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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

You are here: Home / 2004 / Archives for March 2004

Archives for March 2004

How to kill classical music (3)

March 26, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Here's a press release from a major classical music publicity firm: S U S A N  G R A H A M  S I N G S  A T  Z A N K E L  H A L L Well, stop the presses! Susan Graham, a singer, is going to sing! Who knew? And here I thought that she was going to tap dance. Again we have a headline that doesn't tell us anything. Or, anyway, doesn't tell us enough, because, just maybe, the fact that Graham will sing at Zankel might be news. Zankel is Carnegie Hall's spiffy and artistic new performing space. The season there has … [Read more...]

Arresting cellist

March 25, 2004 by Greg Sandow

"Arresting Cellist Wins Award, Will Make Debut." Why not say something like that? That was my advice, in my last post, to people writing classical music press releases. Why not start with a headline that tells us why we ought to care about whatever event the release promotes? Drew McManus agreed. My suggestion, he e-mailed me, is simply "common sense." But there's one little wrinkle. If you're going to write a headline that grabs attention and is also honest, the artist it's about has to have distinctive qualities, either personal or … [Read more...]

How to kill classical music — press releases

March 23, 2004 by Greg Sandow

My wife and I are both critics; we both get press releases, announcing classical music events. Their quality, it's fair to say, is dismal. Which isn't to say they aren't written with professional skill, or some reasonable imitation of that. But they don't say anything. Example (chosen just because it came in the mail today; it's no worse than many others): 43d Young Concert Artists Series Presentsthe New York Debut ofRomanian Cellist Laura Buruiana March 9, 2004 -- On Tuesday, March 23, 2004, at 8:00 PM, Young concert Artists presents … [Read more...]

How to kill classical music

March 21, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Here's the cover of a new classical CD, from a major label, Universal Classics: It's ugly and ridiculous. Brendel looks like he's in pain; Goerne looks like he's roaring. (And it looks worse in real life than it does here.) When we in classical music aren't doing music -- and especially when we advertise or market ourselves -- we live in the same world as everybody else. Other people design good CD covers. It's not hard to do. If we don't do it -- especially for an A-list recording like this one -- we look like fools. … [Read more...]

[Revised version] Weighing in…

March 17, 2004 by Greg Sandow

…on the Fat Issue: 1. It's common and reasonable to make casting choices based in part on how people look. Just last week I heard dance teachers at Juilliard say that students routinely lose out in auditions because choreographers think they're too heavy. Someone at Juilliard's opera program said the same thing happens at regional opera companies. This isn't discrimination, in any legal or ethical sense. It's art; choreographers and directors care how their productions look on stage. Regional opera companies are able to care, I should add, … [Read more...]

Crossover

March 16, 2004 by Greg Sandow

From a brief Q&A with soprano Andrea Gruber, in the April issue of Opera News: All-time favorite singer: Janis Joplin. One thing I absolutely cannot live without: My CD player, mini-speakers, and hip-hop, R&B or rap music before I go onstage. Guilty-pleasure CD: Justified, by Justin Timberlake. And from a longer Q&R with singer-songwriter Rufus Wainright, in the March 14 New York Times Magazine: Hero: Verdi. This is a bust of him [pictured]. He's my favorite composer. I'd like to follow the examples he set in his career, writing … [Read more...]

Bagatelle

March 16, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Yesterday I shopped in a new Staples that providentially opened a block a way from me. Office supplies right down the street! A genuine convenience for the busy freelancer. And as I was coming out, I noticed a big Staples ad, featuring the tagline "That was easy(SM)." The SM, of course, is a superscript, marking -- like dog piss on a tree -- Staples territory, a service mark they've legally registered, so nobody can steal it. I had to laugh. Service marks like that -- and we see a lot of them in advertising -- accidentally tell a … [Read more...]

Recreation; Re: Creation

March 14, 2004 by Greg Sandow

I've been in the Bahamas, on vacation, and I've also been intoxicated with a piece I'm writing, the slow movement of a prospective symphony. It's emerging as a pop ballad, with classic doowop harmony; cheesy, some might say, but isn't it supposed to be? And all scored for a Haydn-size orchestra, two oboes, bassoon, two horns, and strings. Quite a trick, I might say, scoring a pop ballad for those instruments. Where's the rhythm section? (Though that's not the biggest problem -- cello and double bass, playing pizzicato, can make a lot of rhythm. … [Read more...]

Creating The Creation

March 3, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Not long ago I went to hear Haydn's Creation at the New York Philharmonic. The performance wasn't much to write home about -- Maazel conducted with a kind of distracted ferocity, pushing the music forward, but not doing much else with it. Barbara Bonney, the soprano soloist, sang badly out of tune; Bruce Ford, the tenor, was not much more than competent. Only Thomas Quasthoff, the bass soloist, stood out, singing with more truth and radiant delight than any singer I've heard in quite a while. I wanted to jump on stage, and say to Bonney … [Read more...]

Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

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Resources

How to write a press release

As a footnote to my posts on classical music publicists, and how they could do better, here's a post I did in 2005 -- wow, 11 years ago! --  about how to make press releases better. My examples may seem fanciful, but on the other hand, they're almost … [Read More...]

The future of classical music

Here's a quick outline of what I think the future of classical music will be. Watch the blog for frequent updates! I Classical music is in trouble, and there are well-known reasons why. We have an aging audience, falling ticket sales, and — in part … [Read More...]

Timeline of the crisis

Here — to end my posts on the dates of the classical music crisis  — is a detailed crisis timeline. The information in it comes from many sources, including published reports, blog comments by people who saw the crisis develop in their professional … [Read More...]

Before the crisis

Yes, the classical music crisis, which some don't believe in, and others think has been going on forever. This is the third post in a series. In the first, I asked, innocently enough, how long the classical music crisis (which is so widely talked … [Read More...]

Four keys to the future

Here, as promised, are the key things we need to do, if we're going to give classical music a future. When I wrote this, I was thinking of people who present classical performances. But I think it applies to all of us — for instance, to people who … [Read More...]

Age of the audience

Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Here's evidence that it used to be much younger. … [Read More...]

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