SITE-SEEING

posted by James Reel

    Alan Campbell, the morning (sometimes afternoon) man at KUAT-FM for nearly 10 years starting in the mid 1990s, stopped by this blog last week, e-mailed a hello and conveyed his regards to his former listeners. Since he retired, Alan has been more than a warm glow on an old vacuum tube; he’s one of the people who founded MUSIClassical.com, a very interesting site with way more features than I’ve ever had time to explore.
    There you’ll find, among other delights, lists galore of classical holiday pieces, nicknames of compositions, recommended recordings and much more; links to purveyors of music books, sheet music and video and audio recordings; and a connection to an online discussion group “for lovers of classical music, broadcasters, composers, musicians, publicists, retailers, listeners and promoters of independent classical music.” It’s billed as a “forum for ideas and dialog supporting the independent classical music industry. You may post articles, comments, charts, new choice classical recordings, releases of new classical compact discs, tours etc.”
    I check two of the site’s features daily. First, the almanac, a day-by-day listing of birthdays, death dates, first-performance anniversaries and the like. (There’s way more information here about justifiably obscure, long-dead singers than most people really need, considering the sketchier details provided for composers and instrumentalists, but who am I to criticize somebody’s private passion?) Second is the page of links to classical-music news items and features, including many pieces that slip right by the valuable ArtsJournal.com.
    That should get you started. Now explore the site on your own, but be prepared to linger a while.

HOW TO FAKE A CLASSICAL CONCERT REVIEW

posted by James Reel

    Hey, kids! A fresh concert season is upon us, and your daily newspaper needs you! Editors have finally gotten over the silly notion, prevalent from about 1975 to 1995, that newspapers should waste money and office space on full-time classical music critics. For 20 years they squandered their resources on deadwood critics who claimed that only they were qualified to write reviews because they’d spent their lives going to concerts on their own time, collecting classical recordings, reading as much as they could about classical music, and maybe even playing instruments or writing their own compositions. How foolish! Anybody can review a classical concert. After all, cub reporters are routinely shuffled from the court beat to cops to city council. Why waste money on a one-trick critic when you can send a low-paid sports agate clerk to a concert to do some real reporting, rather than that silly pontificating that nobody wants to read? (Well, maybe a few old farts constituting the newspaper’s traditional core readership might care, but they don’t count; to survive, today’s cutting-edge newspapers need to be attracting younger, poorly educated non-readers!)
    So you say you’ve never covered a classical concert, let alone attended one, but you’re being sent to opening night at the symphony and you’re expected to turn around a review in an hour? No problem! Just follow these five easy steps, and your editors will be thrilled!
    1. To fill at least half of those 10 gaping column-inches of space you’ve been awarded, plug in a lot of background on the music. Nothing technical—jargon and arcane concepts are fine for the sports section and business page, but you’re in the features section, right next to that hard-hitting back-to-school article on trends in teen piercings. Keep it light, anecdotal, and personality-oriented. And if you don’t have access to CD notes or Internet sources so you can copy stuff into the review before you go to the show, relax! You can always crib from the program notes at the concert.
    2. Mention how many people attended the concert. Body counts are very important to editors. Don’t worry about putting this into the context of attendance at other classical-music events in your town; you don’t have enough space for context.
    3. Be sure to describe the gestures of the conductor, the swaying and facial expressions of various musicians, and the couture of any female soloist. This adds color and drama to any review!
    4. Always use the word “sublime” in relation to anything by Mozart and Beethoven, and describe everything written since 1910 as “harshly dissonant,” unless you’re covering the annual Kenny G pops concert.
    5. Devote whatever remaining space you have to an account of the audience’s reaction to the performance. Why sweat over forming your own opinions when you can take your cue from the crowd?

ON THE BOARDS

posted by James Reel

    Actors are ambling back onto Tucson stages after the usual summer dry spell (but not drought; there’s always something playing in town). At the University of Arizona, the Arizona Repertory Theatre is reviving its fine production of Brighton Beach Memoirs after a summer estivation, and new shows are opening this weekend at Live Theatre Workshop and Top Hat Theatre Club, with the city’s other main companies, and a couple of new ones, tossing more scripts into the mix in the next few weeks.
    Already open is the latest melodrama spoof at Gaslight Theatre, Sinbad. Says my review in the current Tucson Weekly:

It takes a while for this high-seas adventure to get wind in its sails. Last Saturday night, the first scene was utterly becalmed; the humor as well as the acting seemed half-hearted. Things picked up as the evening progressed, but many previous shows have registered much higher on the company's spoofometer. Even most of the pop-song thefts and parodies seemed only tenuously related to the story. As is so often the case at Gaslight, the show got much more interesting when things veered out of control.

[Teresa] Simone, who is part of the five-member ensemble acting in this year's five plays, and doubles as the festival's publicity guru, says that the only thing the pieces have in common is that each includes a lesbian character or relationship as a central plot element. Some of the plays are quite serious; others are, well ...
    "One of them is What If I Don't, by Rebekah Lopata," says Simone. "It's set in the 1960s, and it's about a girl on her wedding day who's in the bathroom contemplating suicide. It's actually a comedy."