About a month ago, The New Yorker ran a fascinating profile of Taylor Swift. After noting that in the past five years, Taylor Swift has sold more albums than any other musician (a cool 20 million),  the writer points to the not-so-secret of Swift's success: "Swift's ability to hold her audience's interest reflects, in part, a keen understanding of what fuels fan obsession in the first place: a desire for intimacy between singer and listener." The piece goes on to describe how Swift's mother handpicks superfans from the audience of her … [Read more...]

New York City's classical music station WQXR got a nice New York Times hit last week in the advertising section. Yay for classical music getting featured in another part of the paper! Stuart Elliott from the Times reports that WQXR created a poster in the style of Shepard Fairey--of Obama campaign/possible image theft fame--to promote what they are calling "Beethoven Awareness Month." The concept is based not on Fairey's Obama poster, but rather on the Andre the Giant Has a Posse thing-thing/OBEY Giant posters: I personally feel awareness … [Read more...]

Update on the World Series Orchestral Battle of Destiny, which ends tonight. I was at Siegfried last night, but could have actually watched the end of that crazy game, even after a 5.5 hour opera, if I didn't go to the after-party. The New York Times randomly reports on the Dallas Symphony, and Alex Ross checks in with St. Louis: As Red Sox fans, we here at The Rest Is Noise take no position on the current World Series, which finds the St. Louis Cardinals doing battle with the Texas Rangers. Applying purely aesthetic criteria, however, we … [Read more...]

Congrats to the DeCoro Choir from Latvija, for writing the best Twitter bio--and perhaps the best bio, period--that I've ever seen.   … [Read more...]

I think Declan, who works with me, sent this over to make me feel bad about not doing enough for Hilary's Ives album. I mean, even the video ABOUT the ad campaign is cooler than anything I've ever done. When they have the hamburgers wrapped in Jay-Z prose it's like COME on. I like how "big pimpin'" decidedly does not roll off the tongue of the voiceover dude. There's just nothing better than advertising that gets more press. And press that gets more press. Those are my favorite things. … [Read more...]

The World Series starts tonight and I don't care because the Yankees were an unmitigated post-season disaster. I will try and be happy for the two teams that made it, though, if only because both cities have very good symphony orchestras. The St. Louis Symphony has already stepped up to the plate...ba-ZING!...and taped themselves in Cardinals' gear playing 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame". They sound darn good, too: But now it's BETTIN' time. The Dallas Symphony asked the St. Louis Symphony on Twitter if they should bet on the Series. … [Read more...]

Credit Suisse, NYC tourism, and the New York Philharmonic have placed banners all over the Upper West Side (and perhaps elsewhere, but I never leave) of Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert: One of the photos is the above, but another is randomly Alan Gilbert with his mother, Yoko Takebe, who happens to be a violinist in the orchestra. She's totally cute, but the problem is that 99.999999999% of people traipsing around Manhattan don't know mom is in the band, so it's just like, what is that woman saying to that man and what does the … [Read more...]

Via Pablo Heras-Casado: I thought I was going to beat Alex Ross ("ARoss", as my cousin calls him) to a 12-tone something, but he Tweeted back that the video was a shortened version of "Arnie Schoenberg and His Second Viennese School," a spoof radio commercial by Cleveland station WCLV on April Fool's Day, 1977.  Alex's post with the full audio is here. And while we're loosely in the Mad Men genre, my favorite thing: … [Read more...]

  I mean really, America: snap out of it. … [Read more...]

A small collection of flowers, letters, Post-Its, candles and drawings for Steve Jobs outside the Upper West Side Apple Store on Broadway last night.     … [Read more...]

Last night, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter performed on David Letterman to celebrate the release of her box set, which Dave called, "the ideal hamster habitat." Earlier in the evening, Dave discussed crack and freebasing with Samuel L. Jackson, and a girl could only dream that he and Miss Mutter would cover the same topics. Mutter played with long-time collaborator, ex-husband, and Knight of the British Empire Andre Previn, and looked damn good in her little red dress. Why musicians feel the need to play … [Read more...]

10. So they book more classical musical guests. 9. So they book more classical musical guests. 8. So they book more classical musical guests. 7. So they book more classical musical guests. 6. Because she's skinny. 5. So they book more classical musical guests. 4. So they book more classical musical guests. 3. So they book more classical musical guests. 2. So they book more classical musical guests. 1. So they book more classical musical guests.   All joking aside, it's a huge coup to have a serious … [Read more...]

File Under: Things Artists Do Without Asking Their Publicists, here we have Hilary interviewing a Betta fish. Other interview subjects on her YouTube channel include but are not limited to Leonard Slatkin and Jennifer Higdon. Reports from journalist friends lead me to believe that this is how they sometimes feel when interviewing classical musicians. Conversely, classical musicians are often asked the same questions that Hilary asks the betta, so I suppose all's fair in love and boring journalism. … [Read more...]

We've all fallen prey to the old "who would play me in the movie of my life" game. Let us not forget that when Life's a Pitch becomes a trashy-summer-beach-novel-turned-HBO-series, I will be played by Megan Fox. The Queensland Symphony Orchestra has collected a truly exquisite group of composer doppelgängers, which they are calling the "Composer Lookalike Wall of Fame." This is precisely something we would have done in the marketing department at McCarter Theatre some lazy summer Friday afternoon, and I love that the orchestra actually … [Read more...]