Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors interview Daniel Bernard Roumain.
Haitian-American artist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a classically trained composer, performer, violinist, and band-leader celebrated for creating innovative multi-genre works. He collaborates with artists like Philip Glass, Cassandra Wilson, Bill T. Jones, Savion Glover, and Lady Gaga, and as Crain’s NY Business put it—“most classical musicians don’t run a business the way he does.”
By James Conlon
The following is adapted from James Conlon’s Keynote Address at the symposium “Music, Censorship and Meaning in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: Echoes and Consequences” on August 9, 2014, presented by the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School in Los Angeles with the cooperation of the Orel Foundation.
The history of Classical Music has been interwoven with various forms of censorship, however benign some may have been. There is a continuum from complete freedom to write and present music to a public, through a large gray area of constraints designed to please an exacting patron or appeal to the tastes of a specific audience, all the way to the point of the suppression to a totalitarian force that literally dictates what may or may not be presented in public.
This address will posit that although censorship in the strict sense is virtually absent in our country (though not entirely), box office demand has replaced it as a potent force in selecting out what music will or will not be performed for a large segment of our concert-going public. As it is not adjudicated by any established ruling body, driven by any political or religious viewpoint nor presided over by any individual, its source is intangible and invisible. Its effect nonetheless, is real. However oblique its trajectory, its effect is widespread.
The long history of censorship implies a tacit recognition that music has the power to move us, affect our emotions, our hearts and our brains, alter our perceptions, and influence our religious and political views. Or at least it appears capable of doing so, or is feared by persons in authority who feel musical expression can upset the status quo.
Plato thought so, too. Chapter 36 of the Book of Jeremiah tells the story of the burning of Jeremiah’s writings, said to be too dark and pessimistic. Similarly Confucius’ works were destroyed in 250 B.C.E. by an unsympathetic subsequent dynasty. The arm of Michelangelo’s David dropped off when irate Florentines threw rocks at it; Venus de Milo was censored; The Bowdler Family gave rise to the eponymous practice of cleansing great but “impure” works and was responsible for ‘The Family Shakespeare” and “The Family Gibbon.”
Lily Hirsch, in her book Music in American Crime Prevention and Punishment, also reminds us:
One of the earliest philosophers of music, Plato, recognized music’s potential use toward good and bad: “Music, the most celebrated of all forms of imitation . . . is the most dangerous as well. A mistake in handling it may cause untold harm, for one may become receptive to evil habits.” To avoid music’s potential danger to society, recognized in ancient Greece and thereafter, Plato thus had advocated the censorship of musical activity and the punishment of transgressors by force if necessary. During the Roman Empire, this recommendation was implemented in the position of the censor, who, among other duties, monitored singing. If singing was found insulting or “evil,” the singer, according to the legal code of the Twelve Tables, 450 B.C.E, could be punished with death by clubbing. But Plato extolled music’s ethical effects when handled “correctly”— for example, in his discussion of music education in the third book of the Republic, which maintains that music education helps man become “noble and good.”
She continues:
…During the nineteenth century, within Romantic aesthetics as conceived by Hegel, music was more consistently assigned an unrivaled, though vague, power over the soul. At this time, Plato’s conception of music— as moral and immoral— was cut in half, and philosophers celebrated music’s redemptive powers. This thinking was not lost on Romantic composers such as Felix Mendelssohn. He wanted more than success: He wanted to further humanity, communicating ethical meaning through music. This goal, a part of what the music scholar and conductor Leon Botstein terms the “Mendelssohnian Project,” resulted in several compositions, including the Lobgesang Symphony and the oratorios Paulus and Elijah. In these works, Mendelssohn sought to promote a sense of community, foster ethical sensibilities and faith in God, and educate society about tradition. In his use of music to promote morality, Mendelssohn may have also been influenced by his grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, and the aesthetics and theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who believed music should heighten emotion in the service of religious faith.
