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Empty branding

February 3, 2012 By 1 Comment
blog new york blimp

The New York Philharmonic supports WNYC, New York's public radio station. And so they get little quasi-commercials sprinkled into the station's shows. In which they tout Alan Gilbert as the first Philharmonic music director born and bred in New York. And so now I must tell my friends at the Philharmonic that this is pointless. If Alan Gilbert comes from New York, what difference does that make? Just about none, I'd think. Because it's not as if Alan -- in his work as music director, in his programming, for instance, or for that matter … [Read more...]

02/3/12 1:13 PM | filed under: entrepreneurship |

Watch out for packaging

February 1, 2012 By 6 Comments
blog design

A marvelous comment, on one of my previous branding posts, from Gerald Klickstein. So many thanks for this: In my teaching of music entrepreneurship, I make a distinction between 'branding' and 'packaging.' I.e., in a nutshell, a brand is like a mission or promise - think of the Kronos Quartet - it derives from artists' true values (those 'inner' qualities you refer to). When packaging supports the mission, it resonates; when it doesn't, it confuses or, worse, comes across as shallow. Beautifully put. And likewise this, from Curtis … [Read more...]

02/1/12 5:38 PM | filed under: entrepreneurship |

More than a haircut

January 30, 2012 By 2 Comments
Lang Lang's hair sticks straight up

After I taught my class about branding -- using an Apple-gadget charger and some chocolate -- one of my students gave a branding example: Lang Lang's haircut. You know it's him, as soon as you see his hair. And a few commenters here decried branding as shallow, surface stuff. But remember that the chocolates -- with their varied shapes, and varied-color wrapping -- look different because they're different inside. And that's what branding ought to be about: What you are inside. Which then shows on the outside, and makes people remember … [Read more...]

01/30/12 5:09 PM | filed under: entrepreneurship, teaching |

How do we know it’s you?

January 27, 2012 By 7 Comments
ghirardelli mint blog

A brief lesson in branding, as I taught it in my Juilliard class this week. I brought in a Plugbug, and some chocolate. I'd bought the Plugbug in an Apple store, though it's not made by Apple. It's a power adapter for Apple products, and -- unlike anything Apple sells -- can charge two things at once, my MacBook and my iPhone or iPad. Apple's power adapters -- the ones that come with their laptops and i-devices -- are white. And while the Plugbug looks much like an Apple charger, it's red, so we'll know it's different. Now for the … [Read more...]

01/27/12 11:13 AM | filed under: entrepreneurship, teaching, Uncategorized |

Why entrepreneurship?

January 26, 2012 By 16 Comments
blog change ahead

As I said in my last post, I'm stressing entrepreneurship this semester, in my Juilliard course on the future of classical music. And, of course, entrepreneurship is a major buzzword at music schools right now. But why? What's the purpose of this? Well, here's one useful explanation, which surfaced, very helpfully, in a working group I'm part of, in which we're helping to shape an entrepreneurship curriculum at a particular music school. Entrepreneurship, said one of our members, will help students shape their careers in a variety of … [Read more...]

01/26/12 12:25 PM | filed under: entrepreneurship, teaching |

My Juilliard course, updated

January 24, 2012 By 12 Comments
blog entrepreneurial shoot

Spring semester has started, and that means I teach my Juilliard course on the future of classical music. The link takes you to the class schedule for the course, complete with links to most of the assignments. Which means you can read what the students read, and listen to what the students listen to, and watch the videos I've asked the students to watch, if you'd like to do these things. This, amazingly, is the 16th year that I've taught this course. Which among much else means, as I've said, that we've been talking about a classical music … [Read more...]

01/24/12 4:15 PM | filed under: entrepreneurship, teaching |

An explosion of comments…

January 19, 2012 By 1 Comment
blog comments-encouraged

…and an apology to everyone. Yesterday, more comments showed up on this blog than every showed up on a single day before. Thanks so much, everyone who commented! I'm thrilled to have sparked such interest. But I have to approve the comments before they go online. And yesterday turned out to be an insanely busy, exhausting day. So I didn't get to the comments till this morning. Which means that so many of you posted comments, and then may have wondered where they were! I do apologize. But remember that I'm a one-man band here, and … [Read more...]

01/19/12 11:45 AM | filed under: about the blog |

Why don’t we know?

January 17, 2012 By 30 Comments
An ocean of data

If you look back on my post about David Gockley and the San Francisco Opera -- quoting David's very stark words about the company's financial problems -- you'll see a lively debate in the comments, between Lisa Hirsch and myself. The debate, essentially, is about whether the San Francisco Opera really is in as much trouble as David says. And that disagreement spreads toward other institutions. When the Philadelphia Orchestra announced it would declare bankruptcy, was it really in as much trouble as it said it was? Or, maybe more pointedly, … [Read more...]

01/17/12 10:37 AM | filed under: classical music data |

Cries of pain

January 16, 2012 By 17 Comments
Classical music fan screaming

"The reason I subscribed to Capital Public Radio is for classical music,"  says a subscriber to the public radio station in Sacramento, CA. Which, like many (most?) public radio outlets, has cut back on classical programming. And now, adding insult to injury, is moving its jazz broadcasts to a classical station it runs, displacing classical music even more. "Many classical music lovers feel they have been left in the lurch during their prime listening time at home," says the news story I linked to. "I'm feeling disenfranchised," says the … [Read more...]

01/16/12 11:12 AM | filed under: classical music data, classical music ideology |

Another sign of trouble — and a solution?

January 13, 2012 By 21 Comments
blog colo 2

The David Gockley statement I blogged about was only one declaration of trouble in classical music that caught my attention recently. Another was a news story about the Colorado Symphony, an institution that feels it needs fundamental change. The emphasis is different here. David talked about the problems he faces. And the Colorado Symphony talks about solutions. But the solutions are needed, the story notes (if only in passing), because the Symphony is "cash-short" -- hurting for money. Which means it has, in essence, the same problem as … [Read more...]

01/13/12 1:22 PM | filed under: changes, classical music data |
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