Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

Note that I've refurbished the items on the right-hand panel -- all the stuff about me, and about things you can read on the subjects I cover here. This last -- the "Resources" section -- I'll expand a lot, I hope, now that I have some free time. About me: Read the list of things I've been involved with this spring. I've been busy! One "Resources" link I've added is important: It points you to a study that will tell you how the Melbourne (Australia) Symphony attracted a younger audience. This comes from a chapter in Innovative Arts … [Read more...]

On the Cleveland Orchestra's website you can read the program note I wrote about Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Or, rather, about what Franz Welser-Möst, the orchestra’s music director, thinks about the piece and tried to bring alive in his performance. (The link takes you to a PDF file, which you can’t read unless you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. It’s a free program, which comes with most computers these days. If you don’t have it, go here. Note that the first two pages of the PDF are something Franz wrote. My own program note begins on … [Read more...]

Authenticity—as a component of marketing, as I discussed it in a recent post—is a powerful concept. If you want to make a new initiative seem plausible, the spirit of it has to permeate everything you do, or else people won’t believe you. Case in point: the New York Philharmonic’s February announcement of a series of concerts it called “Visions of the Beyond,” and whose purpose, the Philharmonic said, was “to explore symphonic portraits of existence beyond our own mortality.” And right away there’s a problem. The Philharmonic isn’t an … [Read more...]

From David Ezer, Conference and Events Manager at Chamber Music America, comes the following: Greg, Since you're blogging of late about copy, here's some brochure copy I just found, which I found remarkable for its being conversational, direct, and reflective of a history between presenter and audience. It has asides, quotes the artists, doesn't treat the art like its rarefied -- it may not be sober, but at least it's different and much more engaging than the basic stuff. http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/CulturalPrograms/fall.asp … [Read more...]

I’ve been reading a lot of business books lately, and one of them—Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World (the "liars" part of this title is partly ironic, by the way)—makes a striking point. Grodin says that marketing must be authentic. It has to tell a story that the product being marketed really does fulfill. If you run an airline, and you want people to believe that your flights are truly special, then they have to be. And not just the flights. Also the way you advertise, the way … [Read more...]

How to write a press release, I mean. Or some ideas in that direction, since I’ve been complaining about classical music press releases that are dumb and empty. A few principles: 1. Classical music is full of depth and intelligence. Press releases should reflect that. Not just state it, but reflect it with intelligence of their own. 2. The classical music audience is smart. So are the people we’d like to attract to classical music, along with people in the media we wish would pay attention. Another reason why press releases have to be … [Read more...]

A reader -- Tom Lowderbaugh -- e-mailed to support what I'd said about the Caramoor press release. His marvelous e-mail put it all better than I knew how to. Here, with his permission, is what he wrote: Your comments on the Caramoor release are entirely on target. Why - in God's name - would any reporter or editor reading that release want to learn more? Or feel a need to read more? This release contains exactly the kind of useless language that George Orwell condemned more than half a century ago. (Granted, Orwell was examining political … [Read more...]

Drew McManus has, all this month, been running things from a delightful assortment of people about taking a friend to an orchestra. This is in his blog, of course. I should have mentioned it, but May has been a crazy month for me, and I've barely done my own blog at all. But I'm back now, and I want to give Drew a plug. Besides, my own contribution is now up, so I'm remembering to plug it, as well. (I'm amazed at how often I forget to mention things I've written, or things I'm doing.) I'm afraid my thoughts for Drew were about why people … [Read more...]

So I just made all this fuss (below) about a press release for Caramoor. Someone may very well say, “Well, sure, the press release might not be very good, but does that really matter? How many people read it? The public doesn’t see it!” And of course that’s right. The public doesn’t see the empty press material that so many classical music institutions send out. But the same kind of language also shows up in season brochures and advertising, which the public does see. So it’s good to root it out wherever it is. Besides, one very crucial … [Read more...]

I've commented here from time to time on bad press releases, but here's one that makes me lose my patience. It arrived as an e-mail today: Hello, Caramoor International Music Festival’s 60th anniversary season begins on June 25th at 7 p.m. with Ode to Joy,  a joyous musical celebration featuring Beethoven’s immortal Ninth Symphony in the Venetian Theater. Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian leads the all-Beethoven program featuring the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and The Collegiate Chorale, with Janice Chandler-Eteme, … [Read more...]

Life has been rich, full, and exhausting. I've neglected the blog, for which I apologize (and also for not being able, yet, to answer some of the terrific e-mail I've been getting). But a lot of good things have been happening. My students at Juilliard have done some astounding stuff, which I want to share here -- presentations about works in their repertoire, aimed at people who don't go to classical concerts, and plans for concerts to appeal to this new audience. My students just blew me away with their ideas, and their feelings. If the … [Read more...]

All week I've been part of a blog on the future of orchestras. This hasn't been public; it's for people taking part in the Mellon Foundation's Orchestra Forum, a long-term funding project involving 14 orchestras, which is about to half its semi-annual retreat. The blog (moderated, and wonderfully, by ArtsJournal's own Doug McClennan) was meant to focus everyone on the subjects to be discussed at the retreat, and I'm sure it did that. Generalities aside, this means I had a week of blogging with orchestra administrators, board members, and … [Read more...]

So, after all the Orchestra Forum blogging, all that writing, and even more striking for me, all that reading of everyone's exciting thoughts…I went to an orchestra concert. The Baltimore Symphony at Carnegie Hall. My first reaction? "My God, why are they dressed like that?" Now of course this isn't a criticism of the Baltimore Symphony. Any orchestra on that stage would have been dressed the same way. And this wasn't a considered reaction. It came right from my gut, and took me by surprise. I wasn't taking a posiition, intellectual or … [Read more...]

I'm grateful for Peter Dobrin's fine reporting in his Philadelphia Inquirer story about the Philadelphia Orchestra's new record deal. I'm sure some people want the meaning of the story to be something like, "Philadelphia Orchestra Gets Record Contract." After years in the desert, with no record deal, the orchestra has reversed the trend in the industry and now has a contract with the Finnish Ondine label, etc., etc., etc. Ondine, of course, is not quite Columbia Masterworks, which for decades recorded the Philadelphia Orchestra in the full … [Read more...]

Three notable newspaper stories, in the past few days. 1. The Boston Globe, April 24. Indie rock is thriving. Terrific bands, exposure on TV shows, buzz spreading on the Internet, six-figure sales, which in the case of Death Cab for Cutie are now ten times larger than they used to be. All this largely without commercial radio play. ''The Internet is challenging the corporate clutch on both radio and retail," says the founder of Kill Rock Stars, an independent label. 2. The New York Times, today (April 28). Radio won't play current rock any … [Read more...]