Raise your hand, electronically speaking, if you recall this line from Citizen Kane:
"It's no trick to make a lot of money - if all you want, is to make a lot of money."
One case in point of this would seem to be Ronald Perelman, a past chairman of Revlon, where you can read a bit of how he made his money
here. Perelman is the newly named chairman of the distinctly non-corporate organization known as Carnegie Hall, as reported in the
NYT here. However, Perelman has already managed to step on some people's toes after this line got attention from Pogrebin's article:
"Mr. Perelman, 72, said that he was not much of a classical music enthusiast and would push for the hall to stage more of the pop performances it was known for decades ago."
More, such as it is, below the flip.....
Given that classical music is the core lifeblood of Carnegie Hall, that statement is bound to be inflammatory, in so far as classical types would get inflammatory. There's already been a tiny bit of pushback, both in one letter to the NYT and in the blogosphere. One letter to the NYT editor (literally, one) on this article came from Max Raimi, a violist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. After quoting the "not much" line that I mentioned pre-flip and characterizing that quote as "disturbing", Raimi went on to say, in the context of Perelman mentioning The Fab Four and Their Satanic Majesties appearing at Carnegie Hall in 1964:
"In 1964, when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones played at Carnegie, amplification technology was primitive and they struggled to be audible in vast arenas. Today, when football stadiums can provide superb sound, the unsurpassed acoustics of Carnegie are largely wasted on such performers.
Carnegie was built for acoustic instruments, and that is still its ideal use."
This is the passage in Pogrebin's article that Raimi is noting:
'In an interview at his office on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Mr. Perelman said his goals for Carnegie included digital advances like streaming more concerts, an effort that began only last fall; diversifying the audience; and generally making the place more hip.
For much of its history, Carnegie Hall was a major draw for popular music, including landmark rock concerts starting in the 1950s, and Mr. Perelman said it was time to reclaim that legacy.
He noted that the Beatles performed at Carnegie in 1964. "The Rolling Stones were there” the same year, he said. “We need a little more balance in the programming to broaden the audience and particularly the artists.”'
That latter part is is a very disingenuous statement in many ways, because one can argue that in 1964, both groups were just starting to hit it big, and weren't quite the legends that they subsequently, and very deservedly, became. Today, of course, the surviving Beatles and Stones can easily fill sports arenas that are 10-30 times the size and seating capacity of Carnegie. As well, the newest generation of popular music stars like Lady Gaga, Adele, Beyoncé, et al. don't need to play Carnegie to attract a diverse audience to their own concerts. Of course, to be somewhat charitable to Perelman, the issue is broadening the demographic of Carnegie's own audience, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to do that. It is good to attract a wider audience than just primarily the Caucasian/white audience that tends to predominate at classical events. That certainly needs to be done everywhere, not just NYC.
In addition, Carnegie already presents a good share of non-classical artists, such as its Ubuntu! series focused on South Africa this season. Next season, one of Carnegie Hall's Perspectives artists is Rosanne Cash, which gives her a chance to curate a series of concerts throughout the season. But the point is that plenty of venues, and famous venues, as well as commercial sites (clubs, etc.) exist already for non-classical musicians to present their art. Not that many venues, comparatively speaking, exist that showcase classical music. Carnegie Hall is one such showcase, and is arguably the single most prestigious showcase for classical music in America.
Conductor William Eddins, who is music director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (and is Af-Am, BTW, FWTW), made that point in this post on his "Sticks and Drones" blog:
"....I find it profoundly depressing that Carnegie Hall, the one true place in this hemisphere with a history specifically inculcated by the art form that I practice, will now be in the hands of someone who, in their first major interview as Chairman, has just managed to disparage and antagonize every single classical musician on the planet.
You can diversify your audience all you want, but the bottom line is that Carnegie was built for classical music. There is a backstage tradition - before a conductor walks on stage it is mentioned to them that the first person to conduct there was Tchaikovsky. That, Sir, is history. That is a major reason why Carnegie Hall exists today. Isaac Stern and a determined bunch of people saved it from the wrecking ball precisely because they understood the importance of this venue to our art form.
Carnegie’s importance is not only historical. It was designed for what we do, with some of the best acoustics in the world."
Classical music consultant and blogger Drew McManus amplified a bit on Eddins' blog post
here, with a fair bit of snark (and, to be honest, what seems like slight misattribution of Perelman's statements, as I don't think that the article claimed that Perelman himself saw the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at Carnegie in 1964):
"The article projects an image of Perelman as a board leader with a governance style more akin to shooting from the hip rather than firm market research and mission driven planning. In the interview, Perelman delivers a stereotypical hypothesis (young people only go to pop events) followed by a surface level solution (program more pop acts) which is based on 50 year old observational evidence (he once watched the Beatles and the Rolling Stones play there in 1964)....
If nothing else, Perelman’s interview is almost certainly causing its fair share of gastric distress among the ranks of Carnegie’s public relations staff. It’s not as though arts organizations are overstaffed and spending most of each day inventing problems to solve, but now Carnegie’s PR department must deal with this on top of what is likely an already overflowing plate. In an ideal world, Perelman has taken a necessary mea culpa step by purchasing that office lunch every day since the interview was published and pledging to do a better job with internal communication."
I don't know anyone on Carnegie's PR staff, so I can't say what they're thinking, or comment as to whether McManus is accurate in his assessment or indulging in some hyperbole (as often happens on this blog, with respect to rec'd diaries that rip on right-wing ignoramus 'pundits' and politicians who are still active and haven't gone down for their stupidity). Plus, while admittedly relying on little more than a quick Google search, I don't know if there's all that much "backlash" that Perelman's foot--in-mouth-ness has generated. The 3 online links that I've noted here seem to be it.
However, there is a bit of a point to raise about Carnegie's classical programming, which Perelman doesn't discuss, since he doesn't know much about classical music, after all. It's that Carnegie, like most orchestras in individual cities, tends to trot out the same classical "top 100" choices year after year, e.g. Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Mozart. Case in point for next season: the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, quite possibly the greatest orchestra on the planet, has a week-long series of concerts with their chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. SSR has a reputation for championing contemporary music and programming off-the-wall, cutting-edge repertory. So what are he and the Berliners performing in NYC. Yup, the nine Beethoven symphonies. Sorry, but we really don't need Beethoven ad nauseum, wonderful as the symphonies are and always will be. Interestingly, Rattle and the Berlin Phil recently did a cycle of the complete symphonies of Jean Sibelius in London, and from what I understand, those concerts were sold out for over a year. I do wish that Carnegie Hall, and orchestras in general, were more daring and willing to get beyond standard repertoire. A Sibelius cycle at Carnegie with the Berliners would have been a better choice, in this, Sibelius' 150th birthday year.
If one goes to Carnegie Hall's FB page, I couldn't find any discussion of Perelman's statement, even in just the posts section, which is perhaps understandable. So in the long run, this may be just a niche "gastric distress" scenario. McManus notes later on, after letting a bit of snark fly:
".....if Perelman’s initiatives were known and are something Carnegie is firmly behind, then they were likely braced for the impact.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what sort of impact this has on donors and patrons; especially in light of Carnegie’s most recent round of capital improvements."
We shall see, but that will take years. If you care, stay tuned. BTW, I should give the last word to Raimi, the close of his letter:
"The article refers to 'the aging of the classical music audience.' If this canard were actually true over the half-century I've been hearing it, the audience should have died out by now. How is it, then, that a living, vibrant audience packed the Chicago Symphony concerts I played at Carnegie a few weeks back?"
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories of the week, which may or may not involve alienating a bunch of people via the
NYT.....