Posts Tagged ‘performer’

Newer Entries »

Is A Choral Group Required To Have Workman’s Compensation?

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

By Brian Taylor Goldstein

Dear Law & Disorder:

We have a non-profit choral group. Our of local public television stations has sent us a contract to record and broadcast one of our concerts this December and they have an item that requires us to have workman’s comp on our entire group. We currently only have 3 staff employees (all part-time) and the performers themselves are not employees. As a non-profit, are we required by law to carry workman’s comp on members of our group?  We are wondering if we can sign this agreement if we don’t carry workman’s comp insurance.

First, and foremost, your non-profit status is unrelated to the issue of workers compensation. Non-profits are subject to the all the same laws, statutes, and regulations as all other businesses. Whether or not you are required to carry workers compensation depends on whether your staff and chorus members are considered independent contractors or employees. This requires an analysis of both federal law as well as the laws of your state. However, in this particular case, such an analysis may be irrelevant.

If you were to enter into a contract with the television station in which you are required to have workers compensation, then you would be agreeing to provide workers compensation whether you are legally required to do so or not. That’s really the whole point of a contract: two parties are agreeing to do things for each other they would not normally be required to do. So, regardless of what the law does or does not require, you cannot just sign the television agreement unless you plan to comply with their requirement. Otherwise, if you signed such a contract and then failed to obtain the workers compensation insurance, you would be in breach.

I suspect that, like many institutions, the television station is using form contracts and boilerplate terms that they themselves probably do not understand. Do not always assume that the other party knows more than you do! Before you do anything, I’d call the station and discuss your situation/concerns with them. Perhaps they will waive the requirement. Perhaps they can agree to allow you to purchase a general liability policy to cover your group in lieu of a workers compensation policy.

However, regardless of whether or not you are “required” to have workers compensation either as a matter of law or by a contract, consider the possibility that if a staff member, a chorus member, or a volunteer were to be injured during a performance or in providing some other service for your organization, your organization could be liable. So, I’d strongly recommend that you obtain a general liability policy to cover injuries to any of your performers, staff, or volunteers who provide services to your organization.

_________________________________________________________________

For additional information and resources on this and other legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ftmartslaw-pc.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. FTM 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.

__________________________________________________________________

THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:

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!

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Arts Management, Contracts, Employees, Independent Contractors, Law and Disorder: Performing Arts Division, Liability, Non-Profits | Comments Closed

Generic Forms: A Prescription For Trouble

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

By Brian Taylor Goldstein

HELLO –

How can an organization that presents music programs, and puts some of them on the Internet, find a good general release form for artists/speakers to sign?

The tricky part about forms is not finding them, but choosing which one is right. There are lots of sources for good general release forms—the Internet, formbooks, colleagues, etc. We provide a list of formbooks that we recommend on our website www.ftmartslaw-pc.com. However, to select the right form, you need to know what you need.

A “release” is just another word for “permission”, and, like all other contracts, it memorializes an agreement between two parties. So, in order to know what form you need, you need to know what permissions you need and what permission the other party is willing to grant. For example, if you are presenting a music program and you want a form through which a musician will give you the right to record their performance and place it on the internet, you will want a form that addresses the following issues: (1) Is the musician expecting to get an extra fee in exchange for granting permission?(2) Do you want to place the entire performance on the Internet, or just excerpts?(3) Will you be posting the performing on your own website or on other websites such as YouTube?(4) Can you leave the recording up indefinitely, or will the musician be able to tell you to take it down? (5) If there is more than one musician performing, such as a band or ensemble, will you require a release from each performer or does one person have the right to grant permission on behalf of everyone else? and, perhaps most importantly, (6) Is the musician performing his or her own music? Remember: unless the musician is also performing music he or she wrote themselves, they cannot give you permission to record it. You will need to get that permission from the composer as well as from the musicians.

There is no “generic” permission form or release that will apply to everyone in every situation. Any form or any contract is only “good” if it addresses all of the elements of your specific circumstances and successfully communicates the understanding between the parties and covers all of the necessary. It may not surprise you to learn how often I have been contacted by someone who found what they believed was a “generic” form, filled in the blanks, and found out too late that it didn’t give them the rights or permissions they needed for their specific circumstances. So, when it comes to forms, don’t go for the generic…go for the prescription you need. Before you go hunting around for the right form, first figure out what you need, then start reading and editing forms and until you get the one that fits just right.

