Delusions of relevance

First, I must footnote playwright Jason Grote
for that phrase. He mentioned it in an e mail exchange, and I warned
him that I would be claiming it as my own in the future. The future is
now.

Hilary (Hahn) was in The NY Times Crossword
last Thursday. 54 down. The clue was “violin virtuoso”, the answer:
Hahn. Really? People got that? I started to count letters on my
fingers…I-T-Z-H-A-K…B-E-L-L…

At this point, I have lost
all perspective on who’s “famous” and who’s “classical music famous”.
Hilary is clearly classical music-famous, but famous-famous?
Apparently. In my experience, folks outside of The Industry know Yo-Yo
Ma, Itzhak Perlman and maybe, maybe Joshua Bell. After tomorrow night, I suspect they will know Lang Lang as well.

How, and at what point, does that happen in a classical musician’s career? Perlman was a top classical act at a time when The Ed Sullivan Show,
etc., often had classical performers on television, but this generation
of musicians is at a distinct disadvantage there.  [I was told once by
a booker that a certain TV host, two syllables, rhymes with Pope-rah,
“just doesn’t like classical music”.] Mainstream magazines – fashion,
lifestyle – will sometimes feature a classical artist if he/she fits
into an existing piece, but one fashion spread does not a household
name make. Appearances in movies, performances at special events (like
The Kennedy Center Honors)…all of these things contribute, but what
tips an artist over the edge? I’d rather not admit this, but I know for
a fact that Itzhak Perlman was mentioned on Gossip Girl last season; if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.

Should
mainstream fame for their artists be every performing arts publicist’s
goal? If I meet a random person on the street, and he generally knows
who Hilary Hahn is, have I done my job? Conversely, should a publicist
focus on developing an artist’s “classical” fame: high-caliber features
and reviews from important industry publications (and now blogs)?  I
announced loudly and somewhat grandly at a dinner when the Schoenberg/Sibelius came out that
I would rather Alex Ross review the disc on his blog than in The New Yorker, because the people reading his blog would actually buy the album, whereas the people reading The New Yorker would just use “this fascinating new interpretation” as cocktail party fodder. [Note to readers: As if I have a choice.] [Note to The New Yorker: You are my favorite! I take it back!] Is it better (”  “) for a performing artist to be on the cover of Gramophone or to have a one-page Q&A about how they impress girls buried in Cosmo? Which is higher profile, and which, perhaps more importantly, will raise the artist’s profile? Profile…how?

The
classical music industry suffers in equal parts from delusions of
relevance and delusions of irrelevance. Delusions of relevance inside
the industry: what percentage of the population actually cares about
classical music? And delusions of irrelevance outside the industry: the
large majority of the population may not think it cares about classical
music, but classical music is omnipresent, in the elevator, in movies,
on your cell phone. Norman Lebrecht was kind enough to point out
Hilary’s low (and yet, depending on how you look at it, high) album
sales. Cue Billy Crudup voiceover: “500 copies a week? $8,000.
Overwhelmingly high praise from critics and industry peers?
Priceless.”  Should the classical album market (and classical ticket
sales market) attempt to compete with the mainstream/pop markets? Any
logical person would say no. But then there’s the disconnect: we strive
to place performing artists in mainstream media markets, and then still
do not expect their album/concert sales to be comparable. Can a real – I’m not
talking to you, Josh Groban –  classical artist ever be truly
mainstream?

(And what defines a “real classical artist”? Yeowza. Another post for another time.)