I have always been a fan of Norman Lebrecht. His book Mahler Remembered is an anthology of recollections from friends, colleagues, observers, critics and the like. The personal nature of the book drew me in giving me some sense of Mahler the man along with the times he lived in, going beyond his musical prowess. It therefore puzzled me to read his blog post dismissing 10 or so current conductors personal takes on Mahler…..
Media
Quick Takes: Putting your mouth where the money is!
We have all heard it word of mouth is the best form of advertising, and who would doubt it? Problem is it is both hard to quantify and to come up with data to prove its effectiveness, or so I thought……
Grammys? Who cares!!!!
It’s that time of year again. The Grammy Awards are all the talk of the business, and once again there is the yearly bellyaching about how the Classical Grammy awards aren’t shown on TV. Well……. who cares?
Quick Takes: And for the Record(ing) we need to go more “GaGa!”
While the rest of the universe is scratching their heads and debating how Taylor Swift won the Grammy for album of the year, the Internet broadcast of the Classical awards from earlier in the day on Sunday left me perplexed…and the sad thing is, it’s maybe just me who is. It seems not only are precious few Classical recordings being sold (very scary numbers below), but most of the winners for the Classical awards did not attend….and for crying out loud Roberta Flack, a living legend was handing them out!….
Mad Mad Men…. putting the Con in Contra
For our Mad Men tribute I came across a real head scratcher. It is hard to believe that the New York Times prints such dreck sometimes, but that they did when an article was posted with the hypothetical argument to turn the video game Guitar Hero into Orchestra Hero. This is an ASS in clASSical instant classic…..
It’s Worse Than We Thought….
I have noticed lately, with some horror, what now passes for “Arts journalism.” Arts journalism, especially Classical Music journalism, seems to have taken a dive. The expression “dumbing down” comes to mind. Or perhaps that’s just self-preservation on their part.
Two Takes – Entrepreneurship and Michelle Obama’s Speech
My class brings current blog posts and/or articles to debate, 3 on Tuesday and 3 on Thursday. In the clips below first Mackenna and I discuss the perception of what an entrepreneur is from an article by David Cutler, author of the soon to be released Savvy Musician. Then 3 of them on Tuesday brought in an article about Michelle Obama’s speech given in Pittsburgh about the arts. We kind of disagreed on what the impact will be, or if there will be any at all….
Having our Cross-over to Bear: Concert Snapshot – Chris O’Riley
A funny thing happened on the way to the Dakota: a new magazine came across my path. It’s called “Listen – Life With Classical Music.” Actually I don’t know if it’s new but it’s definitely new to me. What caught my eye was an article on Erich Korngold and his travails for having the …… audacity? …… idiocy? ……… intelligence? ……… to write music for Hollywood, and the negative effect this had on his career. Boy does that sound familiar……