________________________________________________________________

For additional information and resources on this and other legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ftmartslaw-pc.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. FTM 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.

__________________________________________________________________

THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:

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!

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Arts Management, Contracts, Copyrights, Law and Disorder: Performing Arts Division, Licensing, Music Rights, Recordings, Venues | Comments Closed

Getting a Feel for Fees

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

By: Edna Landau

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

Dear Edna:

I am a pianist, seeking to obtain performance opportunities without a manager. Can you please give me some guidance with regard to negotiating a fee? How can I tell what is reasonable and within the budget of the organization in question? How much of a range should there be, depending on venue? I want to find the right balance between coming across as expensive and underselling myself. Is there a way to do any research on this? —K.G.

Dear K. G.,

Addressing your last question first, I know of no way to research fees paid by a majority of presenters. The easiest situations to research are the more informal venues, such as libraries and clubs. In the case of clubs, the artist will often receive a percentage of the amount taken in at the door. Further details can be obtained by simply calling the venue and asking for their standard arrangement. In the case of more formal concert series, you might want to see if the presenter has engaged anyone you know in recent years and, if so, you might contact that person to see if they will reveal what they were paid and what they know about the range of fees in general. Even if you succeed in getting this information, the fee that a presenter will pay an artist may vary from performer to performer, depending on the level of their career, how much exposure they have had, and how confident the presenter feels about selling tickets to their concert. If you find yourself talking to a presenter without the benefit of any advance information, here are some tips to keep in mind:

  1. Before you enter into a conversation about fees, figure out what your expenses relating to the performance will be and  how much you would ideally like to make on top of that. It is also good to check the capacity of the theatre they use and their typical ticket price for a concert such as yours. This information should be accessible on the internet. Keep in mind that in addition to your fee, the presenter will have a range of costs, including the hall and expenses related to advertising and marketing the event. During the negotiation, you might have occasion to refer to this information, if you consent to a lower fee and want to give a reason, such as sensitivity to the size of their venue.
  2. If at all possible, ask the presenter to tell you how much they have in mind, based on their budget. There is always the possibility that they will offer an amount higher than what you would have suggested.
  3. Most presenters know that any number you quote them can potentially be negotiated downward.  (They learned that from managers who always try to get the best fee for their artists!) Therefore, leave “wiggle room” in your negotiation by starting a little higher than the amount  that would have satisfied you. You can say: “Typically, my fee has been x, and I hope that will be possible for you.”
  4. If you end up with a fee that is quite a bit lower than what you had hoped for but you feel you have to accept it to save the date, you might want to ask if the presenter is in a position to provide housing or ground transportation (including  travel from and to the airport). Many organizations have volunteers who are happy to help with this. You might also ask if they have any suggestions of other presenters in the area (far enough away not to compete with them for ticket sales) who might potentially be interested in having you as well. If the conversation has gone really well and you feel that the presenter finds you very accommodating and reasonable, you might want to say that if they are happy with your performance and intend to engage you again in the future, you hope that the fee you have accepted will not set a precedent for the next negotiation.

Typically, community venues such as libraries and churches, will have a much smaller budget than established recital series. It might be somewhere between $300 and $1000. Established series might offer a young artist somewhere between $1000 and $3000. If you have little performing experience to point to, be prepared for the fee to be at the low end of that range. Orchestras might offer slightly higher fees and may present you in multiple concerts (typically two or three). Some orchestras will offer a per performance fee and others will offer a discounted fee for the repeat concerts. So if your single concert fee is $3000, they might offer $4500 for two and $5500 for three. The latter arrangement is most usual.

It is not easy for individuals to negotiate on their own behalf but if you bear in mind that you are delivering value to the presenter and their audience, and you feel confident in what you have to offer, the experience will become much more comfortable within a relatively short period of time. Your display of understanding, flexibility and sensitivity to the presenter’s needs will put you on a strong footing for reengagements in the future, as they will undoubtedly walk away from the discussion feeling that you are pleasant to work with before you have even entered their concert hall.

