{"id":102,"date":"2008-10-07T13:01:16","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T13:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=102"},"modified":"2008-10-07T13:01:16","modified_gmt":"2008-10-07T13:01:16","slug":"lets_give_em_something_to_writ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/10\/lets_give_em_something_to_writ\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s give ’em something to write about"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a co-blog exercise – the most exercise I’ve gotten all week,
\nin fact – with my friend and the toast of New York<\/a>, composer-performer Nico Muhly. His corresponding entry is here<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n

Over
\nthe summer, I had a phone meeting of sorts with a fellow New York
\npublicist about a series of concerts in which we were both involved.
\nShe later made fun of me, because apparently throughout the call I kept
\nsaying that journalists needed to “toe the line<\/a>“;
\nI’m not even sure I was using the expression correctly, but my point
\nwas that these four concerts were interestingly programmed\/situated and
\nshould be recognized as such, i.e. be covered by the press. <\/p>\n

My
\nneighbor Kenny (“Dog”, to his friends) started a youth basketball
\nleague a few summers ago (“The Dog Show”). Here is a 30-35ish year-old
\nman who works in maintenance in a building in Harlem and spends his
\nfree time arranging for hours upon hours of of entertainment and
\nexercise for the neighborhood munchkins and their families. This is
\nsomething that should be pitched –  to NY1, Bloomberg, and various
\nuptown publications – why?  Because it’s an actual story. <\/p>\n

There
\nis an inherent problem with having a\/being a publicist: one is expected
\nto pitch all things related to one’s clients, but not all things are
\nactually stories. Journalists must get inundated with press releases
\nthat say…nothing at all. “Hilary Hahn is coming to your city!!!” is
\nsimply not interesting – no offense, Hilary. And even if you, as a
\npublicist or publicity director at an orchestra\/presenter, do<\/i>
\nget the just-coming-to-town or just-putting-on-a-concert story, who
\nwants to read that? Some artists and performances are simply not
\nstory-worthy, and if they are actually written about, shame on the
\nnewspapers.<\/p>\n

Nico is blogging about a new party game he recently
\ninvented: try to create a worse program than that of the New York
\nPhilharmonic’s Opening Night Gala.<\/p>\n

\"ny-phil-opening-night.jpg\"<\/span>“This concert is now past”, indeed. Is that a warning or a clarification?<\/p>\n

Does The New York Times<\/i> have to review the concert simply because it’s the Philharmonic?  In his review<\/a>,
\nAnthony Tommasini spends the first five paragraphs reflecting on Lorin
\nMaazel’s tenure as Music Director. I don’t blame him: what could he
\npossibly have to say about the evening itself?  This bit is actually
\nintriguing, and as usual, I appreciate a chatty tone:<\/p>\n

Overall, though, the performance [of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony] was incisive, rich-textured and lucid.
\nMr. Maazel has said that he objects to overly romanticized
\ninterpretations of Tchaikovsky that turn the symphonies mawkish, and I
\nam with him on that. These are ingenious scores and should sound that
\nway in performance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This
\nis amusing, because is anyone surprised that Ibert’s Concerto for Flute
\nand Orchestra  with Sir <\/i>James Galway was ineffective? Nothing curious about that!<\/p>\n

The performance of Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra before intermission was curiously ineffective.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also like this. Points for comedy and giving Times<\/i> readers a sense of what it was like to be at the (nightmare of a) concert:<\/p>\n

\n

At the end he received a warm ovation, though not quite enthusiastic
\nenough, it seemed, to warrant an encore. Mr. Galway gave the audience
\none anyway: an arrangement of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” tossed off
\nindifferently. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tommasini
\nmanages to write an interestingish review\/retrospective of a terribly
\nprogrammed concert, while other concerts that evening went unnoticed by
\nthe Times<\/i>. Does that help the industry? If the Philharmonic
\n(and other local presenters\/orchestras) know they will get reviewed by
\ntheir local papers no matter what they program, what is their
\nmotivation to think creatively (or, perhaps more importantly, to
\nprogram with a sense of cultural relevance)? Publicists will pitch and
\njournalists will cover, and no one is accountable for a program
\nactually warranting comment. <\/p>\n

So yes, I would like it if
\neveryone would toe the damn line. Administrators, think about your
\nprogramming. Publicists, think about your pitches. Journalists, reward both
\nefforts with equally interesting press coverage. Nico makes the point in his post<\/a> that good and relevant concert programming really isn’t that difficult – he came up with four excellent examples of what the Philharmonic Gala could have been…this morning.  Pitching stories is also not terribly difficult, as long as you have good material to work with.

<\/i>If the Times <\/i>stopped covering the Philharmonic’s boring concerts, would the Philharmonic be forced to program differently? If the Philharmonic’s publicity department told the artistic administrators, sorry, we can’t pitch this, would the Philharmonic be forced to program differently? Chicken…egg…chicken…egg…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a co-blog exercise – the most exercise I’ve gotten all week, in fact – with my friend and the toast of New York, composer-performer Nico Muhly. His corresponding entry is here. Over the summer, I had a phone meeting of sorts with a fellow New York publicist about a series of concerts in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}