Life's A Pitch

The Fourth Wall seems to have left the tristate area.  Every show I've been to in the past few weeks has had some kind of performer/audience interaction. The streak started on July 25th when I went to see my friend Dan Tepfer (interviewed here) play with Lee Konitz at 11pm at Birdland in midtown. About halfway through the set, Lee opened his mouth (without a saxophone in it) and addressed the audience for the first time. "Any questions?"  he asked. Someone in the front row said that he "enjoyed the counterpoint in that last piece." … [Read more...]

A little client update for you all, so we're perfectly clear that they're my people when I start yammering about them on (le) blog. This July, I started working for soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and composer Julia Wolfe. I'm also doing some consulting work for Chamber Music America, and am handling the PR for Cecilia Bartoli's next album, Sacrificium, this fall. I told my colleagues at Decca that it really warmed my heart that they thought of me when an album about genital mutilation came along.  We all have our special things.Few things … [Read more...]

I'd never seen This is Spinal Tap before last week. Judge me __here___. My friend and I were chatting as the credits were rolling and out of nowhere he goes, "Wait - pause it. Rewind. Does that say Jane Covner??" Obviously my friend works in classical music, or else he probably wouldn't have recognized Joshua Bell's publicist's name. Granted, this could be a coincidence. Publicists in California with the same name, though? Unlikely, my friends. Un-likely. I have the utmost respect for Jane, having worked with her when I was at IMG; this would … [Read more...]

I chopped 10 inches off my hair on Monday. Well, I didn't do the deed personally, by regardless, I now have short hair. My sister and I donated our ponytails to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, which is like the more famous Locks of Love but more honest, according to Aliza. She's donated three times before, and she and Jerry, who cuts our hair, totally peer-pressured me into it.  ("Trying to look like the girls on Mad Men is really more important than charity??? So what if you can't wear your hair up to the Met Gala?" OK, OK, fine: … [Read more...]

This is the second joint blogging exercise with my friend, composer Nico Muhly.   The first Co-Bloganza topic was Programming and can be found here (him) and here (me). This time, in a collaboration we hope will someday turn into a PBS talk show called "Crack Margaritas with the Arts", the topic is The New Music Scene in New York City. We originally discussed our posts over, you guessed it, crack margs, and then over IM, and then exchanged entry drafts, and then revised so we could refer to what the other had actually written. In … [Read more...]

Yikes, this blog sure is going downhill with a quickness. All I did this week was talk about hot girls, Muppets and mice. I meant to write a dignified post about all-day theater and music marathons: how you can possibly convince someone to spend an entire day watching one thing, and how local businesses can profit from knowing that a very specific type of person will be in one physical location at one time. I guess that post will have to preview All Points West rather than The Norman Conquests. Your homework, though -  should you choose to … [Read more...]

I usually don't like it when artists hold their instruments in press photos, but because these are otherwise so spot-on, I'm willing to make exceptions. Here are some new artist publicity shots that I think are just fantastic, courtesy of my gal pal Opera Chic. Note how the photos capture each artist's unique personality and musical aesthetic, and are artistic without being artsy. Béla Fleck:Sarah Palin:Edgar Meyer:The God Pan:John Cage and Merce Cunningham: Jordi Savall:Someone get Jordi Savall some cheese. … [Read more...]

Or, A person can't marry a duck. For two years now, my #1 goal has been to get a client on Sesame Street. Fame is a fluid concept: you may have never heard of the people who are most famous to me, and people who are famous in their own industries may be nobodies to the world outside those niches. And if everything can basically be defined as a niche market if one uses broad enough strokes, then there are, what - 100? - people in history who the entire world has heard of.That said, I think we can all agree that if you're a guest on Sesame Street … [Read more...]

Three marketing items from my client Gabriel's concert at Rockwood Music Hall on Friday night: 1. The place was crawling with hot girls - I do not know why -  so I texted a few of my guy friends and told them to get over there. [Does that make me a good publicist or a bad woman?] This led me to wonder (a) whether or not the classical music audience is attractive, (b) whether or not that matters and (c) if it does matter, if it's a publicist's job to make that happen. The last time I thought about this was when my friend Megan and I were at … [Read more...]

Is the New York Philharmonic threatening me with their ad budget prowess?In an e mail blast from last night:Is it strange to be advertising your advertisements? … [Read more...]

When the working week is done, I like to interview friends and colleagues about specific marketing and publicity topics. This week we have C.J. Camerieri, a frequent collaborator of my client Gabriel Kahane's, discussing how he's navigating the promotion of his new new-music ensemble yMusic. For an interview with yMusic co-founder Rob Moose from - coincidentally enough - exactly one year ago, click here.C.J. Camerieri, a Brooklyn-based trumpet player, enjoys an active and diverse career as a freelance performer.  Since completing his … [Read more...]

I'm sure you'll be shocked to read that I love when marketing matters come up in critical reviews. This is funny stuff, from writer Doyle Armbrust at Time Out Chicago:Head over to the Harris Theater entrance on Randolph. Observe any instrument-lugging musician's reaction to the Lang Lang promo on the Harris's video screens. If it's anything other than eye rolling, chances are that musician is busy texting. Attempting to channel his inner Run-DMC with a pair of glistening black Adidas, the Chinese pianist's head is thrown back in a moment of … [Read more...]

What is even going on here.I was reading my client Michael Gordon's Pitchfork review from 2004 to see if I deemed it worthy to put in a press kit just now, and I clicked on the 5 Gum banner ad in an attempt to send my friend James a link to the new "Zing" gum (he says "zing!" a lot, OK?). Instead of a Zing or a 5 Gum website, I got to this. 5 Gum's marketing campaign is just a super imeem page?? Fair enough: what could they possibly say about gum at this point? Might has well push Katie Perry and Lady Gaga associations and throw people off a … [Read more...]

Let them eat something else! Some sad Bastille Day news. Surely someone could have ponied up a mere 45 mill?From Reuters:The New York Times Co said it will sell its New York City classical music radio station WQXR for $45 million, in a two-part sale that will help the struggling newspaper publisher pay off debt. The station will continue to broadcast classical music, something it has done for 73 years, but at 105.9 on the FM radio dial instead of 96.3 FM, the Times said in a statement on Tuesday. Under the terms of the deal, Spanish-language … [Read more...]