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SEQUENZA21/
340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Zookeeper:   
Jerry Bowles
(212) 582-3791

Managing Editor:
David Salvage

 Contributing Editors:
Galen H. Brown
Evan Johnson
Ian Moss
Lanier Sammons
Deborah Kravetz
(Philadelphia)
Eric C. Reda
(Chicago)
Christian Hertzog
(San Diego)
Jerry Zinser
(Los Angeles)

Web & Wiki Master:
Jeff Harrington

Latest Posts
Babeness Revisted
Hobo Heroes
Penn Sounds: 3 Premieres from Orchestra 2001
Busy Weekend
More on Those Pulitzers?
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
Pineapple Upside Down Cat
The Road to Riga
Sunshine. What a Concept.
A Wet Night in New York


 

Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Babes (My Response)

Dear Ms. Maseland:

I could say that I described Wu Man as a �rightuous babe� in the article you cited because I am an insensitive smartass who likes to write provocative things that get people�s attention. That would not be entirely inaccurate, but it would be incomplete. I certainly meant no disrespect for Wu Man whom I have seen play several times and consider a formidable musician as well as a 21st century fox, as the late Jim Morrison might have said.

On a more serious level, I intended it as an ironic comment on how young female musicians are being marketed these days. The financial success of dreadful crossover acts like Bond and Vanessa Mae has led the big record companies to believe that they can produce the same results with more serious performers who also happen to be very attractive--like the teenage violinists Nicola Benedetti, Janine Jansen and Julia Fischer or ensembles such as the Eroica Trio and the Ahn Trio�by presenting them in flashy fashion-type photos and provocative wardrobes. Perhaps they can. The overwhelming majority of classical CD buyers are men although, granted, many of them are not interested in women who are not Dawn Upshaw. (Another irresistable smartass remark which I�ll let you figure out on your own.)

Can unattractive people be successful in classical music? Sure, go to the opera sometime. It takes some serious suspension of disbelief to watch a 350-pound Carmen waddling across the stage or buy the premise that someone of Pavorotti�s girth is a starving artist living in a garret. But, even that is changing and there are now lots of attractive singers around like Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson and Samuel Ramey and Roberto Villazon.

The reality is that there is an economic value to having been born physically attractive. There always has been but now that value is compounded by a global marketplace that rewards the gifted, but rewards even more the flashy. For young classical performers who happen to be both gifted and beautiful, the challenge is how to reap the benefits of this reality without losing their souls in the process.
posted by Jerry Bowles 4/12/2005



 
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