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

© Edna Landau 2012

 

 

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Ask Edna, Managing Your Own Career | Comments Closed

Omus in Person

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

by Sedgwick Clark

I first met Omus Hirshbein in Carnegie Hall’s executive offices, where he worked for a brief time in 1973 between tenures at the Hunter College Concert Bureau and the 92nd Street Y. He was walking out of a planning meeting, saying in frustration to anyone nearby, “They won’t listen to me—they should be emphasizing the sound of Carnegie Hall.” Guess what Carnegie’s subscription campaign was the next season, after Omus left for the Y? There he would create a concert series that for two decades would dominate the chamber-music field in New York (and annoy the hell out of me because it was such a nuisance to get to from my apartment near Lincoln Center).

We became friends over the years, especially after buying one of his pianos several years ago when his upper West Side apartment could no longer house two Steinways. Every time my wife and her four-hands partner, the composer and conductor Victoria Bond, get together to play, we think of Omus and his wife, Jessica.

Omus died on December 31st after a long decline due to Alzheimer’s. It seems especially tragic that one whose mind was so fertile would leave us in such a manner. I’m sorry I took so long to take note of him in this forum. Perhaps I was stymied because Brian Kellow, who worked for Omus at the Y in the 1980s, captured his personality and accomplishments so warmly and vividly in an Opera News piece, as did Allan Kozinn in his New York Times obituary (January 7, 2012). So I decided I would do something different and reprint Omus’s own typically impassioned words from a panel discussion on the programming of classical music, which appeared in the 1995 Musical America Directory. Participants with Omus in the discussion were industry V.I.P.s Deborah Borda, Eugene Carr, Mary Lou Falcone, Christopher Hunt, and Jane Moss. I highly recommend your reading it; check out the Services section on top of the Musicalamerica.com desktop. You may find, as I did when I read it again, that it could have been recorded yesterday.

Omus Hirshbein: “I think there are two reasons why people like to go to concerts these days. One is being addressed by the kind of programming that the American Symphony is doing. Back in 1986 I agreed to put together a series of eight concerts for the Museum of Modern Art exhibition called “Vienna 1900.” It had to do with the years of the Vienna Secession, which are roughly 1898-1918, and the composers were Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Zemlinsky, Schmidt. And I said to them, “But no one will come.” To my surprise, tickets were being scalped on 53rd Street. I saw virtually none of the usual New York music people at those eight concerts. Audience members were reading, they were seeing the paintings, they were seeing the workshop of Hoffman, and they were hearing a group of composers described by curator Kirk Varnedoe as part and parcel of the Secession, and they went. Okay, that’s one reason.

“The other, of course, is that music is supposed to touch the heart. And it’s supposed to touch the soul. Now, there was a period of 40 or 50 years when what was new was ugly. Sorry, it was mostly ugly. And the legatees of those Viennese geniuses—and I speak of Schoenberg as a genius—made it worse. They became academic, producing a system of writing in this country that was not for the public. Now, there are some young people writing music today who are mobbed by audiences. I’m talking about Aaron Kernis, and Bright Sheng, and there are others. And maybe it signals a reversal of that horrible trend where what was new was impossible to listen to. That’s all I can hope for, because the teaching of music has become of little importance in most of the major cities today as they cope with their social and educational problems.

“Let me just add that money is really an issue. And I’m not talking about balancing budgets. On the wall in my new office is a blowup of an advertisement from 1971, announcing a repeat concert of Victoria de los Angeles and Alicia de Larrocha doing a program of Spanish tonadillas and whatnot. I ask people to look at it because it has tremendous meaning—and finally down at the bottom, they come across what is really disturbing about it. And this is 1971, folks. The top price at the Hunter College Concert Bureau, where this took place, in a 2,200-seat house, was a dollar below Carnegie Hall and a dollar below Lincoln Center: six and a half dollars. A movie was three bucks, or three and a half. A musical event of that magnitude was twice the price of a movie. And that was prevailing.

“Now, I throw down a gauntlet to the commercial interests that have ruined our business. I assure you that Mostly Mozart once was a three- and four-dollar ticket. Commercial interests, and the interests of unions, have hurt us a great deal. This not a high-tech business, this is not the movies, this is not mass media, and we are paying the kind of monies out that would say it’s mass media, and it ain’t anything like that.

