Classical music has never really found a home in the world of home video. Aside from a brief flirtation with the laser disc (the bulky, expensive, LP-sized predecessor to the DVD), there has been almost no way to enjoy both the sights and sounds of a classical performance other than to actually attend one. But with the advent of the DVD, and advances in video transfer technology, the classical market is rapidly growing. “Sales [of classical DVDs] regularly hit 5,000 units, the standard break-even figure for classical CDs, and go as high as 40,000 worldwide.” What’s the attraction? Here’s a hint: “Even the most expensive DVD operas cost less than sound-only, full-price CD sets.”
Tag: 09.26.04
The Writers Who Never Seem To Finish
“Like general contractors, writers are famously optimistic when it comes to estimating how long a project will take. Fortunately, publishers are more forgiving than homeowners; deadlines are routinely extended one, two, even three years. But there is another category of writer, one for whom the laws of space and time seem to disappear altogether. Years bleed into one another as file cabinets bulge with extraneous information… Only by scratching away the layers of Liquid Paper on the line of the contract reading ‘delivery date,’ as if it were an instant lottery ticket, is it possible to ascertain when exactly the manuscript was first due.”
The Filmmaker’s Filmmaker
Filmmaker John Cassavetes never really won over the public during his lifetime, and even some prominent critics gave him a continuous cold shoulder. “Like Orson Welles, he didn’t always play well with others and he didn’t make all that much money for the movie industry. The other reason for the discomfort, I think, is that he called himself an artist. Many critics prefer their art with subtitles or not at all.” But a new box set of his work provides a window into the mind of a man who inspired a generation of better-loved filmmakers, even if his own work often went unappreciated by the powers that be.
Pop Art’s Sticky New Medium
“Inspired by graffiti, posters and the communal culture of the Web, stickers are gaining wide attention as an artistic phenomenon, academics and practitioners say. Hand-drawn, stenciled or screen-printed, the images float on the Internet, available for downloading, printing and pasting in ways that the creators could only have imagined. And as they make their way around the globe, from one e-mail in-box to the next, one cultural context to another, their meaning tends to morph.”
Tortured Artists Of A Different Kind
Three Canadian artists will have their first UK exhibition this fall, and if they achieve anything like the success they are enjoying in their home country, it will be a truly groundbreaking moment in the annals of art history. All three come from troubled backgrounds, and were educated in a program designed to combat a lifetime of depression and to build their self-esteem through art. Oh, and all three are chimpanzees. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Tracking The Audience
Nearly every American orchestra is in search of a larger core audience, and the question of where the classical music audience has gone is a subject that has filled books, magazines, and countless seminars within the industry. “No one-size-fits-all answer to the dilemma exists, but orchestras around the nation are trying different approaches – and some of them seem to be working.” The American Symphony Orchestra League has been studying the marketing techniques that work, and the ones that don’t, in an effort to provide its members with a concise and (dare we say?) simple strategy for getting butts in the seats.
Three’s Company
An American music director is increasingly expected to be all things to all people, and when a major orchestra loses one of the good ones, as the Pittsburgh Symphony unquestionably has with the departure of Mariss Jansons, it can be difficult to know what course to follow next. That’s why the PSO’s decision to hire three well-regarded conductors to handle the various duties with which a music director would ordinarily be saddled is “a refreshingly honest response to difficult and conflicting realities,” says Mark Kanny. “Here is a trio that has the potential to excel in a broad range of repertoire few other orchestras will be able to match.”