  Perhaps it comes down to the very sensitive and individual matter of the emotional conveyance that has been discussed here-- in the end, it is impossible to argue with what people feel, try as I might, and although I may violently disagree or be mystified as why a listener may not feel that an artist I work for is special even if I do, the only way to "win" that "argument" is to hope that they experience the same artist again with a different result.  No amount of talking will do it.

Matthew, further to this:

As a critic, I make no bones about the fact that my own taste is highly idiosyncratic, and that I will never, ever be all things to all people. The fact that my own sense of specialness is driven more by repertoire than performer puts me, I know, in the minority, as does the nature of some of that repertoire.

I'm curious if every concert or recording you preview, or every artist you profile, is special to you. As you mention in your post, and as we all know, arts coverage is shrinking. Beyond repertoire, as you write in the excerpt above, what makes you feature one artist, one concert, one album, over another? And in taking the time to preview it, are you not--just as marketing materials are--setting the audience up with some kind of expectation that this event is a cut above the rest?  "This concert was special enough to be previewed in the Boston Globe or on that writer-I-like's blog. If he spent his time on it, maybe I should spend my money on it." I think about listings in places like New York Magazine and Time Out New York; not only is there competition to get a listing in the first place, but then there are the critic's picks, and the expanded listings, and the floating photos to compete for. Levels within media-coverage-levels of what's more special than everything else before anyone even gets to a concert.

Also, how do you write features that you are assigned differently than those you pitch to an editor yourself? That is, what's it like to cover something someone else may deem special but perhaps you do not?

There's also something to be said for competition for reviews. I remember a publicist friend of mine saying a client was going to fire her because all he wanted was a New York Times review, and because of various scheduling conflicts at the Times and other concerts in the city that night, he wasn't getting it. This was an extremely well-established and well-respected artist, but apparently not...whatever...enough to tip the scale. Reviews are assigned at least a week in advance, so basically newspapers decide what's special enough to be covered before seeing anything. Imagine if the New York Times writers could be at every music event in the city one night, and then pitch what should get reviewed to their editor based on what actually happened at the concerts!


Matthew responds to this post in the comments.

I'm sure you all miss me blogging about the usual highbrow fare here on Life's a Pitch. (A quick scan down the December entry titles shows Girls straddling footballs sell things, In which I am pardoned for stealing electricity, and Flacks and the City. Why do you people read this??). But I think our very...special?...guests James, Jonathan, Matthew and Michael are doing a fantastic job. They may even be out-blogging their hostess, which, I should have clarified, is Not Actually Allowed.

If you're just tuning in now, here's what you missed. Imagine one of the Glee kids narrating this:

Jonathan explained how the idea for a virtual panel started and went on to say that great music is one of the most special things there is in this world. He suggested we stop wasting time arguing about whether old ways are good or new ways are good, and strive to make concerts as "vibrant, emotionally open, and musical" as possible without worrying so much about how we do it. Michael explained the pressures of wanting to book a musician with a high level of artistic merit and a unique point of view while considering real-world issues like fees, schedules and past box office performances. He continues that even the most "special" or in-vogue artist may not resonate with one presenter's audience, so a certain responsibility lies with him or her to bring in artists who do. Perhaps "special" pressure lies not with the artist him or herself, but with the connection they can potentially make with a community. In his post, James looked at how artists' conscious or unconscious decisions to be special--spend a year volunteering, write a book on Mozart, tour with a non-classical artist, come up with a wacky program--affects careers in the long-term and short-term. He explains his struggle as a manager to get his artists in front of the largest possible audience (over a season and over a career) while maintaining their artist integrity. Matthew suggested that audience members often bring their insecurities to concerts with them and ultimately "don't seem to be comfortable with the relationship between the music and them as an individual listener without some sort of immediate validation of their judgment."  In contrast to James, he writes that artists (and, by association, managers, publicists and presenters) should seek out audiences who find what they're doing already to be special rather than trying to prove something to potential new audiences.

And that's what you missed, on Life's a Pitch.

Wow. One day, five posts (four not written by me), and a lot to think about. As I read each post the first time through, I diligently made notes. Unfortunately, if I attempted to address all of the points in them that intrigued me, at the end of the week I'd no longer be a professional pianist, special or otherwise. One thing I've noticed which I do want to address, though, is the very wide variety of attributes/activities/priorities landing under the "special" umbrella. That's natural, and good, given the different perspectives the five of us bring, but I think at this point some clarification/classification is in order.

