On An Overgrown Path

Classical twitterati have been busy retweeting Andrew Neil's tweet comparing Gary Lineker's £1.3 million salary with the £1.5 million needed to save the BBC Singers. But no-one has tweeted  the most recent figures  showing that the ten highest paid classical conductors earnt in one year a total of £13.8 million. This means that the average salary (before guest conducting, recording and other fees) of the top ten conductors is slightly higher than Gary Lineker's. Moreover a 10% top slice off those conductors' salaries would be almost enough to save the BBC Singers. Over to you twitterati. 

My post about Norman Lebrecht's 'dumb and dumber' attack on a non-classical genre and artist prompted several thoughtful comments from readers. Joe Shelby's response demands a post to itself, and the last two paragraphs should be studied carefully by everyone in the classical music industry. Here is his comment in full.  Though I loved some of the 'standard' classical in the common realm works (the works on Fantasia, Beethoven's 5th, common elements from the Bugs Bunny cartoons like Pier Gynt's music that is almost every cartoon sunrise theme), my doorway to classical (and especially modern classical) wasn't any connection to Rock music, much as I was a fan of progressive rock like Yes and King Crimson.  Rather, it was film music, particularly sci-fantasy (Star Wars, the Star Trek films, Rosenman's score for the Bakshi Lord of the Rings ) that became my doorway. I wanted more like that. I wanted to know where it came from. And it is from there

In previous posts I have explained how a rock band provided a link from the non-classical to classical worlds, a link which led me not only to a deep appreciation of great music, but also to a career working in the classical industry and BBC . But does the link to a rock band make me "dumb and dumber"? Let me explain why I ask that question. In a recent post I described the 1986 meeting between the great mythologist Joseph Campbell and Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead, and there is another link between Joseph Campbell and rock music. Founder member of the prog rock band The Moody Blues and Mellotron specialist Mike Pinder has explained that Campbell's work persuaded him to devote his time post-Moody Blues to bringing myths and music to young people . Mike Pinder is a Fellow of the Joseph Campbell Foundation , and his 1995 spoken word album A Planet with One Mind , a mythological tales for children from cultures countries including Native American, Aztec, Chine

Puzzling to see the great and good classical activists flocking on to Twitter to celebrate International Women's Day this week. I quote from the Amnesty International report seen above:  "... for many women Twitter is a platform where violence and abuse against them flourishes, often with little accountability. As a company, Twitter is failing in its responsibility to respect women’s rights online by inadequately investigating and responding to reports of violence and abuse in a transparent manner. The violence and abuse many women experience on Twitter has a detrimental effect on their right to express themselves equally, freely and without fear. Instead of strengthening women’s voices, the violence and abuse many women experience on the platform leads women to self-censor what they post, limit their interactions, and even drives women off Twitter completely." And if that is not bad enough, the report was written before Elon Musk relaxed controls on Twitter cont

Several articles have appeared here over the years about the 1980 Musicians' Union strike which forced the cancellation of part of that year's Proms season. This successful strike action reversed the BBC's proposed disbandment of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Comparisons have been made elsewhere between the present cuts and the 1980 strike.  But this comparison is misleading. The proposed 1980 cuts were purely driven by cost saving. The current cuts are driven by the need for cost savings coupled with falling demand for classical music caused by cultural changes .   Unfortunately that falling demand is all too evident. 30 years ago in London the main classical venues would have performances from a range of ensembles on practically every night of the week. Even before the pandemic those venues were dark for many nights, or were presenting non-classical music. The header photo comes from my 2013 article titled 'Why was Marin Alsop's London concert half empty

It has been my privilege to work in the classical music industry and for the BBC , and, as this blog testifies, my life in retirement continues to be enhanced by classical and art music. So the recently announced cuts to the BBC's performing ensembles cause me grief, and I sympathise with those fine musicians whose lives will be directly affected. As was the case with the recent Arts Council England cuts , the planning and implementation of the savings has been badly handled.  But the strategies of the classical industry that have led to these cuts also disturb me, and I find the widespread knee jerk reaction  such as  '“New Strategy for Classical Music” from the @BBC... sounds like more of the same old levelling down of culture by those already busy wrecking this country"' unhelpful and troubling. I find this reaction unhelpful because it totally ignores two crucial factors that have triggered the BBC's dubious new classical strategy. The first c