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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

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From Liza Figueroa Kravinsky: Living up to the hype

February 13, 2014 by Liza Figueroa Kravinsky

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Q3lLIvq9OQOFPqtEqcFaEV5ajAx8rG11"] [From Greg: Full disclosure. I got to know Liza when she hired me as a consultant. But we worked only on a very modest plan to launch her project, a plan that turned out not to be needed. Maybe I encouraged her in some helpful way, but the stunning success she's been having comes from things she did entirely on her own. Go, Liza!]  In a series of  guest blogs, I've talked about my Go-Go Symphony,  a composition that combines original classical music with the go-go beat, Washington … [Read more...]

From Liza Figueroa Kravinsky: You scratch my back…

October 3, 2013 by Liza Figueroa Kravinsky

From time to time, Liza Figueroa Kravinsky has been guest-blogging here about how she's developing her Go-Go Symphony, an ensemble that combines classical music with Go-Go, the iconic dance music of Washington, DC.  One reason her group is unusual is that the crossover is rooted in the people involved. Instead of having, as I've sometimes seen, classical musicians playing in a pop style, pop musicians writing classical music, or shotgun marriages in which a pop artist guests with a classical group, without much true artistic interchange — … [Read more...]

From Liza Figueroa Kravinsky: More hope than you realize

February 20, 2013 by Liza Figueroa Kravinsky

[From Greg: Here's another guest blogger. I met Liza Kravinsky maybe a year ago, when she hired me as a consultant, to help her work out a strategy for launching the project she describes here. The things we talked about don't enter into her post; maybe they'll come up in later posts she might make, or maybe they won't. That doesn't matter, because what I loved was the project itself. And especially the way that it didn't simply combine pop and classical music — that's been done quite a lot — but also brought together pop and classical … [Read more...]

View from the street

March 10, 2016 by Greg Sandow

"…Makes we wonder, sometimes, if arts institutions, trying to stretch beyond themselves, take time to ask who they’re stretching to. Which people, which subcultures, what these people and cultures are like, what really goes on the city the arts orgs are reaching to." [contextly_auto_sidebar] The Go-Go Symphony rises from the streets and clubs of Washington, DC, combining pop and classical music. And because of that poses — or ought to pose — a sharp challenge to the Kennedy Center, precisely because the Kennedy Center wants to reach past its … [Read more...]

Let’s help this happen

January 24, 2015 by Greg Sandow

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="U9ZKZeEOtHhedFzv5Is4iOgEuSU4DzmA"] The Go-Go Symphony — which plays some of the most exciting music in Washington, DC, a perfect fusion of classical music and funk — is in line for a great honor, and a great opportunity. I’ve blogged about their first triumphant performance with a full symphonic ensemble, and their founder, Liza Figueroa Kravinsky, has done guest posts about how she developed the group. (She talks here, for instance, about the group’s big breakthrough into the heart of the go-go world, go-go being … [Read more...]

What I do

January 8, 2015 by Greg Sandow

Happy new year! I thought I might start 2015 with a few words about myself. Of course this is my online home, and many of you know me. But maybe it’s good to be a little bit comprehensive, partly to sell some of the things I do, but also to have a more me-like presence here. So… The basics I live in Washington, DC, with my wonderful wife Anne Midgette, chief classical music critic for the Washington Post, and our three-year old son Rafa. A smart, enterprising, funny, affectionate kid, and growing into a good family citizen. For 18 … [Read more...]

Crossing over

February 28, 2014 by Greg Sandow

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="lzDJO4mHpC9sXfdSFTLQ44nfjp8rh5Mg"] There's a lot of buzz in classical music these days about community — reaching out, if you're a performing group, to the community you're in, involving the community in what you do. There are endless examples. The Cincinnati Symphony has been doing "One City, One Symphony" events, involving  a gala performance of a piece (they started with Beethoven's Ninth), and listening parties around the city, all built around the theme of "our common humanity." (The link goes to a … [Read more...]

Final mavericks: Jade Simmons and a Go-Go symphony

December 21, 2012 by Greg Sandow

Well, final only for now. Because, as I said in my last post — where I finished the list of readers' nominations — I'll be continuing this in the new year. So the name to conjure with, maverick-wise — the maverick of the year, if I had to name one — would be Jade Simmons. One look at her website (follow the link) tells you she's different. "Cyber Digs of Multifaceted Pianist Jade Simmons," it says. "Take off your shoes & stay awhile!" I don't know anyone in classical music who's so much at home in our outside culture, who does the same … [Read more...]

Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

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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...]

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