“. . . I had a staff of music lovers in my previous job. Music lovers. A couple of them were married, they were in their thirties, and you know what they do? They get together with their friends in a restaurant, and they spend an evening, and that’s all they can afford to do; they are making $23,000 and $24,000 a year, and they cannot afford to go to these concerts.

“. . . There’s another side of the coin. Once the performer becomes recognizable, there is the most extraordinary avarice to get the fees up as fast as possible. And that, for me, is what has wrecked the business. An artist could go on the road and make a decent living at fees somewhere in the $5,000 or $6,000 range and that’s about all that anybody out there in the hinterlands can afford. Now, I think maybe that’s all I have to say.”

Of course, it wasn’t all he had to say. His last professional endeavor was to found, with his former Y colleague Jacqueline Taylor, a series of free public concerts with major artists that they called “Free for All at Town Hall.” They wrote about its genesis in the 2004 edition of Musical America Directory, and we can still look forward to these concerts each spring. Martin Riskin, who is now president and artistic director of the series, tells me that the upcoming concerts will be dedicated to Omus.

Looking Forward

My week’s scheduled concerts:

2/1 Paul Hall. FOCUS! Festival. Cage: Five Songs (1938); Six Melodies for Violin and Keyboard (1950); Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939); Etudes Boreales, Nos. 1 & 3 (1978); Sonnekus² (1985); Satie Cabaret Songs; Child of Tree (1975); The Perilous Night (1944).

2/7 Rodgers Theatre. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess. Audra McDonald (Bess), Norm Lewis (Porgy), David Alan Grier (Sportin’ Life).

1/8 Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Gluck: Armide. Juilliard Orchestra/Jane Glover. Emalie Savoy (Armide), Alexander Hajek (Hidraot), David Portillo (Renaud), Alexander Lewis (Artémidore), Luthando Qave (Ubalde), Noah Baetge (Le Chevalier Danois), Wallis Giunta (Phénice), Devon Guthrie (Sidonie), Evan Hughes (Aronte), Renée Tatum (La Haine), Soo Yeon Kim (La Naïade), Pureum Jo (2nd Coryphée), Deanna Breiwick (Une Bergère), Lilla Heinrich-Szász (Lucinde), and Raquel González (Mélisse).

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Why I Left Muncie | Comments Closed

Getting to Know You (writing a good bio)

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

by Edna Landau

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

Please note that in the months of June, July and August, I will be posting new entries to this blog on a bi-weekly basis. I am grateful to all of you for your interest in “Ask Edna” and wish you a very pleasant summer.

Dear Edna:

What do you think makes for a good bio these days (from an artist management point of view)? I’m sick of reading bios that are either A. Boring (laundry lists of accolades, credits, quotes and not conveying something distinctive) OR B. Overly chatty/personal (some non-classical bios are like this, as are musical theatre bios typically). —a management colleague

Dear management colleague:

I think a good bio is one that provides only as much information as is necessary to capture the attention of the reader and keep them engrossed until the end. It should come across as professional, be well written and well organized. It should find a good balance between sharing important factual information and also giving the reader a glimpse of what is special about the person it spotlights. It should whet the appetite of the reader to experience the subject’s artistry and to get to know them better, either by presenting them, hearing them or listening to their music making.

The first sentence and paragraph of a bio should help place the artist among their peers and highlight some recent significant accomplishments. This is not achieved by the all too typical introduction that reads something like this: Joe Smith was born in Buffalo, New York in 1984 and began to study violin at the age of five with his father. The opening of the bio should also avoid any grandiose statement that is out of proportion to the artist’s career. As Ellen Highstein has written in her book Making Music in Looking Glass Land, “ the expression ‘one of the foremost pianists of our day’ is only appropriate for someone who is undeniably one of the foremost pianists of our day.”

Here are some opening sentences that grabbed my attention when I surveyed a sampling of bios of young artists with burgeoning careers:

“Internationally renowned as a brilliant innovator of the classical guitar, Paul Galbraith has been working since the 1980’s towards expanding the technical limits of his instrument, besides augmenting the quantity and quality of its repertoire.”

“Born in Los Angeles in 1981, composer and performer Gabriel Kahane is a peerless musical polymath, invested in the worlds of concert, theater and popular music.”

