Wouldn't it be lovely?


Wouldn't it be lovely if a classical musician gave a free concert/radio/TV interview when she/he didn't have a new CD/concert tickets to flog?

Also on Facebook and Twitter. Photo taken in the Ait Ourir Souk, Morocco is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2011. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
Free music...

You might like to know that I have put three samples from the last concert onto the Voces website.

Go to www.voceschoral.webs.com and click on 'Listen to us'.

More passion than polish, but none the worse for that, and the audience feedback has been terrific. A pity about the unmuffled coughing...

With best wishes,

Martyn Warren, Director
Voces - Renaissance Choral Music
Newton Abbot
Devon

Voces previousl featured here http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/03/what-price-music-of-unsung-master.html
9:04 am
Pliable said…
Email from Martyn Warren of Voces -

One comment on your 'Wouldn't it be lovely' post this morning: I suspect that most classical musicians love to talk about their music - their passion. The problem is that, unless one is in the superstar category, the general media will only want to talk with a classical musician if he or she has something to 'sell' - either literally, as in concert tickets or CDs, or metaphorically in the shape of radical new ideas, great success, great disaster, or scandal. Admittedly my experience is at a pretty low level, trying to interest local/regional print and broadcast media, but I suspect it is typical.

Things have changed markedly in the last 10 to 15 years. In the past our regional newspaper had an arts editor, who attended events in person and interviewed artists - no more. The BBC local news programme had a 5-minute slot on a Friday evening previewing upcoming arts events - no more. I had no trouble interesting local radio in mini-features based around our music, and more than once have spent a happy hour in a radio studio chatting live about renaissance choral music and my choir - I don't expect that to happen again.

I am generalising from the specific, and I am sure that you will get opposing views.

Best wishes, and keep up the good work,

Martyn
10:25 am
Pliable said…
Martyn Warren makes a very good point in the email above.

Too often we, and I include myself in this, blame the musicians for attention seeking.

But in many cases the musicians are hostages, willing or otherwise, of the commercial/intermediary complex, and of the media and agents in particular.

Which brings us back to the question that my article linked to above asks. Who is benefitting from disintermediation in classical music? Is it the music, or is it the commercial/intermediary complex?
10:30 am
Gavin Plumley said…
If we're talking about Barenboim, then I'm all for it. Yes, the media circus is dull.. but marketing exists in all walks of life and Classical Music needs all the help it can get. To appreciate it in a marketing vacuum may seem like utopia, but such an idea is ultimately a castle in the air.
7:57 am
Pliable said…
Gavin, as ever I am happy that there is more than one point of view on this.

But I am becoming incresingly uncomfortable with the concept that "Classical Music needs all the help it can get."

Just think today's BBC Radio 3, Norman Lebrecht, and the Classical Brit Awards etc etc.

Classical music needs help, but it needs the right kind of help. Many of the problems facing classical music today have been caused by the greed of the middle feeders who have used the mantra that "Classical Music needs all the help it can get" to further their own agendas.

Defining the right kind of help is very difficult, if not impossible. But we can at least try.
9:18 am
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