Friday, April 25, 2014

How TO get coverage...or at least try to...

As I pointed out to the lady who tweeted yesterday asking for a follow-up blogpost on how TO get coverage for your concert, there ain't no guarantee of nothin' in this crazy world. All your valiant efforts may amount to no more than a hill of beans. But you can try. Here are ten ways to increase your chances.


1. Be Jonas Kaufmann.

2. Be 8.

3. Be 90.

4. Be deported.

5. Say something horrid about women conductors.

6. Squeeze into minimal dress. Apply hair peroxide and crimson lipstick. Book expensive photographer with good airbrush. Book very expensive publicist. (NB this is intended as a strategy for women, but may arguably be more effective still if you're a bloke.)

7. Perform with a pop star.

8. Convince everyone you've achieved 300m Youtube hits all by yourself.

9. Lose your £50m Stradivarius. Issue SOS. Give free concert for kind people who rescue it.

10. Die. (Not recommended.)

[Author's note: this post is presented in a different font. This is to indicate IRONY.]

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Ten more ways NOT to get coverage

Every now and then I realise if I had back the hours I've spent answering messages from publicists that should never have been sent to me, I could probably have written a whole new book instead. At this point, I usually produce a blogpost about how NOT to get coverage for your concert. Here is another one.










1. Person Gives Concert! What an exciting topic!

2. You promise a really good story to one newspaper. Then another wants it. You take it away from the first and give it to the second instead. Then they let you down. You try the first one again.

3. You fail to read anything published in your target's newspaper about music, fail to notice that interviews don't happen unless they are with megastars or someone who has one hell of an amazing history, then write in demanding an interview for your lovely unknown artist who lives a peaceful life in a Surrey village.

4. You don't get a response from your first message. You write again. Now you get a terse "no" or an annoyed few sentences, and you're really upset and you write saying you "understand completely". Next time, you do the whole thing all over again.

5. You write to a UK journalist over the age of 22 saying you're "reaching out" to them.

6. You e-greet for the first time a UK journalist over the age of 22 with the word "Hey".

7. You declare that your artist is "one of the xxxxxest of his/her generation". Then you wonder why no one finds this interesting.

8. You write in with a brilliant story. The event in question takes place in two days' time.

9. You write to a professional journalist asking them to do an interview for their blog, which is unsupported by pay or pension: i.e., you ask them to spend their free time giving you free publicity, even when there is already a note in the sidebar of their blog pointing out that this is what you are doing.

10. You send the same message on Twitter to lots of different people, each one beginning with the addressee's tweet name - e.g. "@jessicaduchen cover Person giving Concert in Place" - and expect this somehow to be effective.

To Be Continued.............

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The secret world of Federico Colli

You know exactly why budding great pianists in their early to mid twenties are like London buses, don't you? That's right - you wait for a decade or so and then along comes a whole bunch at the same time. So please welcome yet another: to add to the roster of Trifonov, Grosvenor, Levit and Avdeeva, please welcome, from Brescia...

...Federico Colli, winner of the latest Leeds International Piano Competition, who made his London debut last night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in a stunning recital of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann. Pictured, right, with a very happy Dame Fanny Waterman, founder of the Leeds, who can be rightly proud of her laureate.

Colli - playing a Fazioli, also the choice of Trifonov last week - began his concert with the Mozart Sonata in F major K283: a vivid, spirited account that established several strengths at once, notably the sense of "flow" that characterised the whole programme, an ongoing thread of musical connection that feels as if he is entirely one with the music, creating it from the inside out. He used a light, strong touch with singing tone, beautifully balanced voicing, extremely well-judged pedalling - an ideal blend of colour and clarity. I wondered briefly about a few exaggerated gestures - hand movements for each repeated note of the slow movement's melody, for instance - but by half way through the Beethoven 'Appassionata', any such concerns went out of the window as a tingle of recognition spread that we were listening to a potential true great.

Something magical began to happen with the first variation of the Beethoven's second movement: a pattern of figuration that in other hands can be nothing more than that, but that for Colli became a shifting lattice of subtle voices, light and shade - as if he could hear and imagine things that the rest of us can't. And while everything seemed thought out and judicious, there was no sense of playing it safe: let off the leash in the finale's coda, Colli tackled Beethoven's fall of Lucifer like a lightning bolt.

Schumann's Sonata No.1 is one of the composer's weirdest works, more fantastical than the Fantasy, less "sane" by far than all those supposedly difficult "late"compositions. Pulling it off is a very tall order, yet throughout its magnificent long span Colli made it entirely his own. He gave the fantasy its head, working in the dimension of silence together with that of sound in masterful fashion: the transitions, of which there are a great many, were not only handled with ideal pacing but became virtually the raison d'ĂȘtre of the piece.