“Formed in 1984 by four prize-winning graduates of the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris, the Parisii Quartet won early acclaim with its triumphs at three major international competitions: Banff (1986), Munich (1987) and Evian (1987). Invitations followed from the major concert halls and festivals of Europe, and the Parisii has since toured regularly throughout Europe and the United Kingdom.”

“An accomplished young conductor and pianist, Kelly Kuo has had tremendous success working with both singers and instrumentalists in the United States and abroad in a broad spectrum of repertoire including nearly 60 operas spanning the 17th through 21st centuries. He is the recipient of a 2009 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award for young conductors.

“Dubbed a ‘Classical Rock Star’ by the press, cellist Joshua Roman has earned a national reputation for performing a wide range of repertoire with an absolute commitment to communicating the essence of the music at its most organic level. For his ongoing creative initiatives on behalf of classical music, he has been selected as a 2011 TED Fellow, joining a select group of Next Generation innovators who have shown unusual accomplishments and the potential to positively affect the world.”

You are totally correct that nothing is more boring than to wade through a laundry list of endless credits until one’s eyes glaze over. Performance credits should be limited to significant debuts and tours, recent and upcoming engagements, recent recordings, commissioned works, and perhaps some mention of associations with other artists, especially conductors, who may have played an important role in an artist’s career. They might also include examples of an artist engaging in outreach or charitable activities. The artist’s achievements should always be summarized in reverse chronological order so that the reader doesn’t have to navigate through several seasons to get to the most recent and significant accomplishments.

It is important to include dates of various performances and milestones in the artist’s career. I read a bio of a soprano which began: “Most recently heard worldwide in the Sirius Satellite Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca…” None of the artist’s numerous accomplishments were associated with dates anywhere in the remainder of the bio. A quick visit to YouTube showed significant clips from 3-4 years ago so I could deduce that the artist was still quite active. This was reinforced by a vist to Ask.Com that indicated that satellite radio was introduced around 2004. However, this is far more research than should be expected from the reader of an artist’s bio.

The bios of all of the artists mentioned above remained compelling and informative to the end. They never became “chatty” but I enjoyed learning that Gabriel Kahane makes his home in Brooklyn, New York, “in close company with a century-old piano and many books” and that conductor/pianist/vocal coach, Kelly Kuo, began his musical studies on the violin at the age of five, made his debut as a pianist five years later, but also later trained as a clarinetist. Today he has become a champion of contemporary music and has edited scores for two of Jake Heggie’s operas. None of the bios mentioned family members, as musical theatre bios so often do. I have no problem with a bio that does include such information, especially if the artist feels that their family is a major source of support to them in their career and that they bring balance and meaning to a life that can often involve long stretches of lonely time on the road.

The bottom line is that interesting artists have interesting bios. They don’t need to create heft in their bio by citing long lists of engagements. Artists who are still pretty young in their careers can prudently include brief quotes or phrases that pay tribute to their gifts and should focus on sharing with the reader their intense dedication to their chosen profession, the efforts they are expending to share their love of performing with new audiences, their joy in helping to expand the repertoire for their instrument (if applicable), and the other aspects of their lives that are important to them and that contribute to the persona they bring with them when they walk out on stage. If their bio conveys both humility and ambition, and reflects a sense of excitement and privilege at being able to pursue life as a performer, the reader will want to embark on the journey with them and support them as they reach new heights and become better known.

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

© Edna Landau 2011

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Ask Edna, Publicity and Promotion | Comments Closed

To Thine Own Self Be True

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

by Edna Landau 

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

This column was prepared with the assistance of Neale Perl, President of the Washington Performing Arts Society, and Ruth Felt, President of San Francisco Performances. Both are valued longtime colleagues, to whom I am very grateful.

Dear Edna:

I am a pianist and have just completed my second year at an American conservatory. I am hoping that I will be fortunate enough to pursue a solo career. I read your article [Getting Noticed in the 21st Century] in the 2011 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts and have taken to heart your message that so much of the challenge of succeeding as a performer lies in getting noticed. I have been thinking about this, specifically in relation to programming. My focus has been on learning major repertoire pieces that every pianist should know. Do you think that is a mistake? Should I also be exploring works that are quite rarely performed so that I will stand out from the crowd? —K.P.

