For the millions who know her YouTube videos, this past Sunday’s full page article in The New York Times about classical pianist Valerie Lisitsa may be old news. I do love the quotes and the insights, mostly because the poke the sleeping bear that classical music has become.
“At pop events, audience members ubiquitously record the music, but the practice is invariably prohibited at formal classical spaces. At Carnegie Hall, ushers zealously race down the aisles to berate any device-toting offenders publicly.
I also admire the guts: when their bookings dried up, “they spent their life savings to hire the London Symphony Orchestra so Ms. Lisitsa could record the four Rachmaninoff concertos”
From Ms. Lisitsa:
There is a long train and we’re the last car on the train. Pop music is the first car. Now, any new song Lady Gaga does, she puts on YouTube first. And I don’t think she has any trouble selling her CDs.”
Here she is playing Rachmaninoff:
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