Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, 2022 Edition

For several days last week and this week, a group of music critics (writers panel) and a group of Rubin Fellows spent a lot of time together at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where the Fellows wrote and wrote and the critics provided feedback on the writing, as well as discussing various issues in music criticism with the Fellows. This year's panel was to have consisted of:

• Natasha Gauthier (Opera Canada)
• Gary Giddins (formerly Village Voice jazz writer)
• Joshua Kosman (classical music critic of the SF Chronicle)
• Janice Page (arts editor at The Washington Post)
• Tim Page (former Washington Post classical music critic)
• John Rockwell (formerly of The NY Times, where he held several positions)
• Stephen Rubin (founder; consulting publisher at Simon & Schuster)
• Steve Smith (culture and arts editor of WNYC; formerly at Time Out, the Boston Globe, NY Times, and NPR)
• Heidi Walson (opera critic at the WSJ)
• Zachary Woolfe (NY Times chief classical music critic)

Tim Page and Stephen Rubin weren't able to be there for various reasons, alas.

I attended the Friday afternoon panel, which was moderated by Janice Page and on the subject of editor/writer relationships. This is a critical area for any journalist or, really, any writer at all, from assignments to the nuts and bolts of editing to how you handle problems, and so on. Janice Page was a great moderator; she was equipped with a list of on-the-nose questions that elicited good information on a range of topics. She asked about how assignments were made, about needing publisher/editorial support and backup when you write a complicated or difficult story, about good and bad advice from editors, and so on. 

Who or what do you like to read was a good question. Everybody didn't answer it - I was hoping that Joshua Kosman would answer and somehow work in the novels of Trollope - but Zachary Woolfe mentioned Eric Asimov, the Times's wine critic and how good he is at writing about a specialist area for a generalist audience. So true, and of course this is also the job of any classical music writer. I can tell you that when John Rockwell said that Eric Asimov is Isaac Asimov's son, at least two of us in the room snapped right to attention, because Eric is Isaac's nephew, not his son.

Natasha Gauthier talked about interviewing Charles Dutoit....and having him make a pass at her with her tape recorder running. Her editor/publisher backed her up on publishing a story about this, despite all sorts of threats from Dutoit's orchestra, lawyers, etc. It was on tape. 

Trust between an editor and a writer is huge; without it, well. Janice Page had quite the story about a writer who waited until the night before a deadline to admit to being complete stuck. Page worked with her for some hours to put together the article from the writer's note...and then had to tell the writer, no, I'm sorry, I cannot hire you again. Reliability is a necessary quality in a writer!

Then there were wins and losses in discussions with editors. Steve Smith talked about trying to use the word "flensing" in a review and having his editor refuse....even though flensing is removing blubber from a whale, and the review was of Jake Heggie's opera Moby-Dick.

The Q&A was also excellent: one of the Fellows asked about pitching, for example. I took some notes! I'm not good at coming up with stories to pitch, and the answers were really helpful.

My favorite moment at the event might have been during the Q&A, when someone stood up with a paper in hand and started asking questions. He didn't say "This is more of a comment than a question", but it was, and clearly he had an ax or two to grind.

He got two questions in, and clearly had more queued up, before Joshua Kosman jumped in to say "Let's start with those." The first was what I can only call a leading question about how the writers cope with having "less sophisticated audiences than 40 years ago." Gauthier started off by challenging the whole notion of a "less sophisticated audience," then Kosman backed her up and said, yes, they might have less musical education than 40 years ago, but they're not less sophisticated. Gauthier had started right there, and I certainly agree.

Emery Kerekes won the top prize and Lev Memuya won the second prize. Congratulations! I know that all of the Fellows put in a lot of work, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to see their reviews on the web sooner or later.