I have either really excellent or really horrifying news for everyone: the New York Philharmonic would like you to live-blog and/or live-Tweet their first CONTACT! concert at Symphony Space on December 17th. You can buy tickets here or, if you’re press (you, yes – you, bloggers), e mail pr (at) nyphil (dot) org. Here is the program:
Arlene Sierra – Game of Attrition (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission)
Lei Liang – Verge (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission)
Marc-Andrew Dalbavie – Melodia (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission)
Arthur Kampela – MACUNAIMA (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission)Conducted by Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg.
The website has nice drop-down bios for each composer.
Bloggers/Twitches will be seated in the balcony so as not to disturb the rest of the audience. I plan on positioning myself near them to observe just how distracting and Sanctity of Art-ruining it all is. Since the sky will fall, though, you won’t have to wait for my report. We had a good run, it’s been real, etc..
So who’s all going? TimeOut NY? Unquiet Thoughts? Sequenza21? Night After Night? NewMusicBox? Real Clear Arts? Feast of Music? Mind the Gap? Sandow? Classical Beat? BrooklynVegan? La Cieca? Felsenmusick? Symphony Magazine? Cafe Aman? CounterCritic? Do the Math? Why I Left Muncie? Daniel Stephen Johnson? Did I read somewhere that The Standing Room is in town?
Don’t make me drink all that free *Finlandia* Vodka alone.
It sounds like an interesting experiment, Amanda, but I’m not jumping on your bandwagon just yet. Neither this nor your previous post (“Live from New York”) offered any facts to support the contention that live-blogging or live-Tweeting during a performance will have a positive effect on ticket sales. In fact, I still haven’t heard a rational explanation of how that might work.
How exactly does live-texting during a performance translate into ticket sales? Who are those messages reaching? Do real-time messages motivate otherwise reluctant consumers to buy tickets? How? How many new tickets are likely to be sold?
Will it cause attrition among those who prefer a device-free environment? How much attrition does it threaten to cause? If the data show that live-texting during performances generates incremental sales, but also causes attrition, will the gains be sufficient to offset the losses? These are questions that can and should be answered before anyone risks offending a long-time “contemplative and undistracted” patron.
If the CFO wanted to bet the endowment on tech stocks, you can be sure the board would demand plenty of rigorous, fact-based cost/benefit analysis. Call me over cautious but I think that if we’re about to gamble existing audiences against the untested assumption that we can replace them with new, hyper-connected, device-tolerant audiences, we should apply the same level of scrutiny.
I love that you get so excited about this stuff, Amanda. It’s endearing. Also, I realize the holiday season is busy for everyone, but I hope bloggers come out for this. Your fellow ArtsJournal bloggers, for example, who preach about how classical music is dying. Sure, the NY Philharmonic’s experiment may not be the silver bullet to saving every aspect of the industry, but I hope it’s given a fighting chance!
Ouchhh, of COURSE, the day after I fly to Cali for Xmas.
thanks for this + the pr info!
Hi Amanda- It looks like a terrific concert and I’m eager to hear how it goes!
Just out of curiosity, who is the Sarah Cahill who writes occasional comments here with your column? I know there’s a beauty queen Sarah Cahill, and one involved in medical research, but I thought I was the only Sarah Cahill with an interest in new classical music. Who is she, I wonder?
Hi Sarah, I have no idea who the other Sarah is or what she does. Sorry! -AA
Up here for Time Out NY’s The Volume, bien sur.