I got into an actual fight with someone about a year ago on the subject of whether or not baseball was a niche. My pro-niche argument was that every industry could be defined as niche to some extent. Yes, some niches are bigger than others, but there are many people in the world who have never heard of baseball, there are even more people in the world who could not name one baseball team, even more than that who could not name one current player, and certainly more than that who could not recite any one team’s starting line-up. Unsurprisingly, I was trying to make the point that baseball, like classical music, could certainly expand its fan-base through educational outreach, creative marketing and smart PR.
Music, football, winter sports: it’s an important couple of weeks for special events in a lot of niche-to-some-extent industries. The Grammys last Sunday (congrats to David Lang and Harmonia Mundi for their the little match girl passion win), the Super Bowl on Sunday (My Google Story today: how to get rid of heartburn, Fantastic Mr. Fox DVD release, gay judge Prop 8, Google Super Bowl Ad – none of which have led to crib-building…yet), and my Personal Favorite Niche-to-some-extent Special Event of All Time, the Winter Olympics, which start on Friday. Once a year, or every two years, in the case of the Olympics, people outside of a genre’s niche turn to it and pay attention for an afternoon, an evening, a week, or a couple weeks. In all the cases I can think of–the Final Four, the World Series, the Kentucky Derby, the Grammys, The Academy Awards, so on, so forth–that thing people turn to is a competition framed by some kind of spectacle.
Classical music doesn’t have one singular event on which the world-at-large can focus. Before you crack your knuckles and start filling out the Comment field, The Grammys don’t count, because the classical portion isn’t even televised and we all barely care, let alone any version of the aforementioned world-at-large. Come to think of it, dance doesn’t have a special event either (though the popularity of TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance et al. is something, and again, those shows are competitions with spectacle). New York theater has The Tonys, though it’s glaringly obvious to anyone paying attention that “Broadway” does not equal “all New York theater.” I was actually surprised to see a competition covered in The New York Times yesterday (the George London Foundation awards, by Vivien Schweitzer). But even with that kind of mainstream coverage, who can tell what competitions like that mean for singers, or for the opera industry at large? Vivien opens her review with,
Various music competitions and programs offer promising young singers a
means to be heard above the fray. One important contest is the George
London Foundation awards competition, named for the renowned American
bass-baritone, which recognized singers like Joyce DiDonato and Renée Fleming early in their careers.
…but even I, who work in the industry, still don’t know how these competitions really help careers, or who’s really paying attention in the industry or outside it. This has nothing to do with the review, but with how we construct, produce and promote classical competitions.
It’s funny, isn’t it, that classical musicians are so often compared to athletes in their discipline, their Whomever-given talent and physical attributes, and their commitment to a singular pursuit, often from young ages. But somehow classical music skipped the one thing that brings public interest to all those other things: the competition. Are musicians just not competitive? We know they are. Are we in administration positions–those who would organize such an event–just not competitive? Possibly. Many people working in arts administration are, after all, failed (i.e. not competitive enough?) musicians. But clearly our industry is filled with competition: prodigies snatching up Julliard spots, orchestra musicians moving up and down seats, judges determining various degrees of…”skill” and “artistry”(?), soloists vying for various orchestral tours and prestigious dates, managers poaching musicians from other agencies, presenters demanding exclusivity…the list goes on and on. Somehow, though, this competition is neither public nor positive enough to attract more mainstream attention. Does anyone really know the difference between a first and second chair violinist in an orchestra? I certainly don’t, and this is my job. Would an orchestra ever make that internal competition public through local press or webisodes? Absolutely not, but why not?
I watched the Super Bowl at home in Connecticut this weekend with my dad, sister, aunt and grandmother. At one point during the game, my aunt, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, asked if I ever went to Ohio to see my artists. “Not really,” I said. “Is that because Ohio doesn’t have good enough arts?” she asked. “Not at all, actually: The Cleveland Orchestra is probably the best orchestra in the country.” Her face lit up, “Really? The best in the country? I’ll have to go see them!” She’s lived in Ohio my entire life and never had any desire to see the Cleveland Orchestra before learning that they might be The Best. She didn’t even ask what “the best” meant in this case! The superlative itself was good enough reason to drive two hours to see them. Similarly, friends are constantly asking me if Hilary is “the best violinist in the world,” and I always brush it off with something ridiculous like, “Well, she’s very good…” But that’s what the Olympics etc. tell us (insert joke about The World Series being an exclusively North American event __here__), and that’s what we want to know. Who can run the fastest? Who can jump the farthest? It’s quite silly, actually, but it’s what we crave.
Is there’s some way to garner the same excitement that sports have in
what is essentially a wholesome battle of skill without losing the
inherent nuance of the performing arts? If so, what would it look like? Is there a mainstream awareness benefit to being able to say every year that this is the Best Orchestra in the World, the Best Violinist in the World, the Best Pianist in the World, (the Best Classical Music Publicist in the World?…just kidding), or would that be considered (yet) another attempt to market for the sake of marketing, with no true value attached?
I think you’ve got a point here.
The great thing about sports is that even if you’ve no idea what good play looks like, you’ve got the score to tell you who won. It’s ultimately accessible because it demands almost no understanding on the part of the spectator.
The American Idol format is about as close as you get with music, with judges, commentary, a winner and most importantly, fireworks and confetti. People seem to respond to that pretty well, even if the winners they select aren’t always great.