…As the author of Poetry and the Romantic Musical Aesthetic, James H. Donelan, argues, “Before Mozart, Western art music had two fundamental purposes: to proclaim the glory of God in his churches and to provide musical decoration for the powerful in their courts and homes.” In this way, before the Romantic era, music was valued based on use. Moreover, the value of music in use was generally not high. The arts associated with contemplation and theory were privileged above music making, which, connected to the use of the hands, was related to manual activity rather than mental pursuits. In the wake of the Romantic era, however, music was theorized as the ideal art. Part of music’s changing valuation had to do with the sudden end of the patronage system toward the close of the Classical era. For survival as an independent artist, composers had to justify and promote themselves and the worth of their art form. This promotion gave way to ideas that music both performs good and is good. With this change in status, Romantic writers also established the concept of classical music— a term introduced in the nineteenth century to classify preceding works by Bach and Beethoven, among others, as great. The initial idea of classical music therefore corresponded to other attempts to valorize music in keeping with the general repositioning of music as high art.
In America we pride ourselves on being an open-minded society (whether or not we are as much as we imagine is another subject), and on our constitution and laws that largely uphold freedom of speech (and expression). But our history provides many examples of the opposite: Anthony Comstock’s 1868 raid on an “offensive” bookstore, and the 1873 Anti Obscenity Act which he inspired, are 19th Century examples. With the support of police, Comstock swooped down on the Arts Student League in 1906 objecting to nude models and “obscene, lewd and indecent” photos that are “commonly but mistakenly called art.” A year earlier he had condemned George Bernard Shaw as an “Irish smut dealer.” Shaw rewarded him by creating the term “Comstockery,” which he defined as “the world’s standing joke at the expense of the U.S. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate, country-town civilization after all.” H.L. Mencken was even more succinct on Comstock and his zealotry: “More than any other man, he liberated American letters from the blight of Puritanism.”
Books are no longer banned, though sometimes burnt in postwar rural America–a type of vigilante substitute motivated by the same censorious impulse. Robert Atkins, in his 1994 essay “A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Censorship” chronicles some of those book burnings in recent decades in rural America. A compilation of six surveys by librarians and libertarian organizations identified the ten most attacked books in the U.S. between 1965 and 1994; they were The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank), Black Like Me, Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye, The Good Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Go Ask Alice, and A Farewell to Arms.
The McCarthy era spared neither composers nor performers if they appeared on its zealous radar: Eisler, Copland, Bernstein and a long list of Hollywood producers and actors exemplify the use of blacklisting as an effective form of censorship.
Despite these and other similarly negative examples, American composers and performing arts institutions have never been subject to the powerful censorship historically exercised by, for instance, the Roman Catholic Church (especially in Italy). As early as 1703 Pope Clement XI banned opera as immoral. The oratorio developed partially out of the prohibition against setting biblical and religious subjects in theaters. Nor have our composers been subject to the type of years of unrelenting interference that Giuseppe Verdi continually faced with the censors on the not-yet-unified Italian peninsula. None faced a Stalinist regime as Shostakovich did, nor, as we are discussing at length this weekend, the cataclysmic suppression of the Nazi Regime.
Is it justified to speak of censorship in our country, which was founded on the principle of freedom of speech and whose history, with occasional deviations, has upheld the values flowing from it?
By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
Dear Law and Disorder:
Loved your recent Musical American newsletter article on ethics. As a manager, I was very interested when you wrote: “Indeed, the time is long overdue to start considering changes to the long standing paradigms and business models between managers and artists that, for many reasons and for all parties, are no longer viable.” Any chance I could get you to expand on that comment a bit?
Must I? It’s only going to get me in trouble! Oh, well, here goes….
It’s hardly a secret that everyone throughout the arts industry is working harder and harder and earning less and less—and searching for both solutions and as well as excuses. Managers and agents are increasingly becoming frustrated with artists who they perceive as making unreasonable expectations and demands in exchange for paltry commissions. Artists are increasingly becoming frustrated with managers and agents who they perceive as earning large commissions but are unable or unwilling to provide the additional skills and services that they feel are necessary in today’s arts and entertainment marketplace.
While some managers are exploring different options (ie: fixed retainers, hourly rates, reduced commissions for more successful artists, etc.) others are wedded to the strict commission model. As I sit here typing this on my computer keyboard surrounded by my collection of quills and antique ink wells, I am the first to admit that I am a staunch traditionalist, resistant to change, and have even been described as “a walking ritual.” However, change is inevitable and merely continuing to claim that what worked in the past will work in the future, ignores the present realities. Assuming that there is some sort of “industry standard” that has and will survive the test of time is both unrealistic and short sighted.