In my initial post, I referred to myself as being "sort of unspecial." What I meant is that my suspicion is that the vast majority of my audience comes to my concerts simply because they like the music that I play, and they are inclined to think that they might like the way I play it. The latter might be the case for many reasons; I have never thought of any activity that would help communicate my feelings about music to my audience as "specialness," but I can see why it might fall into that category. So let me be clear: that, I'm unequivocally for. (Though, like Matthew, I'm very conscious that it only works when it is done really well: the line between advocacy and apology is curiously thin.) I do think that a great musician is defined by his or her ability to convey his feeling for music through playing, but if blogging/interviews/lectures/etc. on the music help bring the audience closer, that's all to the good.

(Sidebar: I'm ignoring the important question of specialness in programming, just because it seems separate to me. I'll try and come back to it before the week is up.)

Then there is a whole other kind of special: the human interest special. The feature-story-in- another-section-of-the-paper special. The "get-to-know-the-artist-away-from-his-instrument" special. And while I see the value in this, at least from a marketing perspective, it makes me uneasy. This is a blog about PR, and so I know I'm outlining a rather radical position here, but I feel it's important, so here goes:

Sunday night, while stranded at the Toronto airport, I found myself watching the Golden Globes, of all things. Meryl Streep, in accepting her award, made a charming comment about being mistaken for an extraordinary woman because she's played such a long string of them, and then, as a corollary, said that she thought of herself as a vessel, through which these characters came to life. And it occurred to me that while I've seen her in plenty of movies, I know very little about her, and that that mystery probably makes it much easier for her to disappear into a role - and for me, her audience, to buy it. I won't name names, but I imagine we probably all can think of certain fine actors - likely of a younger generation - in whom it is very difficult to suspend the disbelief necessary to appreciate their performances (or, rather, appreciate them as something deeper than "performances"). Their every move is broadcast to us by the media; they never become characters because they are always their personae. (We don't really know them, of course, but we are encouraged to think that we do, and that's the point. And I assume this happens because everyone in the equation - the actors themselves, their representatives, the people marketing their movies, and the media - feels they are gaining something by it.)

Now, the analogy to classical music is an imperfect one, but not so imperfect that it isn't worth making. We performers are interpreters. Re-creators. Vessels, if you will. The performer's feeling for the music comes into it - how could it not? - but in the greatest performances I've heard, the person or people playing have seemed to disappear, and my feeling that I was connected purely to the music I was hearing was absolute. And the more of a persona the person onstage has cultivated, the harder it is for this magical disappearance to take place. To put it bluntly, rather than a vessel through which the music is communicated, he or she becomes an obstacle between the audience and the music. I've painted this issue more in black and white than seems fair, just to clarify the argument. But I do think this is an aspect of the performer's contract with the music, and with the audience, which would benefit from a serous discussion.

Of course, as a performer, I'm more protected from the commercial aspect of music than any of my fellow-bloggers. So I'm very curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this question. -

(Further sidebar: for the sake of clarity, I'll respond to Amanda's question in a separate post.)

I was at the Chamber Music America conference this weekend, and took a turn around the exhibitor section after one of the sessions. For those of you who have never been to a conference, artist management companies set up booths, lay out artist flyers, and sell their clients to the presenters who walk by. I realize this sounds a bit like some kind of Orientalist Indiana Jones market sequence, and that's not entirely inaccurate. Watching bookers and managers really sell their artists is a pleasant reminder that, all evidence to the contrary, classical music is a business, and the musician on stage was marketed to the person who books that stage long before that musician was ever marketed to an audience.

A friend of mine from IMG Artists, where I used to be the Publicity Manager, now works at a different management company. I was at her booth flipping through the company's lovely flyers when I noticed that three of them, all in a row, were 29-32 year old white, male, pianists. With similar photos. And similar chamber music offerings. And similar sales blurbs. If you squinted, they could actually be the same person. Besides fees and availability, I thought, how do these artists' managers distinguish them from one another? These pianists are represented by the same management company and may even be represented by the same manager, so what does that manager know about them to, for lack of a better phrase, tell them apart?