I imagine that the NFL would look very different if we judged players by the beauty and probity of their game instead of by keeping score.
For most kids in conservatories, competitions are all they know, and all they are prepared for. Classical pianists and violinists curse them. That culture is what nearly drove one of the most brilliant — and crossover popular — pianists in the world OUT of music (I’m thinking of Gabriela Montero). And audiences love her. (She’s also my favorite. 🙂 I’m not kidding when I say she changed my view of classical music for good.)
I’m a little leery of focusing on competition as a result. I’m not sure the sports metaphor is working for me. The rest of the movie and music business has its once-a-year grammys and oscars, but they’re not driven constantly by competition like sports is. It’s a more idea-centric sort of thing for audiences, where they don’t walk out of the theater thinking, “GREAT! MY movie crushed the competition in the weekend box-office take!” They’re more likely to go get dinner and talk about the ideas presented with their friends or dates that they saw it with. They’re also happy to see both movies if they’re good.
I’m also slightly stunned that someone who lives in or near Cleveland wouldn’t know that their orch is one of the biggies. I’m from Philadelphia, and the cab drivers and hot dog vendors puff up with pride over that orchestra.
Maybe someone should tell those cab drivers and hot dog vendors to buy tickets to the orchestra they’re so proud of! I also don’t think it’s shocking at all that someone from Columbus, OH, doesn’t know that the Cleveland Orchestra is good, or that Cleveland even has an orchestra. In my day-to-day PR work, I operate under the assumption that no one has any idea who my clients are. That way, I’m pleasantly surprised when they do, not stunned when they don’t. -AA
I’ve always thought that a Project Runway-style competition show for composers would be massively fun to watch (think of the challenges! “Write a piece using only these 3 notes/this trash can lid/the riff from ‘Four Sticks.'”)
One of the big hurdles with an idea like that, though, is that every composer I know has gotten good and cynical about even the idea of a composition competition, and it’s pretty obvious why: as soon as the names on the jury are made public, it becomes pretty obvious that they chose the music that’s most like the music they write/conduct/champion. If you have a jury stacked with quasi-spectral German texture composers, then odds are you’re not going to get a thumping postminimalist passacaglia for four tubas and an electric bass for a winner. (Note to self: compose a passacaglia for four tubas and an electric bass.)
This is something I wrote about over on Nico Muhly’s blog recently, but I really wonder what would happen if composers forums/competitions were run more like the Creative Writing workshops I had in my undergraduate years at NYU: the Eliot-worshiping neoromanticist always had the most insightful critiques for how the slam poet could make his inner rhymes tighter, and the slam poet always had a thought or two about where it might be effective to blow apart that pantoum for a hot second. In other words, pieces were judged as effective/not effective in relation to *what the goals of the piece were,* not whether or not we all thought those goals were valid.
I can make that guarantee about the 4tba/ebass piece not winning in a typical jury situation because I’ve seen it happen, but also because the majority of composers I’ve met, amateurs all the way up through professionals, do not know how to critique someone else’s piece in that way. They critique a piece not according to how well it achieved its own goals, but according to whether or not they approved of its goals in the first place. Hence the busy, contrapuntal, atmospheric timbre-fest with a lousy form that wins over the tightly and elegantly constructed ostinato piece for 8 amplified bassoons.
I guess the whole point of this is to say that I fear we can’t have a good, entertaining, and FAIR Project Composer Thing until we all spend a good, long while working to change the way the composition system is run, from the lowliest undergrad Composers Forum all the way up through the highest awards.
(For the record, I think the Grawemeyer has done a very good job of what I’m proposing, and the Pulitzer has certainly stirred things up lately, both of which are Very Good Things.)
Full disclosure: I’m the press rep for the George London Foundation, but just a word about how its competition and others help participants and winners: industry people do attend and pay attention, resulting in management contracts for some; the credential helps open doors and get auditions; and, as we know, word of positive attention of this kind can spread far and wide – ! Also worth noting, the London Foundation competition awards five top prizes, not one “crown.”
Cheers –
Most people in Phila who are fans of the Flyers and Eagles don’t buy tickets, either, though. They get together with their friends and watch the game — buying tickets is a big commitment of money.
But there’s no other avenues for “fans” to appreciate the orchestra if they can’t cough up the money or time to go. Doesn’t mean they don’t have pride in it.
Sounds like what we need is a reality show for classical musicians complete with competition, divas/divos and ensuing drama. Who will pitch to Fox or Bravo?
Thanks for this insightful article. Retired NY Philharmonic oboist Joseph Robinson speaks in favor of competitive events between orchestras in this just-posted interview on The Musician’s Way Blog: http://musiciansway.com/blog/?p=1509
Have you been alerted to this since you’ve written your thoughts?
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/763014–honouring-canada-s-musical-olympic-medallist
Olympic medals for the arts!
Tell your aunt to visit the Short North arts district in Columbus. It’s over a mile on High St. of galleries and restaurants.
There’s the 600 plus member, one hundred year old Ohio Art League. I think its the second oldest in the country, a few months younger than New York’s.
Columbus College of Art and Design and Ohio State’s Art Department are two of the finest in the country, by external ratings, not just a local bragging.
Of course it’s not New York but it’s far from a wasteland.