Dear K.P.:

Your question is a good one, which will probably be of interest to many other young musicians, regardless of their instrument.

It is my firm belief that no matter what one’s objective might be, a cardinal principle is to remain true to oneself. Throughout your career,  the repertoire you choose should be repertoire you can’t wait to explore and master. There is no list of pieces that every pianist should know. You are fortunate that you have a huge amount from which to choose. In the case of concerto repertoire, it is advisable to keep in your fingers a certain number of pieces that are considered to be “standard repertoire” because that is what most orchestras will want. However, if you are drawn to less often performed repertoire or a relatively unknown concerto that you feel deserves a wider audience, this could prove to be a useful vehicle for gaining exposure. When Murray Perahia was in the early stages of his career, he decided upon the Mendelssohn concertos for his first recording. As far as I recall, he and his manager felt that he should be introduced in concertos for which he felt a great affinity but which had not been overly recorded. Pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin’s earliest concerto recordings featured works by Adolf von Henselt, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Joseph Marx, and Erich Korngold. However, this was no gimmick on Mr. Hamelin’s part. He was introduced to a great deal of unusual repertoire, including Alkan, by his father who was also a pianist.

In these times, when opportunities to play recitals on established series are fewer than they used to be, and when recital reviews for less than superstars are an increasing rarity, considerable attention should be given to one’s chosen program in hopes that it will pique a presenter’s or critic’s interest. There are various ways to do this while still remaining true to one’s repertoire strengths:

  • Round out a familiar program with an unexpected rarity. By way of example, here is a program that cellist Sol Gabetta will perform on the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Kreeger String Series at the Kennedy Center next February: Schumann Fantasiestücke, Shostakovich Sonata in D Minor, Mendelssohn Sonata in D Major, Servais Fantaisie sur deux Airs Russes. The Servais adds a nice symmetry to the program, creating a sort of “fantasy” sandwich with some “meaty” substance in between!
  • Choose a program that includes music from various periods, but not the most obvious composers or works. I like the following program, chosen by pianist Nareh Arghamanyan for her San Francisco Performances recital next April: Clementi Sonata in F# minor; Schubert Four Impromptus, Op. 90; Rachmaninoff Variations on a Theme by Corelli; and Balakirev’s Islamey.
  • If you were born in a foreign country, you might want to showcase music of your homeland or native region. Audiences always seem to welcome the introduction to something new, perhaps even exotic. The young Moroccan pianist, Marouan Benabdallah, is offering two pieces by Nabil Benabdeljalil in his Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall) recital debut this evening.
  • Offer a program of works that have an internal connection. For his Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) debut this October, pianist Kit Armstrong is offering selections by two composers—Liszt and Bach—including Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor (after J.S. Bach) and his Variations on the Bach cantata “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen.”
  • Offer a program that includes a newly commissioned work or unusual transcription. Violinist Giora Schmidt’s recital at the Ravinia Festival this summer will include a transcription for solo violin of Liszt’s B Minor piano sonata. The transcription is the work of Mr. Schmidt’s piano collaborator in the recital, Noam Sivan.

These types of programs lend themselves very well to some spoken words from the stage. Your audience wlll undoubtedly welcome some introductory comments about how you made your choices and perhaps what they might especially want to listen for.

None of the above rules out you playing a program of your favorite sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin if that is what you feel you do best, but in the early years of your career, you might reserve that program for cities where you are returning to an audience that is already enthusiastic about your artistry. I should also mention that if you are planning on selling a recording following the performance, you might want to include one of the works on the recording in your program so as to heighten the possibility that the audience will want to “take you home with them.”

While you are still in your conservatory years, it would be wise to solicit suggestions from your teachers, as well as guest artists who may be offering master classes or conductors working with your school orchestra, regarding unusual repertoire that you might explore. If you have the opportunity to meet people who write about music or audiophiles who may be a treasure trove of information about recordings that are long out of print, they may be a source of wonderful ideas. You may find yourself planning a program that offers your favorite Mozart sonata alongside a piece by his Czech contemporary, Leopold Kozeluch, or pairing a Bach suite with Max Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J.S. Bach. The possibilities are endless, with YouTube showcasing many gems waiting to be more broadly discovered.

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

© Edna Landau 2011

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ask Edna, Listening to Your Inner Voice | Comments Closed

Newer Entries »