Similarly, what does a manager have to know about a presenter to get the best possible booking for their clients?  Maybe they know that a presenter wants to fit as many artists as possible into their season with the budget they have, so they offer the presenter the pianist with the lowest fee. A decidedly un-special distinction, but again, this is a business and these real-world factors do exist. Maybe a presenter and an artist got along the last time the artist played their series. Perhaps it's the program, or the recording the manager sent the booker. I'm curious, though, James: to what extent do you feel knowing about your clients' both musical and non-musical pursuits helps you pitch them to presenters? What prepares you to defend their uniqueness, or sometimes, is uniqueness not what a presenter is looking for?

And Jonathan, I'm curious to know what the dialogue is with your manager about bookings. Do you think she needs to know about your life outside of music to accurately represent you? Do you know or care how you're being distinguished from the other pianists who, at least outwardly, are very much like you?


Essentially, does an artist's team (manager, publicist, record label...eventually presenter marketing department, presenter PR department...then ultimately critic) tell an artist what's special about them, or does an artist tell--or better yet show--his or her team?

_____

Somewhat off-topic but bears mentioning: Those three, white, male, 29-32 year old pianists who looked the same on paper are the ones who've "made it."  There are many, many exceptionally talented artists out there who you and I will never hear of. What made those three special enough to even be on brochures at a conference?


Jonathan responds to this post in a comment.

James responds to this post in another post. 

The critic side of me wonders if I'm part of the problem or the solution here--probably a little of both. But since I started off as a musician, and still try to keep at least a couple of toes in that pond, my starting point is the same as Jonathan's: classical music in performance is special in and of itself.

The marketing worry, of course, is that one runs out of ways to say that. But I sometimes think that presenters and marketers underestimate the power of using institutional clout to simply assert specialness. The Boston Symphony Orchestra did a very nice job of this last fall, for a Beethoven symphony cycle--there's not much in the classical repertoire more run-of-the-mill than Beethoven symphonies, but the BSO lumped them together, highlighted it in their season announcement, plugged it as an event, and got some attention. It was interesting to compare it to a series of concerts James Levine did here a few seasons ago, pairing Beethoven with Schoenberg--that got buzz aplenty, what with the daring juxtaposition, the combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar, and a profusion of possible angles. This latest Beethoven project might have been far less adventurous, far less "special," but still managed a fair amount of buzz of its own--just by the BSO presenting it as worthy of buzz.

On the other hand, I personally find assertions of specialness within the concert presentation itself--spoken explanations, multimedia elements, &c.--to be often more annoying and distracting than anything. I've seen it done well, but only rarely; it's harder than it looks, and it takes just as much (if not more) preparation as the music. If there's absolute commitment on the part of the performer(s), if they really believe in whatever high concept they've come up with, I can happily go along for the ride, even if, in the end, I don't quite buy it. But I think one can sense when alternative presentations are the result less of conviction than of insecurity that the music alone just isn't special enough; for me, anyway, such presentations can feel like they're trying to tell me how to feel about the music, and, stubborn fool that I am, I really don't like that. This is a real problem for classical music presentation, though: many, many people don't seem to be comfortable with the relationship between the music and them as an individual listener without some sort of immediate validation of their judgment. Nothing makes me more sanguine about the future of classical music than when I get an Internet commenter telling me that my good review is full of crap; nothing makes me despair more than when a commenter tells me that my bad review is trumped by the fact that the concert got a standing ovation. And honestly, the latter far outnumber the former. What would be most healthy is some form of special presentation that makes the listener feel secure in their own reaction without implanting it. I'm not sure what that would be--and I'm not sure it's really classical music's problem; that insecurity is probably something that listeners bring into the concert hall with them. But it's something musicians have to deal with.

One more thing: As a critic, I make no bones about the fact that my own taste is highly idiosyncratic, and that I will never, ever be all things to all people. The fact that my own sense of specialness is driven more by repertoire than performer puts me, I know, in the minority, as does the nature of some of that repertoire. Berlioz, Stockhausen, Poulenc, Verdi at his most political, Cage at his most far-out--these are all automatically special concerts in my book. At the same time, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that, say, the Tchaikovsky violin concerto is a more-special-than-usual event, no matter who's playing it. (Nothing really against that particular piece, but I've heard it a lot.) But again, that's just me--and here's where we should lament the downsizing of newspapers and recognize the Internet as the not-actually-the-same-Chinese-character crisis and opportunity that it is. Because of the Internet, the chances are good that there are critics out there who will think your concert is special without you having to convince them of it, and who will promote it, review it, talk it up, &c. But with arts coverage shrinking in daily papers--and nearly nonexistent on, say, local television news--the media landscape is consequently noisier and harder to differentiate. Right now, I think the best thing musicians and/or their promoters can do is to do their homework, and pinpoint those people who are going to find what you do special already--there's an opportunity for leverage there. But mostly, don't be shy about saying that any classical performance is special. Because it is.

