{"id":118,"date":"2008-10-27T10:50:54","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T10:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=118"},"modified":"2008-10-27T10:50:54","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T10:50:54","slug":"perlman_and_pollini_rock_the_v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/10\/perlman_and_pollini_rock_the_v\/","title":{"rendered":"Perlman and Pollini Rock (the Vote)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> comes via Nico<\/a> via Daniel Stephen Johnson’s blog<\/a>: Itzhak Perlman’s opposition of Proposition 8 on YouTube. The video was posted on October 22, and has already received 23,879 views. Good stuff, IP. <\/p>\n

Also, I’m happy to report that Maurizio Pollini wore an Obama button to his post-concert signing at Carnegie Hall yesterday, and more than one person was talking about it on their way out the door. <\/p>\n

You can’t swing a dead donkey without hitting an Obama button in New York City, so I wondered why I, and the audience members at the signing, were surprised to see a classical artist wearing one. It occurred to me that I’ve been to a lot of signings in the past few months, and not one artist was wearing a pin of any political persuasion. I asked one of my artist friends why she avoided talking about politics in interviews, and she said that she didn’t want to alienate audiences: a lot of major donors and classical musical fans are conservative, she said, and she wanted them to enjoy her performances for what they were, not for who she was. Essentially, she considers broadcasting her stance on politics to be bad public relations.<\/p>\n

I…totally disagree. Rather than looking at making a political statement – even something as small as wearing a button to a signing – as fodder for audience alienation, I think classical artists should consider their personal politics another gesture toward audience building; the more audiences are allowed to see who you really are and what you really care about, the more they can relate to you, or at least consider you a real person. Maybe politics are the one common ground someone has with a classical music luminary like Pollini, and the next concert of his they see or the next album they listen to will mean more because of it.<\/p>\n

And even if you don’t agree with him politically, isn’t it cool to know he cares? <\/p>\n

Will some people refuse to attend an Itzhak Perlman concert because they now know he has a happily married lesbian daughter? Maybe, but honestly, so what? Personally, the fact that he did a YouTube PSA makes me want to subscribe to the Westchester Philharmonic<\/a> as a gesture of support.<\/p>\n

Epilogue: Also sporting an Obama button at Carnegie yesterday was CAMI<\/a> President of 30+ years, Ronald Wilford. Did not see that one coming. <\/p>\n

Perlman, Pollini and Ronald Wilford represent the old guard of classical music – presumably as conservative, if not politically conservative, as you can get – and yet they are the ones making statements. Where are the young classical celebs in this? The young artist managers? The new classical concert presenters? Even if folks don’t want to make overt political statements, who is encouraging classical music fans to get out and vote? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This comes via Nico via Daniel Stephen Johnson’s blog: Itzhak Perlman’s opposition of Proposition 8 on YouTube. The video was posted on October 22, and has already received 23,879 views. Good stuff, IP. Also, I’m happy to report that Maurizio Pollini wore an Obama button to his post-concert signing at Carnegie Hall yesterday, and more […]<\/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-118","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\/118","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=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}