Matthew, further to this:
As a critic, I make no bones about the fact that my own
taste is highly idiosyncratic, and that I will never, ever be all
things to all people. The fact that my own sense of specialness is
driven more by repertoire than performer puts me, I know, in the
minority, as does the nature of some of that repertoire.
I’m curious if every concert or recording you preview, or every artist you profile, is special to you. As you mention in your post, and as we all know, arts coverage is shrinking. Beyond repertoire, as you write in the excerpt above, what makes you feature one artist, one concert, one album, over another? And in taking the time to preview it, are you not–just as marketing materials are–setting the audience up with some kind of expectation that this event is a cut above the rest? “This concert was special enough to be previewed in the Boston Globe or on that writer-I-like’s blog. If he spent his time on it, maybe I should spend my money on it.” I think about listings in places like New York Magazine and Time Out New York; not only is there competition to get a listing in the first place, but then there are the critic’s picks, and the expanded listings, and the floating photos to compete for. Levels within media-coverage-levels of what’s more special than everything else before anyone even gets to a concert.
Also, how do you write features that you are assigned differently than those you pitch to an editor yourself? That is, what’s it like to cover something someone else may deem special but perhaps you do not?
There’s also something to be said for competition for reviews. I remember a publicist friend of mine saying a client was going to fire her because all he wanted was a New York Times review, and because of various scheduling conflicts at the Times and other concerts in the city that night, he wasn’t getting it. This was an extremely well-established and well-respected artist, but apparently not…whatever…enough to tip the scale. Reviews are assigned at least a week in advance, so basically newspapers decide what’s special enough to be covered before seeing anything. Imagine if the New York Times writers could be at every music event in the city one night, and then pitch what should get reviewed to their editor based on what actually happened at the concerts!
Matthew responds to this post in the comments.
It’s interesting—when I’ve done people profiles, it’s almost always been at an editor’s suggestion, but I try to approach those as an opportunity to highlight the sort of everyday specialness of making music: I like to take at least some space to talk with them about how they work, what the work is, what the preparation involves. It’s sort of a way of saying, “Here’s these artists, they’re in our society, they’re in our community, and they’re extraordinarily good at their jobs.” Trying to communicate a sense of the richness of classical performance that, at least in a city like Boston, is really all around you.
Previews that I’ve pitched have, to the best of my memory, always been built around specific works (again, that’s the way my crazy brain works), although those usually will involve some performer-profiling along the way. One of my favorite kind of articles to write is one that peels back some of the varnish on a venerable warhorse to show how such pieces can be constantly reinterpreted and renewed from generation to generation—something that shows just how much the individual listener can bring to the table when encountering one of these pieces. (Some are better than others, but this one—on Simon Boccanegra—is one that I thought came out fairly well: a good hook, a good context, and a piece that I’d shill for in a heartbeat.)
I can sympathize with Matthew. he is indeed correct, in that the editors want what they want, and, it all depends on who’s coming to town and with what repertoire. In my two decades of performing, the funny thing,is that most of the pre-concert interviews I have done mostly center around my early childhood being deaf. It never dawned on me for the first ten years of my career that it should ever be mentioned. Several writers focused on it, and told me it must be in my biography. I balked, but finally gave in. Looking back, I can understand their point. Many times, I am told by writers that they can only cover ‘x’ number of events per organization in a given season, and usually they will cover what I do if it is a premiere, or a new work, or something off the beaten track. In reading the story of the artist who wantedonly a New York Times article, well, that isn’t quite fair. There’s only so much a publicist can do, and unless it is something of a unique nature, even with celebrity names, it isn’t always enough. I have found the best publicity occasionally resulted from Associated Press (AP) releases, and only then, when it is something unusual, which doesn’t occur all of the time. Nowadays, ticket sales are very important, so I hope that most editors will see this as an important contribution to the local organizations to allow their writers to do pre-event stories and interviews to get people to attend the events.