Monday was a really sad night for me: Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner broke up, and I cared because I feel like I know them.
I have a sick fascination with The Girls Next Door, and
no, gentle readers, I am not a 22-year-old frat boy. How can I love a
show and hate everyone on it, you may ask? [That’s not entirely true: I
do enjoy Hef, who strikes a kind of ideal imbalance of obsession and apathy.]
I watch the show (and, in the interest of full disclosure, have Seasons
1 and 2 on DVD) because I, and, spoiler alert, many others, crave backstage passes to other people’s lives.
Given circa 15 minutes
and a fast wireless connection, you could probably find out what
Lindsay Lohan had for breakfast this morning. Given days/months, you
probably couldn’t find out what Joshua Bell had for breakfast, what
he’s doing at this moment, where he likes to eat dinner, if/who he’s
dating, so on, so forth. Why do we know everything about mainstream
celebrities, and nothing about classical musician “celebrities”?
Most
of the classical celebrities I know want to be mainstream celebrities,
but I think they exist in a celebrity utopia: people generally
know who they are, but no one cares what they had for breakfast. The
grass is always greener, though, and because they can’t get on Letterman, they’re not famous enough.
In
2008, you can be a mainstream celebrity for doing absolutely nothing;
the three girls “next door” date(d) an American icon…that’s it. Not
only did three randoms become famous, but the show saved the Playboy brand by exposing the (sanitized) behind-the-scenes elements of Hefner’s life. Pre-show, I would have never said anything nice about Playboy, and now I’m buying DVDs about Hef’s girlfriends? I’m calling him “Hef” like we’re old friends?
[Side-thought, is The Girls Next Door anti-feminist or post-feminist?]
My
point: classical musicians need to expose their personal lives if they
expect to achieve mainstream levels of fame. In doing so, they may/will
lose their privacy/happiness.
We did a YouTube Q&A
with Hilary on Schoenberg’s birthday, and a lot of the commenters said
they were surprised that she was so quirky and funny. Yup, she’s
totally low-key, a bit strange (but aren’t we all?) and ridiculously smart, and yet has (had?) a
reputation for being an icy and stand-offish. When I saw the Marilyn
Monroe “Happy Birthday, Mr. Schoenberg” she recorded, I told her no,
come on…that’s too weird! Hilary’s response? “Well, that’s me! Take
it or leave it.” Fair enough. She took a risk by answering strangers’
questions and exposing her real personality online, but the channel has
gotten over 6,000 views in the past few weeks, and hopefully current
and future fans feel like they know her a little better, and will
consequently enjoy her concerts and recordings more.
I meet my
fair share of classical musicians, and most are really interesting and
surprisingly down-to-earth. I love that I have to schedule my meetings
with David Lang around his picking up his kids from school, for
example, and that Eric Owens tells a story about how his aunt wrote a scathing letter to the
editor when he got a bad review in Miami at the start of his career.
Every classical musician doesn’t need a reality TV show, but gestures toward exposing personalities and lifestyles must be made.
Of course this is just one sliver of a larger discussion. Even if an artist was willing to expose his or her personal life and personality to the public, who are the interested parties and what are the media platforms on which to do it? I sat next to a woman from Inside Edition at a party a couple weeks back, and of course I launched into, “There is so much classical music gossip you could cover! Violinists forget their Strads in the trunks of cars because they’re trying to hook up with girls!” Her response? “((smile/nod/blink, smile/nod/blink)).” Okee. And would publicizing classical music gossip garner new audiences, or just intrigue the current ones?
When Doug asked me if I wanted to write an ArtsJournal blog, I told him what I really wanted to do was anonymously host a gossip and rumor site about the classical music industry a la Perez Hilton – people would send me tips, and it would be amazing and juicy and exploitative. Then I chickened out and did this instead. And now if I do it, you’ll all know it’s me! I might do it anyway, in the name of saving the industry from itself.
Is this blog more (less?) meaningful because you now know that I watch trashy TV?
