As often as possible, on Fridays I will post interviews with colleagues from the field who are far more knowledgeable than I am on various marketing and publicity topics. In honor (-our) of all the gray days we've been having in New York, this week we have an interview with a Proper British Person! Here's BBC Music Magazine editor Oliver Condy on not bringing computers to the beach, Tweeting about the World Cup (...not), and how American journalists need to toughen up. Oliver Condy has been the editor of BBC Music Magazine for over five … [Read more...]
Everything good needs replacing
I went to see Parsons Dance at The Joyce last night with co-AJ blogger Judith Dobrzynski, and was immediately brought back to a simpler time when the last Parsons piece, In The End, opened with Dave Matthews Band's Satellite. You know a band's popular when even I--no older siblings, ballet, harp, matching colored socks to turtlenecks, Star Trek, Boy Meets World, the "Disney Afternoon", Narnia--had a copy of Under The Table and Dreaming. A quick gander at the actually not un-cool Dave Matthews Band website and the full-page ad for a Citi Field … [Read more...]
How the other…half?…lives
A friend sent me this over a month ago, but I still think it's worth posting. It's Up in the Air director Jason Reitman's coverage of well, the press coverage for the movie, posted by The Awl. Lost In The Air: The Jason Reitman Press Tour Simulator from Jason Reitman on Vimeo.Whoa whoa whoa - the press junket for the last classical CD you worked on wasn't like this? C'mon: it was kind of like this, right? REALLY? Not at all, huh? Well this is awkward. … [Read more...]
Was I not literally just saying this
My friend and sometimes Blog Comment Nemesis Judd Greenstein just sent me the following comment from "Classical Musings," critic Andrew Druckenbrod's blog for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/classical/archive/2010/02/14/pso-trajectory-scrutinized-in-carnegie-hall-return.aspx?CommentPosted=true"Andrew, your idea is interesting and makes some sense to me. Shoot, I wish Hilary Hahn were bringing the Schoenberg Concerto here in May rather than the Sibelius (and I love the Sibelius concerto). I am … [Read more...]
East Coast/West Coast Killas
This time last year, I fully embarrassed myself by arriving late (typical) to the New York Philharmonic's 09-10 season announcement. Eric invited me, since he's singing with them this season (give it up for Le Grand Macabre, woot woot, what what), and being tardy would have been slightly less unprofessional, I guess, if the press conference had not been ON THE STAGE of Avery Fisher Hall. I also didn't do myself any favors by wearing these totally inappropriate boots, and as a musician I was telling this story to earlier today reminded me, that … [Read more...]
Talk to me about Metropolis Ensemble
In the immortal works of Todd Rundgren, "Iiii don't-want-to-work, I just wanna write-on-this-blog-all day." That's not entirely true: I love my job, but it does make things I also like to do--coming up with interview questions for this blog, to throw out an example--more of a challenge. But I'm going to be better! It's my Valentine's Day Resolution. So, Team Life's a Pitch, here we have the return of the Friday interviews, where I ask the Tough Questions of colleagues who are far more knowledgeable than I am on various marketing and publicity … [Read more...]
What to expect when you’re expecting
UPDATE 2/12, 3:30pm: Since I've heard them all before ((expected)), I didn't feel the need to stream the pieces on the site described below. However, in an e mail exchange about something entirely different, a colleague at another orchestra wrote the following: And I just read your blog post about the eye-scaldingly horrible Philly Orchestra campaign. You know what's really unexpectifying? Clicking the Tchaikovsky 4 button on the media player and hearing Mahler 6. Right. So that happened. OK, here's my original post: ________ I really don't … [Read more...]
No time for losers
I got into an actual fight with someone about a year ago on the subject of whether or not baseball was a niche. My pro-niche argument was that every industry could be defined as niche to some extent. Yes, some niches are bigger than others, but there are many people in the world who have never heard of baseball, there are even more people in the world who could not name one baseball team, even more than that who could not name one current player, and certainly more than that who could not recite any one team's starting line-up. Unsurprisingly, … [Read more...]
New is different than young
Two weeks ago, Hilary and I went to LA so she could film The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. You can read all about how I didn't think her appearance would sell any albums here, and watch her performance on Hulu if you missed it. But I can't imagine any of *my* readers missed it. For me, the strangest part of this experience, perhaps besides watching Hilary Hahn and Andy Richter get their make-up done at the same time, was that I, Classical Music Publicist in NYC Who Doesn't Really Watch Late-Night TV Unless Frasier and X-Files Re-Runs Count, … [Read more...]
“The way you hold your middle and index fingers separate from your ring and pinky fingers…
....the way we danced till three."via OperaChic, and I really don't know where she finds these things:EXCLUSIVE: Zachary Quinto (aka Spock & Sylar) Tunes Up For Spielberg's GershwinSince he dropped out of Harvey, Steven Spielberg's first project under the reconstituted DreamWorks has been a subject of much speculation. Now I hear who's at the center of the director's biopic of George Gershwin, which DreamWorks acquired last fall. It's Zachary Quinto -- Sylar in the NBC drama-fantasy Heroes, and Spock in the JJ Abrams-directed megapic Star … [Read more...]
This is maybe too morbid? But a little funny, right?
I was cruising around the Washington Post website the other day and saw this banner ad for life insurance:Naturally all I and everyone reads at first is "IF YOU DIED TODAY," because it includes the words "you" and "died" and is in a bigger font than the rest of the text in the ad. (See what they did there?) My first thought was, "Well, if I 'died today' I guess I could stop dieting for that physical in two weeks...which I probably shouldn't be doing anyway because who even cares," and, as Life's a Pitch devotees and clients could probably … [Read more...]
Some light stalking and Observ-ations
Having read his music coverage on The Awl, which you should all be reading if you're not, and in The New York Observer, I decided that NY-based writer Zachary Woolfe would be the perfect person to pitch a Gabriel Kahane story to around Gabriel's March 3rd American Songbook date.When I get it into my head that a writer I don't know will be a good fit with one of my clients or with a specific story, I go into crazy "Discovery" mode and try and find out everything I can about what they've covered and how in the past. Fortunately, I live in 2010 … [Read more...]
Panel Disband
Thanks to everyone who read and participated in our virtual panel last week! I'm sorry to report that you're back to Just Me now. Shoes over Schubert, if you will. If you find yourself missing my co-panelists, start reading Matthew's excellent blog Soho the Dog, check out Michael's special-by-any-definition University Musical Society series in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or--now that you know him--go see Jonathan in concert and buy his most recent CD. Which happens to be Schubert, not shoes, and is Grood - great and good. I'm not sure how you can … [Read more...]
One man’s obstacle is another’s way in
On Thursday night, my soon-to-be 82 year old Iranian grandmother sent me the following text:Hi amanda joshua bell and his friens are on pbs live in kincolon center iam having blast watching himI called her yesterday to discuss birthday plans for the big 8-2 (chugging contests, Chippendales, etc.), and she was still so excited about seeing Joshua Bell on PBS that she refused to talk about anything else. "I didn't watch it," I said. "YOU DIDN'T WATCH IT??" "Um, no, I missed it. I'm sure it will be on some other time." "Yes, tomorrow at noon. I'm … [Read more...]