Sunday, September 03, 2006

Violin Idol

Following the same idea as Eric Edberg's experimental recital, I offer Irwin Tessman's suggestion on how to boost attendance at the opening rounds of the International Violin Competition. No, Simon Cowell will not show up to make fun of the violinists hairdos. Instead, Tessman wants the Competition to offer an Audience Favorite award along with the normal jury award. I have mixed feelings about music competitions in the first place, as art should be collaborative rather than competitive. But it is another way to appeal to the non-traditional audience. The only question is whether the voting will by by text message or button-boxes attached to the armrests.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I attended the Sunday afternoon prelim rounds (coincidentally sitting only one seat away from Dr. Tessman, though I had no idea who he was at the time). I don't know what attendance at the morning session was like, but the afternoon session was jam-packed with nary an empty seat that I could see.

Dr. Tessman asked me whether I would be in favor of such an idea and I told him I didn't have anything particularly against it, and if I were handed a voting sheet I would certainly have been able to pick my favorites. He told me that in the Van Cliburn amateur competition, the audience choice winner has coincided with the judges' winner at least 75% of the time.