I love the idea and think you should do it. If this is the way American culture is going, then take full advantage. However, be urged to examine the lives of classical musicians from a very different perspective than, say, a Paris Hilton. I don’t personally care what Joshua Bell eats for breakfast, but I’d love to hear more about what it’s like to be completely alone on a huge stage in front of your critical peers. Of course that will be up to YOU, blogger. Go out and impress us.
I feel the same way that you do about this! I also interact with classical musicians, and while I’m always impressed with them before I meet them, I’m more impressed after I meet them. I think, “Gosh, if I had known that about them and could have included it in my press release when promoting the concert, we probably could have gotten some more new and different audience members in here!” I wish that agents and PR reps provided the presenting venues with more interesting information so we could do a better job promoting the artists locally. But, that just doesn’t seem to be the culture of things right now….
I agree with Margo. I had the opportunity a couple weeks ago of meeting the renowned banjo player Bela Fleck. He was in town promoting a new documentary of his at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, as well as performing in a recital. I knew nothing of him beforehand. From simply meeting with him and hearing him talk about music, especially the fact that he cannot even READ music, made me all the more interested to hear him play. I thought to myself, how can someone who doesn’t read music be one of the most celebrated musicians in the world today? This fact intriguied me to learn more about him. I also didn’t know that he has toured with the famous Alternative group “Dave Mathew’s Band”. Promoting this fact to the public, I think, would most certainly draw in a different sort of crowd to a classical style concert.
I like the fact that you enjoy trashy television; it gives me hope that not all musicians are boring as hell. ::: grins :::
As distasteful to some as it may be, the key to relevance in our culture is to be irreverent, to shock us, and to just be omnipresent (think Kim Kardashian). Perhaps on some Bizzarro Earth — complete with Bizzarro Seinfeld (yes, I’m referencing a television show now) — the quiet ones get the attention, but I most certainly see your point. I’m at the crossroads of incorporating my own non-profit chamber ensemble right now and this is something that I have gone over and over in my head: how do I get increased exposure in a world saturated with overly exposed individuals? The answer to that, of course, is to get out there and mingle with “The Masses” and to do things to get their attention. Granted, this is not to say that we should be encouraging musicians to go clubbing pantiless and so on, but it is to say that community involvement and the act of maintaining a high public profile is absolutely necessary if one is to succeed in even gaining the slightest point of relevance let alone popularity.
If that means disclosing at every possible point who is “doing” who or what one is eating for breakfast, so be it. Maybe they’ll make a facebook group in that person’s honor … and when that happens, all bets are off. ::: grins :::
This is great! As a presenter we essentially get paid to become acquainted with artists from the extensive research to advance which makes the performances that much more enjoyable when it’s a new friend up on stage. I’ve often wondered how to translate that experience to audiences so they can feel proud to “know” the person they just paid a pretty penny to see. Kudos on the idea, and I agree with FB King that the the content doesn’t have to be superficial to be interesting.
Well, at least five people think this is a good idea, so let’s start by taping the ushers at Carnegie, construction workers at Lincoln Center, Hilary, Doug McLennan, Lang Lang, Dudamel, the El Sistema kids, Mary Lou Falcone, F. Paul Driscoll, Richard Croft, Alex Ross, the folks waiting for autographs at The Met stage door, Peter Gelb, Steve Reich, The Emerson String Quartet, Michael Kaiser, Anna Netrebko, Frank Oteri, Edgar Meyer, the obligatory 4-year-old who can play Rach 2, Ara Guzelimian, Mark Swed, Jennifer Higdon, Itzhak Perlman and Anne-Sophie Mutter all lip-synching this. I’m fairly certain it could be a YouTube sensation. -AA
Isn’t what makes mainstream celebrities the people that are obsessed with them? That would mean the general public would have to be “obsessed” with classical music. The generally older audiences that follow classical music don’t care to scream like a 14-year old girl when Joshua Bell comes out onto the stage. But could you imagine that… leaving an orchestra with your ears ringing because the audience was screaming for the heart-throb with a violin in his hands?
Classical musicians are celebrities to their own public. Just like some classical music lovers wouldn’t give a nod to whatever those kids’ names are on High School Musical.