I'm going to admit something while I'm laying on this pillowy expanse of interweb and not having to look in the eye any of my esteemed colleagues from all corners of the music world: I myself have argued both sides of every state-of-the-industry debate I can think of, at one time or another, and I suspect that many others have done the same.  For me, the need to do this arises from how quickly I find myself zooming in and out while looking at "the picture" in front of me--

-pondering one moment the effectiveness of a single piece on a single program by a single artist; then the ability of that program by that artist to grab the attention of an audience in a certain city;
-then the ability of that program by that artist to grab the attention of a group of audiences in a group of cities over the course of a concert season;
-then how that program by that artist in that season plays into the live performance career of that artist over several seasons, as it is experienced by both people within the industry and those outside of it;
-then how the live performance career of that artist fits into their career as a whole, including whatever other parts of it are relevant at that time or may be in the future;
-then, for me the most interesting and most daunting vantage point, how that artist's career as discussed and planned and worked at all of these levels interacts with other artists' careers, audiences, perceptions of music, and the art form itself, which loops me infuriatingly back to the beginning and the attempts to understand a concert experience piece by piece.  I think that this surveying is done by everyone who is involved in the process of making music happen, although the angles may be different. 

From each of these positions, I feel the push 'n pull.  This artist is fantastic, and therefore must do what feels right and inspires him or her, and all else will fall into place.  This artist is fantastic, and must be experienced by more people, and we need to decide how to make that happen.

One thing that stops me from drinking myself to death in this self-made spiral is the fact that there seems to be room for both ends of the push 'n pull to co-exist at all times for all artists, as long as no one is getting caught up in framing it as traditional vs progressive or old vs new, or, more importantly, thinking too narrowly about what this idea of "career" is.  This may be more true now than it has been in the past; it feels more true to me now than it did even in the dark ages of the mid 2000s when I first started pondering such questions.  If, as Amanda proposes, we take it as a given here that Artist under discussion is indeed fantastic (and Artist definitely is, trust me, I'm a manager, which is why I'm talking about Artist as if this were a contract), then Artist can decide that for a certain period of time, Artist will apply Artistself wholly to playing music that has been around for hundreds of years in formats that are familiar to everyone (recital, concerto, chamber), and Artist will be able to make a career out of this in the sense that there will be some people (concert presenters, record labels) who will pay Artist to do so because some other people (audiences) will pay those people to see and hear it.  It may not be as many people as Artist envisions in wildest Artist-dreams, or maybe it will.  It depends on the Artist-dreams.  And when the period of time governed by this application of Artist's abilities is up, Artist can decide to do it some more.  Or Artist can decide to play the same music but try to talk more about why and how Artist does so, or to play music that will be written just for Artistself and doesn't yet exist, or to play music with someone who has no relation to or experience with the familiar formats in which Artist has recently been found, or to write a book about Mozart and give a particular perspective on him, or to start a foundation and raise money for aspiring Artists, or any combination of these, or anything else. 

None of these decisions in themselves will guarantee a change in how many people will experience Artist, for better or worse.  Nor will these decisions make Artist "special" in an abstract sense, because anyone could be making the same decisions, and many are.  To me, the responsibility that artists have is not to make any particular decision about their work in this regard, but to make any decision with the understanding of why they are making it and what will be involved in an attempt by all of us who have a stake to turn that decision into action.  And by probably needlessly-stated extension, the responsibility that we all have, anyone who works with the artist in any way, is to create that action as best we can.  Sometimes we will be pushed along by the way the resulting music-making fits into existing systems of dispersion into the world, whether booking dates or planning a season of concerts in a venue or publicizing performances; and other times we will need to pull the system apart and find the bits that are relevant and helpful.  Sometimes both at once.  Sometimes on multiple zoom levels or every level.  Sometimes it will not work, or not right away.  It's not algebra, and though I occasionally want to cut off my limbs to make things more linear, in the end I'm grateful for that.

