Sorry, team: I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. This, this and this are to blame, but if I didn’t have a day (” “) job, I wouldn’t have anything to blog about. Life’s a Pitch would be exclusively devoted to the last season of Lost and my ill-fated attempts at hot yoga, and no one needs that.
I still want you to vote for the Best of PR and Marketing/Classical Music edition in 2009! It’s not too late; you loved 2009!
Alright, so the nominees are…
Best Publicity Move
Joyce DiDonato literally breaks a leg.
Gustavo Dudamel…I don’t know, gets up in the morning?
Bands-the-cool-kids-like play with American orchestras.
Best Review
Alex Ross pulls no punches with The Met’s new Tosca in The New Yorker.
Jeremy Eichler defines what’s bad about Lorin Maazel in The Boston Globe.
Murray Perahia makes the LA Times’ Mark Swed want to wash his hands (in a good way).
Best Feature Story
Jeremy Eichler packs up his CDs and wonders what’s become of The Record Collection.
Justin Davidson explains the Ring Cycle that does not involve Gollum in New York Magazine.
Reigning ‘Best Publicity Move’ champ, blogger and…what’s the other thing?…oh, pianist Jeremy Denk nerds out with Brahms and Graphs.
Best Album Art
Cecilia Bartoli’s Sacrificium makes men across the globe cross their legs. (Conflict of Interest Alert: I worked on this album, but it was nominated several times by other people.)
Mitsuko Uchida and The Cleveland Orchestra’s Mozart: Piano Concertos 23 & 24 uses a real rather than posed performance photo.
Stile Antico’s Song of Songs, is just beautiful and elegant. 
Best Advertisement
The Gustavo Dudamel iPhone app.
The New York Philharmonic iTunes pass.
The movie theater previews for The Metropolitan Opera HD broadcasts.
Best New (in 2009) Music Blog
John Adams, Hell Mouth
Anne Midgette, The Classical Beat
Anonymous, Proper Discord
Overall Best Moment in Publicity and Marketing in 2009
Everyone hates the Met’s new production of Tosca so much that they can’t stop talking about it.
The LA Philharmonic actually spends money on marketing.
Everyone is told journalism and classical music are dying and yet fantastic new music blogs pop up each week.
VOTE early and often.
I still like the Tiger Woods caught with the Hilary Hahn CD photo (“releasing in the US on January 12, 2010”) but I guess that wasn’t eligible.
My votes:
My Votes are:
Dudamel. Hands down. Breaking a leg is so boring in comparison to putting a bit of glam into opera.
Alex Ross on Tosca. Good to see that critics are still being overtly critical about that ‘shabby little shocker’.
Jeremy Denk on proving that classical music isn’t all about the glam.
Song of Songs. Sorry Cecilia but that image trickery is just not hot.
Dude’s Iphone app. Just brilliant.
Anne Midgette, The Classical Beat
Tough choice. New blogs. Let’s just hope the readers aren’t all complete classical music buffs.
The YouTube Symphony was up there in terms of publicity move. It was even videoblogged by Jeremy Denk!
This doesn’t really count as early, but my votes are:
Publicity Move: Joyce, not for breaking her leg, but for doing such a good job of singing and acting from a wheelchair on the least (wheelchair) accessible set in history.
Best Review: Alex Ross, because it should be a pleasure to have your ass handed to you with such eloquence.
Best Feature Story: Jeremy Denk, because only people who can play Brahms are allowed to use graphs to analyze it.
Best Album Art: Cecilia Bartoli, because of the thousands of records that crossed my desk in 2009, this one made me smile the most.
Best Advertisement: NY Phil pass, because it’s a bold recording project that connects with the audience all year long.
Best New Blog: Mine, because the others are good enough to get votes without my help 😉
Best Overall Moment: Tosca, because we should embrace unpopular artistic statements as evidence that we’re not boring our audience into submission.
Best new blog- Proper Discord!
Best Blog: Proper Discord!
Best Blog: Proper Discord
Proper Discord for best new blog 2009!
Blog of the year has to be Proper Discord by Andy Doe no contest!
Proper Discord – best new blog
ad – New York Phil
Pub – Joyce DiDonato
blog – proper Discord
Best new blog: Definitely Andy Doe’s PROPER DISCORD
I read every Proper Discord post with anticipation–Proper Discord FTW
Best new blog- Proper Discord! It is a thing of glory, radiating insightfulness and irony on all who gaze upon it.
Best Blog ever: Proper Discord!
here goes…
Best Publicity Move – Dudamel
Best Review – Alex Ross
Best Feature Story – Justin Davidson
Best Album Art – Sacrificium
Best Advertisement – NY Phil iTunes Pass
Best New Blog – Proper Discord
Best Overall Moment Publicity/ Marketing – LA Phil Spends $$$
Publicity move – Joyce DiDonato
Best feature – Jeremy Denk
Best ad – Movie theatre Met previews
Overall – LA Phil