I was a little disappointed when I received my Time Out NY yesterday. “Jonas Brothers quit music*” reads the cover, and then “*for just a day. Meet Kevin Jonas, our new Music Editor”.
In the elevator, I flipped right to the Classical & Opera section like I always do, and much to my chagrin, there was “Edited by Steve Smith” in the top right corner of the page. Now, I like Steve Smith very much, but come on, Time Out: don’t tease a girl like that! If the JoBro are the Music Editors for the week, then they’re the Music Editors! They have to do what Steve does. All of it. The feature’s tagline says “the best-selling teen idols reveal their inner music geeks”, so let’s have it. Geek out with us. Would they go see “dashing musical-theater luminary Paolo Szot [light] up SummerStage”? I’m not sure they would. But we’ll never know now, will we?
In all seriousness, I think this is a missed opportunity. I do want to know what classical music events in the city a 16, 19 and 21-year old would go see. What (different?) demographic would read the Classical & Opera section during the Jonas Brothers’ week? Would those people flip back to that section again next week? Maybe, maybe not. But even just for one week, who knows what classical music offerings the Jonas Brothers could have pied-pipered the Youth of America to! I want to know how many copies a “Jonas Approved” classical disc would sell. I neither believe the Jonas Brothers aren’t “smart enough” to handle the classical section nor do I believe having an opinion on classical music requires intelligence or music education. They also seem fairly well-rounded: I would bet they already have classical music on their iPods.
Dear JB Publicist: ArtsJournal would be more than happy to host the guys’ classical picks, any ol’ time they’d like to share them.