The pull to this push about push-'n-pulls is a lingering feeling that everything is a compromise, or that everything has to be deflated to be "realistic".  I hope we collectively can find a way not to get caught up in this.  It may be that we will always feel like things could be going better, and that there is more to do.  I have never had a day when I have not felt so as I lie in bed in a Groundhog Day-like sequence, lit by the glow of an improving series of handheld email-checking devices.  But the ability to actively and genuinely choose our own music adventure and work towards enacting it, as long as we realize that's what we're doing, ensures that "special" does not have to be kidnapped and co-opted into a two-sided argument.

Hi all...blogging virgin here...it is, yes, my maiden voyage.  I am told to keep it frank, conversational, and informal.  (Having just re-read my opening sentence, it appears that I should not have too much trouble with that directive.)

Amanda, in two paragraphs, has already touched on a number of my favorite topics about which to kvetch, so let me touch on a few of them before I get to her central question of "who's responsible for making the artist special anyway!"

How presenters and artistic directors make choices about who and what ends up on a season program is as varied as the sands in the hour glass.  (Reference please.)  I can tell you that while I believe most artistic decision makers really do feel the pressure to reward the nobler values of artistry, merit, a unique point of view, or emblematic torch bearing, less exalted realities often creep into the equation as well:  day of the week, fee, venue avails, past box office performance, calendar spacing, funding interests, special tie-ins...and the list goes on.  While I do like to think of myself as wed to my own unique value system of the former, I would be lying if I didn't tell you that the latter play a role in program and artist selection, as well.  I do, however, lead with my organizational, as well as, my personal values.  (It isn't always about a performers specialness or lack there of...)

And, yes, hooks are fine and human interest angles (sometimes) riveting...but, never a substitute for convincing music making that reveals some truth or provocation embedded within, some kind of technical accomplishment, or, maybe, some hint at a shared humanity.  (Thanks for calling the obvious out Amanda!  It often times feels lost in the discussion and can't be repeated enough.)  Actually, the more I think about it, if one can be certain that the players will hit the accomplishment quotient, then human interest hooks are actually welcome in my book.  And we shouldn't be afraid of them or feel that they somehow cheapen the artist's integrity.  (Please.)  Any information sharing or story telling that aids, abets, or heightens a sense of empathy between performer and listener - whether artistic, human, spiritual - has to be a good thing.  Right?  Live concert performances must, after all, traffic in empathy.

(But I digress:  There is a wicked tendency in our business to believe that artistic accomplishment accompanied with a good hook or human interest angle exists only in fairytales and can never actually be embodied in one being.  False.  And, yes, I have made that mistake.)

And, now, we turn to the central story of the artist - and manager, and journalist, and presenter and publicist - feeling overly pressured to be SPECIAL beyond their artistic abilities.  As an eco-system, we all seem, to one degree or another, to be trapped in a game of articulating our own competitive advantage (specialty) in a sometimes cruel game of supply and demand.   And it seems that this phenomenon is especially acute and played out most dramatically when it comes to artists selling themselves.  Sad to say it, but I do think that presenters are sometimes lazy...and make the whole dynamic worse by reaching for the obvious quick hook (translation: choosing artists with easy media tie-ins, angles or even fads to signal "specialness" without really spending any time assessing whether the performer will have any meaningful impact on at least some segment of their audience) over the slower, more deliberate and long-term commitment of nurturing an artist, over multiple visits, which, time and again, I have seen yield a far richer sense of special connection between performer and listener.  (BTW, I also see an equal number of presenter who are rigorous to a fault on this point...!)

It isn't just the artist and his or her manager or press rep's job to sell their clients specialness...it is equally important for the presenter to articulate for his/her community what he/she sees as special about the artistic programming choices he/she makes.  That, of course, means that the decision maker must articulate an opinion.  Scary, I know.  Living in a world of ambiguous and subjective pronouncements can be a bear...but go out on a limb presenters, and make the case for the specialness of the artists on your season...don't just assume that it is the artists job alone.  And, even better, make a commitment to include an artist on your season who doesn't necessarily have apparent hooks or ready-made human interest angles to sell tickets.  If you believe in the artist's work, make the case yourself.  (Hmmm...I not sure Amanda was looking for a call to arms...)

