Doin’ What Comes Naturally

Emily, my trusty intern of two summers who’s leaving tomorrow to do something silly–I don’t remember what, maybe go back to college?–has been researching a selection of classical musicians who blog, Tweet, and [accepted verb form of] Facebook, and how they use these outlets. Here’s what she came up with (followers and friends numbers as of 8/16/10). She took the liberty of adding Lady Gaga’s various numbers, either for inspirational purposes or to make me furious.

Twitter
André Rieu (@andrerieu) – 11344 followers, personal travel updates and advertising
Sarah Chang (@sarahchang) – 12665 followers, mostly personal items, such as pictures of puppies
David Garrett (@david_garrett) – 4703 followers, mostly ads or concert alerts
Nico Muhly  (@nicomuhly) – 4324 followers, personal
Lang Lang  (@lang_lang) – 3267 followers, mostly commercial with a few personal messages such as “SPAIN!”
Hilary Hahn (@violincase) – 2885 followers, personal as told by her violin case
Renée Fleming (@reneesmusings) – 1583 followers, personal
Yuja Wang  (@yujawang) – 1569 followers, personal
The Canadian Tenors (@canadiantenors) – 1475 followers, commercial with personal travel updates
Michael Tilson Thomas (@mitilsonthomas) – 1508 followers, mostly commercial, verified account for reasons I don’t understand
Christopher O’Riley (@cjoriley) – 567 followers, mostly commercial
The Priests  (@thepriests) – 420 followers, mostly personal, often respond to their followers
Maya Beiser (@cellogoddess – this sounds very pagan next to @thepriests) – 288 followers, mostly personal
Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) – 5,573,231 followers. Sigh.

I wrote a post about not simply using social media for the sake of using social media here, so I won’t get into it again. That said, of the list above, I think Renée Fleming does an especially good job with Twitter. She tells her followers funny and interesting things that are public-worthy but not press-worthy, which I think is an important distinction. For example, on July 6th she Tweeted, “Sunday night in Zurich: saying goodbye to Violetta…. Probably my last performance of her ever.” If officially announced to the press by her publicist, Renée’s last Violetta could have been seen by the opera world as a negative news item. However, when she tells us directly, it’s sweet and meaningful. A few more Tweets follow:

“An extraordinarily challenging role, but worth the effort; grateful. People are moved by the story and Violetta’s plight…Which
is why this opera is so popular. It is most definitely for three
different voices — three different temperaments and sensibilities…I tried to enable the audience to forget that I’m singing, and ultimately express the words and the story..Now it’s for another generation to put their stamp on Violetta…”

Somehow, putting that as a quote in a press release would seem contrived, and yet on Twitter, it’s a lovely message.

When Hilary was the musical guest on The Tonight Show back in January, we stopped by the KUSC studio. We were waiting in the lobby, and the man who runs their Twitter feed came out to say hello. “Can I get a picture for our Twitter feed?” he asked. “Sure,” Hilary said. “Where do you want me to stand?” “Oh – sorry…not of you. I actually just want one of your case.” And that, folks, is what it means to be Famous on the Internet.

Let’s take a gander at how the artists above use Facebook.

Facebook
André Rieu  – 5051 fans, bio from Wikipedia and video
Sarah Chang   – 5705 fans, bio, Twitter link, concert dates
David Garrett  – 79,877 fans, bio, events, photos, fanshop
Nico Muhly  – 1653 fans, bio, events, photos, video
Lang Lang  – 9471 fans, bio, events, photos, music, video
Hilary Hahn  – 17,817 fans, bio, events, video photos, music
Yuja Wang  – 2669 fans, Wikipedia bio
The Canadian Tenors – 13,691 fans, Wikipedia bio
Renée Fleming  – 5046 fans (on her official page – she has two non-official pages), bio, photos, video
Michael Tilson Thomas  – 5423 fans, bio, events, photos, video, press
Christopher O’Riley – 1016 fans, Wikipedia bio
The Priests  – 788 fans, Wikipedia bio
Maya Beiser – 99 fans, Wikipedia bio
Lady Gaga – 15,976,461 fans, bio, music, video, fanshop

As with Twitter, what’s interesting to me is how artists use Facebook for personal reasons versus professional reasons. At Eric’s Weill recital at Carnegie two Aprils ago, he looked out at the audience before his encore and said, “Wow – I’m glad to know all you people on Facebook actually exist!” He didn’t promote the concert on Facebook like I, his publicist, would have, but simply mentioned that it was happening just as he would mention anything else having to do with his life.

Blogging, too, is something that artists shouldn’t be doing unless they actually like to write. What is worse than a publicist or record label telling a musician they have to have a blog? Oh wait, I know – a publicist actually writing it for them! But let’s not get me started on that when I should be catching up on White Collar. Speaking of, Tiffani Amber Thiessen is just going by “Tiffani Thiessen” now, in case anyone was wondering.