Interchanging Idioms

My response to the NewMusicBox blogpost: Why Women Aren’t Equals In New Music Leadership and Innovation Women are not treated on equal footing in either the corporate or music world and much of this is outlined in the article above. Social stigmas go a long way to treating women unfavorably for exhibiting the same behavior as men - while men get favorable treatment for the same behavior (see #1 from the Sandberg research). Many of the other elements discussed in the research can be put up to cultural stereo types and environmental learning we foist on our young men and women as they grow up, putting women at a further disadvantage. One key to getting out of this hole we have dug for ourselves, at least in the music industry, is finding a way to give musicians a chance at success without regard to anything but their performance. TwtrSymphony holds auditions for musicians. There is no discussion as to sex, race, religion or other aspects of the musician. All we require are two things: ...

Grammy Award-Winning artist, Miri Ben-Ari, also known as the hip-hop violinist, has been invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to perform at the annual celebration of Women’s History Month on Wednesday, March 30th 2011. Ok, perhaps the title is a bit mis-leading based on the tag line. But I get lots of requests to publicize arts of all types. Without casting any aspersions on the award winning artist or her talents, I find it odd that the picture I received as part of the request for publicity has Ms Ben-Ari in a rather seductive post with her Breast displayed prominently. I'm as much man as the next and I do happen to like breasts, but I am not sure their relevance to the news at hand. Does Michelle Obama prefer women to display their breasts? I suppose hip hop artists need to display a certain amount of sex appeal to attract an audience. But Miri Ben-Ari is an accomplished violinist. She played with the Israeli String Quartet and won numerous awards. Maybe some of the ...

Tom Austin of the Miami Herald wrote about Dmitri Hvorostovsky - "billed as the 'Elvis of opera' by Elle and 'opera's reigning hunk' in W." In the same article Hvorostovsky comments about bearing flesh, "Actually, I'm all for it, since I've posed topless -- took my shirt off anyway -- for the cover of a new pop album of Russian songs we shot in Kiev...The times dictate the fashions, and opera is part of the same media game as pop music." The article continues to speak about the attraction Hvorostovsky has on the audience, with an 80% female audience in Tokyo. The article also mentions Lara St John who did a topless album cover, although the violin was covering her more than most women's appearal does now days. Last May, Sarah Hicks posted on the Inside the Classics a bit about the Lara cover and about Miley Cyrus and the uproar about her photos appearing in Vanity Fair. Of course, much of the anxiety of Miley's photos was ...

Sex sells... it's been a topic of this blog on several occasions and, oddly enough, when ever I write about it the number of hits I get dramatically increases. No, that's not the reason I'm writing about it now. Now it's a topic of both song cycles and opera - although Richard Strauss' opera Salome has the famous dance of the seven veils, so sex has been selling songs in opera for a long time. Here are a couple of events in the news. From the Moscow Times : Michael Nyman is a British composer of some renoun, prehaps best known for his film music, particularly in The Piano (1993). He is traveling to Russia to perform works from his recent CD releases, "Mozart 252" and "8 Lust Songs: I sonetti lussuriosi," this coming Saturday at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. 8 Lust Songs is a song cycle based on "16th-century Italian pornographic texts by a fantastic writer named Pietro Aretino," said Nyman, "These are very sexual, very s...

Humour is good for the soul, and this story left me chuckling this morning. It has to do with Escala, the all girl string quartet I posted about last Saturday. They were suppose to be releasing an album soon, but it's been postponed; they aren't ready yet. What's funny about this are some of the comments in the article. A spokesperson said ""The girls did not want to rush the process and realised that it was going to be impossible to get it out at the standard they wanted in time for Christmas." Well, good for them in wanting the album to be good. However, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the principal of the Royal Academy of Music in London, where two of the band members studied, said: "Often with bands like Escala, the marketing people are very good at creating an image, but then find they haven't got the material to take it further. "You can't hurry the process with classical music. They are clearly well trained and attractive enough not...

Escala is coming... They performed on Britain's Got Talent but didn't quit win. However, Simon Cowell has taken them on board with intentions of making them world famous. According to their old blog , they are currently traveling - around the world arriving in Bali on the 6th of October. Are they new??? Well, yes, they are a new group. But the concept of four leggy women playing string quartet music isn't new. Bond, four girls from Australia (not to be confused with Bond Girls, scantly dress women who appear in James Bond films - although any of these women could step into that role) debuted their first album in 2001. Siren are four women who are graduates of the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music in London, serious musicians with their world tour back in 2006. Eclipse is a group of four men who graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal College of Music in 2005 and have been touring ever since. This isn't to say the women of...

A new opera is coming to LA, "Lovelace: The Rock Opera" detailing the life and times of legendary adult film superstar Linda Lovelace, but the opera is much more about Linda's life and struggles than it is about her role in the iconic film that changed the film industry forever. Linda Boreman was better known by her stage name, Linda Lovelace from the 1972 porn film "Deep Throat." She later denounced the porn industry claiming she was forced by her sadistic husband. The opera was co-written by Anna Waronker (from That Dog) and Charlotte Caffey (from The Go-Go’s), with the originally the concept of Jeffery Leonard Bowman, who also worked on the project for years before it was presented to the Hayworth Theater. Although Caffey tends to focus on writing pop music, having written the hits “We Got The Beat”, “Vacation”, and “Head Over Heels” in her Grammy nominated band The Go-Go’s and co-wrote Keith Urban’s first #1 hit, is classically educated. Together Waronker...

Several Days ago I questioned whether opera was going for gore . Prior to that I'd spoken about the move in opera to show more sexually appealing vocalists. And then way back in August I posted about the use of sex with string players (and other performers). It seems these aren't the only trends, and I'm not the only one noticing. Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times finds singers disrobing more frequently in operas in order for productions to gather new audiences. He does a wonderful job of exploring some of the recent productions which have shown a near to full nudity, and then exploring the reasons behinding these performances, the impact on the audience and the effect to the artform as a whole. Toward the end there is even a cautionary concern for what may be going too far, or nudity foresaking the music (which isn't a crime, but probably ought to be). Mr Tommasini's article is well written. While I've had similar thoughts, I wish I'd put...

" Classical Music Gets Sexy " is the title to an article in The West Australian. It begins by speaking about one of the best selling string quartets on the market, Bond . And a quick look at their site (or their legs, pictured here) shows just how sexy classical music can be (at least how sexy some of the performers are). The article then goes on to talk about Flautist Jane Rutter (with a picture to add emphasis to the sex-appeal). Neither of these artists are new to the scene, and the use of sex in their marketing isn't new either - but it's getting press (rather than their music), which is why I blog about it now. Not everyone agrees with the articles comparison of Jane's sex-appeal with that of Bond. This article not only is evidence of the disagreement, but it also is evidence of the base language used by writers when speaking of these musicians, not in terms of their quality music - but rather using phrases like, "so...

Often I have mentioned ways in which Contemporary Classical Music needs to change in order to gain a larger share of the modern audience. And yet, there are some aspects of the modern marketing approach that I'm not sure are all that beneficial. It's working, but at what cost? Sex - that's right, sex sells. It always has (and always will). For years the pop industry and put scantly clad females on display, regardless of the relevance to the music - because a bit of female flesh gets the attention of the male audience. Attention leads to sales and therefore profits. Now, it seems, classical music is taking a page (or three) from this book. The Electric String Quartet is a group of 4 women, all very shapely, and if not quite size Zero, certainly very slender and easy on the eyes. Their music is classical, with electronics. They are reported to be some of the best string players in London, and certainly they are good; their shows are very entertaining - and they...