Entrepreneurship is the newest, buzziest thing at music schools. I've been involved with it quite a bit, and I'm all for it. But there's one misconception I quickly want to clear up — that these programs are all about business, and have no relation to art. Not so! They're a shot in the arm for musical creativity, because if they give students the skills to build whatever career they want, why can't the students, building their careers, make music in ways all their own? Though I do think the business skills taught might be too limited. Of … [Read more...]

In my last post — the first in this series — I said that music schools aren't creative enough. Now I want to talk about how we can fix that. I should say here that I'd love to run a music school, or otherwise be in a position to put my ideas into practice. The first principle is simple enough, but very important. We can't turn the school upside down. There's an established structure, inhabited by people with a stake in how the school operates: students, their parents, faculty, alumni, donors. We can't tell everyone to start thinking … [Read more...]

Not long ago, I was talking to students at a major music school about performances from the past, like the ones from the 1920s through the 1950s that I assign in my Juilliard course on the future of classical music. (If you'd like to see them, follow the link, and scroll to the assignment for February 27.) The students loved these recordings, and some had heard one of them before. They kept saying how much personality those old musicians had, and how they all just seemed to "go for it" (as the students expressed it) — to put all of … [Read more...]

Time to go on with our mavericks posts, in which I and many readers listed people and groups doing new things in classical music. And on that tip, I've started to create a mavericks document in our Resource sidebar, which you'll find if you look on the right of the blog site, and scroll down. You'll see that we now have various things there — Nathan Shirley's guest post about good classical music videos, for instance, and a summary of my research about how young the classical music audience was in the past. I want to turn Resources into an … [Read more...]

This is my course on the future of classical music, called "Classical Music in an Age of Pop." You can see the week by week schedule — and all the assignments — here. And I'm ready to teach a version of the course online. Three 90-minute sessions, with group discussion, for $250. I have people interested already, and if I get one or two more, I'm ready to go! Please contact me if you'd like to join us. So what happens in this course? Which, I'm amazed to remember, I've been teaching now for 17 years. Well, right now we're looking at what … [Read more...]

When I saw I had 16 comments on my latest post about CD covers (and more have come in since), I knew I'd provoked a storm. And I had. Many of the commenters objected to the Lara Downes CD cover — for her album Exiles' Café — I offered as an example of something good. (Shown here.) Which is perfectly fair. Nobody's required to have my taste. But the reasons for not liking it! You can't see her whole face. She's not in focus. She's on a slant. "It looks like when my five-year old goes on a shooting spree with my phone camera." It's soft … [Read more...]

First, here's a success — a good CD cover, sent to me by Lara Downes, a pianist whose new album it is:   Strong, evocative. And the image resonates with the album's name. Thanks, Lara, for sending this to me! Your website is terrific, too. Now for some bad ones. I doubt they need any comment, but I've added few words anyway. From Sony Classical:   Who, looking at this  — and not knowing Manny Ax — would want to hear it, let alone buy it? Does the person shown here look like an artist, someone with taste and … [Read more...]

Fascinating pushback that I've gotten to my "Fail" post, about how bad classical CD covers are. To me, their prevailing hopelessness suggests that classical record companies  — even the biggest — don't really believe they have a market. Any healthy company engaged with a market wouldn't put up with these covers for five minutes. But one commenter, who's often angry with me, rose up to defend the record labels, saying I had no idea how many hours they spent in meetings, trying to decide what the covers should be. This was appalling news. So … [Read more...]

But first, the flu. That's what floored me for the past week, explaining my silence here. I did make my Boulder trip, and had a fabulous time, seeing friends, family, and engaging with the Entrepreneurial Center for Music at the College of Music at the University of Colorado. While barely fighting off the flu at night. When I got home, I thought I'd better rest. Now I'm back. Mainlining cough drops on Amtrak, but I'm back. And my first priority here is expanding the blog. In a post all too long ago, I asked for people who might want to … [Read more...]

In posts a couple of weeks ago, I talked about the community around this blog, and about new directions I wanted to move in, and wanted the blog to go in. Here are some ideas, some things I'd love to see. First, I'd like other voices on the blog — guest bloggers, including a few who'd be regular guests. I've got one guest gearing up for his first post, a young composer in Britain. Anyone else? I'm open to all kinds of people, all kinds of ideas, as diverse (geographically, musically, and otherwise) a group as possible. Contact … [Read more...]

That's what I'm billed as giving next Wednesday, at the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I'll be the guest of their Entrepreneurship Center for Music, and my talk -- called "The Classical Music Crisis: How You Can Help" — is billed as their Spring Keynote. And it's open to the public: (free) 5 PM, January 30, in room C-199 in the Imig Music Building (the main music building) on the CU campus. All my readers are welcome, along with anyone else. Come up and say hello afterward! Below you'l find a campus map, showing … [Read more...]

Continuing the growing list of mavericks, people in classical music who do things in new ways. Go here for the first post in December's mavericks series, scroll to the end for the complete list.  Readers named more than 50 maverick people or groups. And here come some more. Start with Etienne Albin Abelin, a Swiss violinist, composer, and conductor with an active career both in the classical mainstream, and in indie classical work. Here he is as a member of Orchestra Mozart Bologna, a group Claudio Abbado conducts. And here's a MySpace page … [Read more...]