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Life's A Pitch

For immediate release: the arts are marketable

iNote

January 7, 2009 by Amanda Ameer

‘Twas the week before Christmas, and I went to see my friend Rob Moose
and his string quartet OSSO perform at (le) poisson rouge in the West
Village. They played just after pianist Gloria Cheng, whose program
Allan Kozinn from The Times describes:

The
program Gloria Cheng played at Le Poisson Rouge on Monday evening was
drawn from her most recent Telarc recording, a compilation of the
complete (if slim) piano music of Esa-Pekka Salonen and Steven Stucky, along with a Lutoslawski rarity, the youthful Sonata (1934).

But
other threads bind the works as well. Ms. Cheng is friends with Mr.
Salonen, who composed “Dichotomie” (2000) for her. Mr. Salonen, who as
a conductor has been a champion of Mr. Stucky, persuaded Ms. Cheng to
include Mr. Stucky’s “Four Album Leaves” (2002) on her disc. Mr.
Stucky, who published a monograph on Lutoslawski, put her onto that
composer’s Sonata. And as it turns out, the piano music of all three
composers draws heavily on the harmonic language and textures of the
French Impressionists.

“When you play works by composers you
know,” she said at the start of her set, “you see more in the music
because you know the person; but you also see more in the person
because you know the music.”

The
threads that bind a program of music by living (and recently deceased)
composers that Kozinn details above are useful to include in a review. 
They are also, of course, useful in program and liner notes, either written by
the artist or written by someone who knows the artist and the composers
involved well enough to write an approaching-first-person account.
Kozinn only mentions Cheng’s verbal introduction to her set, but in fact she talked
the whole time, which was fantastic. She talked about being backstage
with Salonen at the LA Phil and him saying, “I want to write a little
piano piece.” (I believe the final piece was 17 minutes long in two
parts.), she talked about how in one part of piece she thought the
machines – the general subject of the composition – “go nuts”. It was
the kind of backstage intel I feel so privileged to discuss with
my artists, and there it was, all over the concert. Of course it helped
that Cheng was extremely articulate, clearly serious, and very funny
without that familiar “Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week” tinge.

My
friend from IMG who’s a friend of hers was there, and he introduced us
after the concert. “I loved the way you talked about the pieces!” I blurted, of course. “Really?” she replied, “I just found out today that
there wasn’t going to be a program!” But this was far better than a
program: Some branches of trees were saved, no one was reading
during the concert, the familiar paper shuffling and crinkling was
decidedly not missed, and most importantly, the audience got a sense
of the artist’s personality, musical perspective, and role in the
creation of contemporary classical music in an organic way.

I recently learned at a visit to MOMA that you can now download an MP3 from their website
or connect via WiFi on your iPhone/iPod Touch
at the museum rather than pick up an audio guide to an exhibition. So let’s say I was going to the OSSO/Gloria Cheng concert, and wanted
to know what I was about to hear in the artist’s own words. I could download an audio file of
Cheng talking about the pieces, telling little anecdotes about hangin’
backstage with EPS, put in on my iPod, and listen on the 1 train en
route to the performance. I, personally, would do that for every concert I could –
new music or otherwise – and actually, venues could charge for it: add
an audio program note package to your subscription, buy the program
note with your ticket, etc.. If more venues’ sites supported this, an
artist could produce one “note” at the beginning of a recital tour, or
for a concerto they were going to play throughout a season, and their
management or publicist could distribute to presenters. If this wasn’t
something an artist could pre-produce, perhaps presenters could team up
with local classical radio stations and produce them while the artist
is rehearsing. Audience members would learn that, on the day of a
concert, an audio program note would be available for them to download
from the presenter website to listen to in/on the car/walk/bus/subway on their way the
concert.

If we wanted to take the artists out of the equation, since schedules, interest in participation, and personalities often get complicated, why not have members of an organization talk about programs? This is the dramaturg discussing the play you are about to see and here is a clip from the play; here is the artistic administrator talking about why (s)he booked this show; here is the music director of the orchestra…so on, so forth. Again, this could be something a local radio station would probably be happy to produce in exchange for sponsorship credit.

And if your artistic director sounds anything like Philippe de Montebello, you’ve struck gold.

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Performance Monkey says

    January 7, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    This is a brilliant idea, Amanda. Christopher Wheeldon introduces performances by his dance company, Morphoses, from the stage, in a very unassuming way, which just gives people one or two signposts into what are mostly abstract dance pieces. It makes them less forbidding, helps your mind start the piece in a helpful place – and also reminds us how much the work matters to the artists. You may or may not like the ballets, but it couldn’t be a more helpful or welcoming way to begin an evening.

  2. Suzanne Vendil says

    January 7, 2009 at 11:23 pm

    I have mixed feelings about this. The people who usually enjoy the talks are trained musicians..most non-musicians I know get bored. I think it is really important to find a way to do this in such a way that introductory talks do not sound educational. Part of what has hurt classical music is the fact that is has become so intellectual and academic.

  3. Yvonne says

    January 8, 2009 at 7:34 am

    I would say that I agree with Suzanne. BUT… what’s described here from Gloria Cheng’s concert doesn’t sound the slightest bit educational or academic. (I’ll leave “intellectual” out of the equation because it’s a much maligned word, like “elite”, that doesn’t and shouldn’t have to carry a negative meaning.) Cheng’s presentation comes across – in these reports – as lively, intelligent and providing insight into the music-making. And you don’t have to be a musician to appreciate those three qualities.
    Despite being an advocate for printed programs and the option to read about music, I would have liked to have heard this concert and its presentation.

  4. Read Gainsford says

    January 8, 2009 at 9:10 am

    I would have to disagree with Suzanne. I also speak during most concerts I play, having begun this as a way of easing ‘standard’ audiences into more unfamiliar, usually modern, pieces, and having found that most audiences, just like you, really enjoy that source for information and that interaction with the performer. The only objection I have had has been in fact from highly trained musicians, who claim that they find it distracting from just listening to the music. Weird, huh.

  5. Laurence Vittes says

    January 8, 2009 at 10:25 am

    Good thinking. The key question is, it seems to me, what you are inviting the audience to do. It’s got to get their attention and further the aims of the organization.
    Great blog!

  6. Silvester Vicic says

    January 8, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    One of the ongoing questions I find that needs answering is, how passive an experience does a concert need to be for the audience? I am a trained musician and a classical music broadcaster, both sides of the fence so to speak. My feeling is that you have to engage the audience. Presentations like the one described by Amanda will more than likely engage than not. Years ago I produced a broadcast concert series, where an additional layer was interposed. The radio show’s host went out on stage and interviewed the main artists right before they were about to play. With just two exceptions the artists were very comfortable with this and eager to participate. It also gave the audience that “behind the curtain” look, just enough to help enhance the experience, not take it over. The key was keeping it brief and substantive, terms we don’t normally see as mutually inclusive. It sounds like Ms. Cheng achieved at least some of that in creating an active environment for her concert in New York.

Amanda Ameer

is a publicist who started First Chair Promotion in July 2007. She currently represents Hilary Hahn, Gabriel Kahane, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sondra Radvanovsky, Julia Wolfe, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lawrence Brownlee. She thanks Chris Owyoung at One Louder Photo for taking the above photo very quickly and painlessly. Read More…

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