Clippings

Managing to see something funny in the shutdown

"Walt Whitman" managed to find some humor in the shutdown today and reminded me that "God" was putting out some pretty funny stuff when this started. I'm not totally sure that last post I've transcribed is humorous, though.

Old Vs New

Ms. Lisitsa’s eureka moment came when reading a child’s version of “1,001 Nights” to her son, Benjamin, now 8. “There were all those beautiful women, like another blonde Russian pianist,” she said. “They all got killed after the first night. This one did not. Why not? She came with a story. You have to invent your story. You can call it gimmicky, but whatever works. Something that stops making you a commodity.”

From Concerto for Piano and YouTube, in which Valentina Lisitsa tells the remarkable of inventing her own career. The article contains some interesting observations about concert manners (which I've never understood) and some thoughts on reinventing the classical music business.

Classical music needs to evolve more quickly, Ms. Lisitsa said. “There is a long train, and we’re the last car in the train. Pop music is the first car. Now, any new song Lady Gaga does, she puts on YouTube first. And I don’t think she has trouble selling her CDs.”

Far from destroying classical music, Ms. Lisitsa said, YouTube will create a new audience. “We are perpetually complaining about our audiences being old,” she said.

“They are always dying but never quite die, because there will always be more old people,” she added, referring to a letter that Chopin wrote about one concert at which there were no young people in the audience because it was the start of hunting season.

Definitely worth a look.