Ho Ho Ho!!!! The kids are all excited because Santa is coming. If the Big Guy manages to find our snow-laden chimney this year I’m a gonna ask him for the following 12 things for Classical Music:
1. For my friends at the Jacksonville Symphony – a contract, one that doesn’t make you feel like we’re back to the good old days of the help coming in through the kitchen door.
2. For Honolulu – a new hall. Has anyone pointed out the obvious? If they had their own facility then The Lion King wouldn’t have been such a grinch (on an aside, is there anyone besides me who finds that movie completely overrated? Bad animation, bad music, bad story, bad everything).
3. For Milwaukee – Ditto, plus since my Buffalo Bills once again suck – GO PACK GO!!!
4. For Edmonton – an endowment.
5. For Gustavo Dudamel – I desperately, desperately hope you learn the word “no.”
6. For the NY Phil – a safe trip to North Korea. You carry the light of reason into a very dark place. ps. While you’re there would you give Lil’ Kim a swift kick in the *#&^%**#&?
7. A new sound system for the pit @ the State Theater in Minneapolis – yes, I broke down and took the kids to see The Nutcracker on Saturday. Fabulous production, but the sound system sucks and it made all the music completely flat and 2 dimensional (it made our bass-clarinet playing friend Paul, an excellent player, sound like a wounded goose in dire need of a manicure).
8. Would someone, anyone, please write a good piece for Organ and Orchestra?
9. Recognition by the industry that perhaps it’s not good for conductors to be Music Director of 3, 4, or 5 orchestras simultaneously. After all, could you imagine someone running Coke and Pepsi?
10. For all musicians who regularly travel long distances between gigs to be safe and sound.
11. An industry-wide understanding that the old recording structure is fiscally unsound, and that in order to promote orchestral recordings we have to come up with something a lot more flexible.
12. Please, Santa, no more articles from Norman Lebrecht proclaiming the Death of Classical Music.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Amen!
May I add the 12th-and-a-half-day of Christmas? May all pianists find pianos in the best condition wherever they travel to throughout the world, with beautiful sound and evenly regulated.
Regarding #8 – There’s a little diddy out there called Symphony No. 3 by some French dude.
I think #8 is impossible (!!) but I will add…may all orchestra donors increase their contributions by at least twenty-five per cent next year.
Regarding # 11, I just sent a realtive a gift iTunes card with a list of suggested great classical tunes. iTunes is very difficult to surf for classical music — landmark and definitive recordings are often missing, what’s there often lacks complete performer info (orchestra, conductor, soloist), and the reviews, if they exist, are seldom helpful.
It’s really hard to sell classical music to the masses when it’s such an unpleasant experience to browse the main source for downloads, even for someone who knows the field.
iTunes has the capability of being a panacea, making it even more frustrating that they apparently have little know-how and/or interest in how to pick, catalog, package, and sell classical recordings.