Archives for August 2008

No hedgehogs yet

August 9, 2008 by Greg Sandow

I'm on vacation, back in the same lovely hideaway in England that I went to last summer. But no hedgehogs yet! Faithful readers (and I'm grateful to you) might remember that last year we had hedgehogs around our house -- wonderful silly animals, so much loved in England that vets will treat sick ones free. And the three babies near us did get sick, and were saved by the local vet. Here's one of them: Follow the link above to read more. This year, no hedgehogs yet. We put out hedgehog food -- "Spike" brand (I couldn't make that up), … [Read more...]

Good reading

August 1, 2008 by Greg Sandow

Robert Everett-Green, a music and culture critic of the Toronto Globe and Mail, takes on -- to quote the teaser at the top of his piece -- "the increasingly strident turf wars between fans of pop and of classical music, the growing flap over this fall's sweeping changes to CBC Radio 2, and the undeniable politics behind the battle over what constitutes culture." This is a three-part series -- the first part (which is where the link above goes) came out July 26; the next parts will be on successive Saturdays, August 2 and August 9 -- and … [Read more...]

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...]