By now one could forget technical concerns and take for granted the full yet never heavy-handed sound quality, the singing nature of the phrasing, the richness of colour, and move instead into another world. He made sense of the work by recognising that making sense is not the point; that this is visionary, groundbreaking music far ahead of its time. He had the hall breathing and concentrating as one with him and the piano and the sonata. This was his secret world, unfolding in front of us. He gave us all of Schumann and all of himself.

For an encore he offered the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, in what I think must have been Pletnev's arrangement.

It was a short programme, but one of uncompromising and unforgettable intensity.

Meanwhile, my interview with him is the cover feature for the current issue of Pianist magazine. Enjoy.




Monday, April 21, 2014

Government backs more cuts to music education funding

While we ate chocolate, they were busy with the axe.

It has not been a happy Easter for anyone who cares about music education in the UK. And, you know, many of us do - not that you'd ever guess that from the actions of a government that first commissioned a report broadly welcomed for its positive recommendations on the topic - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-education-in-england-a-review-by-darren-henley-for-the-department-for-education-and-the-department-for-culture-media-and-sport - yet now is apparently telling local authorities that they should have no money to fund music education.

This article from Arts Professional sets out the situation neatly: http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/pressure-mounts-councils-cut-music-education-funding

Deborah Annetts, head of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, has pointed out the chaos instigated by mixed messages from government and lack of joined-up thinking from those wielding the purse-strings. She says:

‘Following the confusion caused by the EBacc and other mixed messages around the value the Government places on music education, we now need an unequivocal commitment from the Department for Education that it supports music education and is fully behind the National Plan for Music Education.

‘Last week we celebrated as music was included in the Government’s GCSE reforms, but this week, we find that the Government is backing additional cuts to the music education budget worth millions.

‘The National Plan for Music Education supported by the Department for Education, was a visionary strategy for music education in England. The demand that local authorities should stop funding music services risks derailing this flagship Government initiative.’

The ISM is stepping up its Protect Music Education campaign. Please sign up to it. 

UPDATE, 22 April: this piece by Jonathan Savage contains more detail - please read.

Meanwhile, this article from the Guardian raises the idea that dismantling our youngsters' creative abilities may be more sinister a move still: "Indeed, it may not be too cynical to suggest that it actually suits some if the creative noise is kept down in poor areas. Talented working-class youngsters who learn how to use the tools of their artistic trade are notoriously prone to asking awkward questions with them." 

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Bechstein bunnies, dressing for Easterjet and a recipe for Scriabanoffiev Pie

In an increasingly off-the-wall Easter, we have here a fantastic greeting from Bechstein Pianos:



Meanwhile stunning soprano Sarah Gabriel - who was our premiere production Vicky in my Wagner play Sins of the Fathers - found her concert dress falling foul of Easyjet's carry-on baggage regulations the other day and in the resulting carry on, worthy of the eponymous films, she came up with a fine sartorial solution, which made it into the national papers.


Don't miss Sarah at the Purcell Room on 29 April, when she will be singing KORNGOLD - a special new arrangement of the Shakespeare Songs, by conductor Ben Palmer, who wields the baton of the Orchestra of St Paul's for the occasion. Booking here.

And finally, here is a recipe for something very Easteryjet dreamed up for our piano soloist the other night, who as his recording approaches says he is going a bit Scriabinanas: 

SCRIABANOFFIEV PIE:

Biscuit base: 
100g butter (unsalted)
300g digestive biscuits (gluten-free if necessary)

Caramel:
175g butter
85g white sugar and 85g brown sugar (but if you really love Scriabin, use only darkest brown sugar for a truly demonic twist) 
A tin of condensed milk

4 bananas
Carton of double cream, whipped
High cocoa-solids plain chocolate to shave over the top (pref 80+%)
A shot of plain Russian vodka

Mix together melted 100g butter and the crushed biscuits in a saucepan and press into 19cm loose-bottomed cake base. Chill in the fridge. Make caramel by stirring butter & sugar together in saucepan over low heat until dissolved, then add the condensed milk and mix until boiling and golden (or very dark golden if using the all-brown sugar version). Pour over the biscuit base, spread evenly & chill. When set, chop the bananas and arrange on the top. Mix the vodka into the whipped cream and spread across the bananas. Sprinkle liberally with shavings of black chocolate. Serve with a show of coloured light and prepare for either a poem of ecstasy or a vision fugitive from your guests. 

Disclaimer: JDCMB cannot be held responsible if this pie turns out to be a complete disaster. Just make sure you don't burn the sugar and keep your paws well clear of the mixture while it's hot.