You're an artist, not an entrepreneur


If you think Elizabeth Schwarzkopf is looking somewhat disapproving in that photo, you are correct. It was taken in 1979 at an exhibition in the Royal Festival Hall that I had created to mark the recent death of her husband, the record producer Walter Legge. That's me just visible to her right, and Mme. Schwarzkopf had taken amicable exception to my describing Legge as an 'entrepreneur' in one of the exhibition captions: "Walter was not an entrepreneur" she told me politely but firmly, "he was an artist". Which segues neatly into an article on NewMusicBox by pianist, new music advocate and teacher R. Andrew Lee titled You're an artist, not an entrepreneur. Self-interest needs to be declared here as the article agrees with the thrust of my recent post on the oversupply of classical music and, in fact, quotes from that post. Mutual admiration society notwithstanding, R. Andrew Lee's thoughts are worth reading, particularly this one:
Don’t get me wrong; an injection of business savvy into the arts is not inherently a bad thing. The problem is that, in pursuit of the empty promises of entrepreneurship, we seem to have forgotten who we are.
Also on Facebook and Twitter. Photo is (c) On An Overgrown Path 2014. Any other copyrighted material is included as "fair use", for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Comments

Mark said…
Last weekend I read through all of the posts over on New Music Box in the artist v. entrepreneur category. I commented there too, and ended up writing a more extended response on my own blog. But I read it here first, on your site, and wanted to say: thank you!
3:15 pm
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