Tuesday 20 June 2006

Sample clearance continues apace: 3 out of the 4 contacts are made and positive now. The sense of relief is palpable already.

On the way back from walking my daughter to school this morning I got a call from the general manager of a baroque orchestra, concerning my diary entry of 31 May. While he didn't dispute the factual accuracy of any of it, he suggested that the phrase 'it sounds like crap' was offensive to the orchestra concerned, which I think is fair comment really, so I've amended the entry as a result.

But revisiting the entry reminded me of the need for ConductorWatch. This is an idea that Bill Lloyd and I dreamt up some time ago for a message board where orchestral players, management and audience members can post their opinions and experiences of conductors, the professionals posting under pseudonyms to protect their employment prospects. It would be moderated of course, so that any inevitable personal point-scoring and petty vindictiveness could be kept to an acceptable, legal and/or amusing level. But each entry would also have to give the conductor concerned a 'conductorwatch rating' which over time would serve as a useful indicator of which conductors were hardworking, genuine and capable of meaningful music-making, and which were incompetent charlatans who believed their own PR and operated by bullying and harassment (and lots of shades in-between). Bill and I have bought the domain name conductorwatch.com but we're a bit busy. Anyone want to set it up? We'll just take a share of the advertising revenue.