Life in a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. B.M.A.T.C., and Etruscan typewriter erasers. Blogged by David Gorsline.
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Lots of birthday Wallace Stevens links at wood s lot. posted: 6:08:48 PM |
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Russell Shorto profiles Nonesuch Records and its head, Robert Hurwitz. When I was an impoverished high school student (of course, all high school students are impoverished), I picked up a few of Nonesuch's budget-priced art music records. No longer independent, the label nevertheless has flourished under Hurwitz.
One secret to the label's success is the conviction that... in an age of category blurring, the fault lines in the audience are not between genres like classical, rock and hip-hop, but between sensibilities; that a person might, depending on his or her mood, put on a Beethoven symphony, a compilation of Cuban jazz, some urban rock or a country chanteuse like K. D. Lang. A crucial fact about that someone is that he or she is likely to be over the age of 30. Two further facts flow from this, which Nonesuch exploits: this listener has money to spend on CD's, and he or she would rather have the packaged product than snag a few songs off the Internet.
I fit the description of that someone perfectly. So I was only a bit surprised when I read the rundown of Nonesuch's artists.
... the jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, the tango innovator Astor Piazzolla, John Adams, Steve Reich, the violinist and performance artist Laurie Anderson, the saxophonist John Zorn, the composer Philip Glass, the Gipsy Kings, the Malian diva Oumuo Sangare, Youssou N'Dour, from Senegal, the musical-theater composer Adam Guettel, the soprano Dawn Upshaw and a blizzard of others. "Bob has enormous confidence in his taste," Glass said. "He has been able to create something almost like an art gallery, where there are certain composers and artists whom he is devoted to nurturing."
I scurried to my CD racks and found the trademark N in several places. Who notices labels anymore? I'll be more aware of Nonesuch in the future. I'm off to wish-list Guettel and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, both of whom are on the label. And I'll give The Magnetic Fields a listen.
Hurwitz... divulged what may be his ultimate secret weapon for surviving in the corporate music world. "The fact is, the people in these meetings, the people who run the music business, are in their 30's, 40's and 50's," he said. "Their job is to make music for kids. But I'm making music for the other people in the room."
posted: 3:42:36 PM |
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David Orr provides a guide to the best online-only book- and publishing-related web sites. Be aware: two fanfic sites are on the list.
You probably finished Pride and Prejudice thinking, "That was fine, but I'd have liked at least one hot encounter between Darcy and Wickham, especially if it involved exposed chests and a healthy slathering of cheap cologne." Reader, they've written it.
posted: 3:18:49 PM |
 D. Gorsline, Proprietor
   
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