[Dixielandjazz] Sex, Music & Over Population (of musicians, that is)

[Steve barbone]

For an interesting read, check out this article. Then if interested further,
buy the book. Caveat NOT OKOM, but maybe YKOM. Central theme? Too many
musicians, you know, like Econ 101 - Classical Supply & Demand. True, no
doubt, for OKOM also.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Behind the Curtain, Classical Music Shows It Has Serious Flaws

"Mozart in the Jungle" a memoir by Blair Tindall, an oboist.

By ANNE MIDGETTE - Published: July 5, 2005 - NY Times

Blair Tindall and I have several things in common. We are both women and
both freelance journalists who have contributed, more or less frequently, to
The New York Times. And we have both written (or participated in writing)
books that are widely viewed as, at best, risqué; at worst, blots on the
pristine temple of classical music.

Mine, "The King and I," written with Luciano Pavarotti's former manager
Herbert Breslin, was a behind-the-scenes look at Mr. Pavarotti's rise and
fall, and if you believe some of the press, a smear campaign on Mr.
Pavarotti's glorious career. Ms. Tindall's, "Mozart in the Jungle," came out
last month, and if you believe some of the press, it is all about how Ms.
Tindall, a freelance oboist, slept her way to the top (or as some have it,
to the bottom). 

Well, don't believe everything you read. Advance press and reviews, even at
their best, give only part of the picture. (I speak as one who writes them.)
And people seem ready to suspend their own judgment and be shocked if they
are told something should be shocking. For better or worse, I saw "The King
and I" as a candid portrait, alternately entertaining and sad, of a
relationship between two idiosyncratic and difficult people that also
revealed a corner of the opera business.

And Ms. Tindall's book, as I understand it, is an indictment of the
classical music world, using her own life as illustration. But it's a lot
easier to focus salaciously on Ms. Tindall's sex life than to deal with her
allegations that there are serious flaws in the classical music business,
which was built up artificially during periods of economic growth and is now
trying to sustain itself at untenable levels.

Let's talk about sex for a minute. (Readers attuned to the proprieties of a
family newspaper may want to avert their eyes for the next few paragraphs.)
Here's a shocking fact: consenting adults have sex. Even outside the field
of classical music. I have heard tales of office Christmas parties in the
business world that sound a lot more titillating than Ms. Tindall's mentions
of rehearsals degenerating into group sex sessions.

Actually, neither Ms. Tindall's nor Mr. Pavarotti's sex life sounds all that
appealing or excessive, but once you enter the sacred temple of classical
music, any reference to sex seems to be taken as licentious. (Has everyone
forgotten "Amadeus" already?)

What gets me is that a culture that embraces "Sex and the City" and the
columns of Amy Sohn (now in New York magazine) is shocked when a classical
musician admits to having the same amount of sex as any other healthy,
unmarried 40-something in any other field, simply because people are told
they should think it's shocking. It makes me agree all the more with Ms.
Tindall that the business is in desperate need of some shaking up.

So I think it's great if classical music fans get a candid and unstinting
look at the vicissitudes of the life of a freelance musician in New York.
Those in the field know what a hard life it is, highly competitive and a
constant scramble with no job security or health insurance; now, thanks to
Ms. Tindall's book, it's out there for everyone to see.

And Ms. Tindall argues that the system is effectively set up to create this
situation. Conservatories produce large numbers of trained musicians, only a
few of whom can hope to find regular employment, but who, given their lack
of a well-rounded education, have few other professional options. So they're
stuck freelancing, either in prestigious but irregular classical gigs or in
the security of a long-running Broadway show.

Determined to make her memoir the stuff of journalism, Ms. Tindall anchors
every event in her life with large swatches of supporting facts and figures.
She enters the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1975; here's a brief
history of the school and the rise of arts conservatories in the United
States in the 1960's and 70's. She registers with the musicians' union;
here's a brief history of employment opportunities for musicians,
particularly women. (Did you know that the notion of full-time employment in
a symphony orchestra dates from as recently as the 1960's?) She commutes to
freelance jobs out of town; here are all the musicians who died in car
accidents on the way to freelance jobs.