Under the traditional agent or management relationship, managers and agents literally advance their services on the expectation that they will be compensated with an engagement commission at some point in the future and that, if the artist sticks around long enough and is successful, the agent or manager will recoup the initial investment of their time and efforts. While it’s intended to be a mutually beneficial partnership, is this still the case? Are the risks still equitable? While most certainly there are issues to consider far beyond mere economic and business challenges, being an impresario doesn’t always pay the bills. Part of what makes the performing arts industry so unique is the personal passion most agents and managers share for the work of the artists they represent. Nonetheless, even where the goal is to introduce an artistically important artist to new audiences and perpetuate critical art forms, selling tickets, booking engagements, and discovering new programming opportunities are all commercial enterprises. If the end result is that managers and agents simply cannot afford to stay in business, then everyone loses.
One often overlooked factor is that agents and managers are not used to thinking of their time as a valuable commodity. However, like attorneys, doctors, and others who provide personal services, managers and agents are primarily “selling” their time, expertise, and experience and the traditional commission model doesn’t often adequately compensate for the value of the time actually spent. Similarly, because artists think in terms of results, they often don’t have a realistic understanding of how much time and effort it takes to provide them with the services and results they require and often conclude they can find better deals elsewhere or on their own. In other words, a manager’s own success can often undermine the perception of how hard they are actually working.
It’s one thing for an agent or manager to advance their time, but I’m also increasingly seeing agents and managers advancing their own money to cover artist expenses with the expectation of being reimbursed by the engagement or tour fees. When did an agent or manager’s business plan including being a bank? I’ve even seen many managers and agents advance costs for airline tickets or tour expenses, including visas and taxes, out of their own pockets only to have the tour cancelled or an artist leave the roster. At what point is a tour or artist not worth saving?
All of this leads to some important questions: is a demanding artist actually “worth” the time and effort that they require? How do you deal with a demanding client base without killing yourself? Is the commission model still viable? What services do artists really want, need, or expect? (Remember, at least from a legal perspective, the “client” of an agent or manager is always the artist, never the venue.) Is there a more efficient or cost effective way of providing those services? Are managers and agents spending too much time learning new skills at the expense of focusing their time on those areas where they already have expertise? While in many instances, the traditional an arrangement is the only way a new or young artist can afford management or an agent, does this arrangement continue to make sense with more established and successful artists? Does it ever make sense for an agency or management company to become overely dependent upon commissions from top artists to underwrite the less successful artists on the roster? Are there other viable options to earning revenue than simply charging higher commissions? Hourly rates? Retainers? Fixed fees? Merging smaller agencies and companies into larger and larger behemoths? Are there different arrangements that might better serve artists as well as agents and managers?
While I obviously have my own thoughts and opinions on these topics, they would hardly be dispositive or universally applicable. There is never going to be a single solution that works for everyone and, ultimately, each agency or management is going to need to develop different solutions that work for them, their business plans and goals, and their artists. Still, I’d love to see more serious consideration and exploration of these topics on multiple levels. Frustratingly, whenever I am a party to workshops and discussions about “new business models”, it almost inevitably winds up being a discussion of how to “sell” artists to presenters and, rarely, if ever, an honest assessment of the field of management and artist representation itself. In other words, the focus of exploration tends to be outwards—how to sell better, package better, market better, and, in short, reach venues and presenters in different ways. While those issues are unquestionable important, there remains a perception that it’s the marketplace that needs to fixed. If you really want to examine new paradigms in a changing environment, agents and managers, as well as artists and presenters, will also need to look inwards and examine themselves as well.
Have a great season everyone!
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For additional information and resources on this and other
legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.
All questions on any topic related to legal and business issues will be welcome. However, please post only general questions or hypotheticals. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously and/or posthumously.
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THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!
The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!
Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors interview Ran Dank and Soyeon Lee.
International prize-winning pianists, Soyeon Kate Lee and Ran Dank started Music by the Glass in 2013 to create “an intimate, exhilarating and stimulating musical experience.” Taking place in art galleries in New York City, Music By The Glass is the first classical concert series in the US with a goal of having the majority of its funding and support from the younger generation. With a board of young professionals, MBTG is about great music, fine wine and good company.
We interviewed Soyeon and Ran just a few weeks before their first baby arrived on July 22, 2014. Welcome to the planet Noah Lee-Dank!
Read more about MUSIC BY THE GLASS