A Veritable Cornucopia

Some late, loose items:

(1) China Miéville has a new-ish blog, rejectamentalist manifesto.  It's aperiodic, often fragmental or pictoral, but reliably interesting.   The recent posts on the the UK coalition government's plans for cut-and-burn reductions in cultural and social spending are on the mark, and much of what is noted in the UK applies equally well to the Netherlands, the Republicans in the US, and the German coalition government.

(2) Here's a recent small item at The Eastside View, Charles Shere's blog, which is a model of engaging and useful critical writing: honestly sorting out opinion and taste from just-the-facts-ma'am reporting, making interesting connections, and not treating the musical as an autonomous category of cultural activity.  Charles, a fine composer as well as critic, is a treasure in the musical landscape. 

(3) Pliable notes that 95% of Gramophone magazine's readers are male.  Why is this the least surprising factoid of the week?  Gramophone is the UK classical music bidness's equivalent of a mixture of Sports Illustrated and Model Railroader.   It's about "industry" gossip, sport, and collecting, a particular constellation that is only sustainable in a high testosterone environment (one from which my better angels have protected me!)  Moreover, as the magazine's title honestly indicates, it's about recordings, commodified recording.  It's about buying, trading, and collecting recordings and it's about ranking them, like baseball statistics (and yes, as often fantasy as real.)  Boys with toys. The classical music live performance world, on the other hand, which includes everything from music education to professional performance and audition, is one in which participation, with exceptions for the recalcitrant fields of conducting, management, and a pair of European orchestras,  is no longer so decisively dominated by one gender or the other. Audiences for classical music concerts are often predominantly women and the most important figures introducing classical music to young people are women as well — music teachers, whether in school or privately.  That's the real news of the day, not the readership of a magazine devoted to a male hobby rapidly going the way of the dodo.  


   


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