Happy holidays to all

Time for a Christmas break. I don't think I'll blog again till January. And I do need a rest.

So to everyone who reads me (and to everybody else), all the best for the holidays, and for the new year. Let's hope that 2005 brings good things. My thanks, too, to all my readers. Simply knowing you're there means a lot to me. Your responses -- either in person, or by e-mail -- or even just your telling me that you like to read this, makes me see (among many other things) that this business can really change. I used to think the things I said were very radical. Now I see that many other people have the same thoughts, honeycombed throughout the classical music business.

Here's an idea, then, for 2005. What if we all started talking to each other? What if the music school dean I mentioned a while ago -- the one who said that right now classical music is like East Germany just before the wall fell -- started talking to the major-orchestra artistic administrator who cheered when I wrote that we had to talk about classical music much less pompously?

There's a lot of energy for change out there. Let's get it moving!