But come on artists, and managers and press reps...help us presenters out!  In 2010, I have no time for performers who can't find the time (or understanding) to invest in some well-designed, artistic photographic artwork, short performance video, short human-interest video (if it feels right), and, of course, some easily-linked-to social media pages and websites.  It should also be mandatory that all performers have a couple of favorite vids on YouTube.  I mean...if we're gonna make the case for your specialness ourselves, we at least need some cool tools.  (BTW, you don't have to feel cool to look cool.)

It takes a village.

First off, I'd like to thank Amanda (and ArtsJournal) for providing this forum for discussion of a question I think is really, really important, and for (inadvertently?) starting the discussion with this post.
 
Because I'd been interested in "the special problem" for a while (and because I was involved in one of the concerts that inspired the post), I emailed Amanda in response to what she'd written.  I'm sort of unspecial, myself, but I have heard some version or another of the phrase "a great performance of a great piece is not enough anymore" many times, from many quarters. And so I was very curious to hear how Amanda reconciled her feelings about the dangers of manufactured expectations, as expressed in the post, with her work in marketing and public relations.
 
We had several exchanges on the topic, and what quickly became clear was that this is an issue confronted by people on all sides of the music world.  I'm excited to see where the perspectives are similar and where they are different, and want to make a couple of points to get things started:
 
1) It's going to be very hard for me to say this without lapsing into banality, but I'm going to try anyway: great music is pretty much the most special thing there is. Hearing a truly wonderful performance of a late Beethoven quartet, or a Mozart opera, or The Rite of Spring, or the Saint Matthew's Passion, or Kurtag's Kafka Fragments can be life-altering. And it may be a cliché, but there really is an infinite amount to be said about these pieces, without any self-conscious effort to be different or re-imagine them. I played Mozart's K467 yesterday, for what may well have been the 50th time, and I swear it felt new: the ways in which the phrases responded to one another; layers of feeling I hadn't yet accessed; events in the music that I'd never taken real notice of before.
 
A responsible performer - and the audience one hopes for - is continually alive to this.  I absolutely think that there is a place for classical music placed in new, even radical contexts. But I worry that a fixation on what is new or different sends an implicit message that a performance of a Mozart piano concerto (or opera, or symphony, or string quintet), no matter how great, is not interesting on its own merits.
 
Take, for example, the recent Schubert/Beckett project at Lincoln Center. The evening took Schubert's Winterreise, and reconceived it as one half of a dialogue with Beckett (in many ways a kindred spirit to Schubert).  I didn't see the piece, people whom I know and respect found it stimulating, and in any event Mark Padmore is, beyond all argument, a wonderful musician. But this remark (taken at least somewhat unfairly out of context) from the Times preview piece troubled me:
 

"But we're coming to the end of an era. Without new motivations for listening and performing, the point comes when we're just hearing different performances of the same thing."

I'm all for taking Schubert's music and looking for connections to the 20th (or 21st) century and the written word, and for blending the drama of the art song with the theatricality of the... well, the theater.  But my motivations for listening and re-listening to Winterreise do not need to be new, because the music itself is constantly providing new motivations. (Possible point for discussion: maybe if we want to create new audiences and enrich their lives, we should talk to them about how to listen rather than feed them what's trendy.)
 
2) Alex Ross, in his review of the same piece (not available online), wrote - and I paraphrase - that the heightened atmosphere of the Beckett staging drove home not that standard concert presentations are old-fashioned, but that they are "unmusical." I think that's a great observation, and it leads me to my second concern: that the focus on the "special" incorrectly places the problem.  I've witnessed many arguments - some of the knock-out, drag-down variety - between traditionalists and provocateurs, and I often find that concern for the music is surprisingly low on either camp's agenda. Traditionalism is big in classical music, of course, meaning that there's a lot of knee-jerk "this is the way to do it because this is the way it's always been done." ("It" could be any number of things - from questions of musical style, to programming, to concert attire, and on and on.)  But recently I've heard a lot of the marketing-driven opposite, which seems equally knee-jerk to me: "this has never been done before, and therefore it is relevant and interesting." I think we - performers, critics, and all the people who make concerts happen - have a real responsibility to make concerts as vibrant, emotionally open, and musical as possible. It would be great if we could shift the conversation away from the Old is Good/New is Good debate, and towards the large and multi-faceted question of how to make that happen.