You certainly noticed a proliferation of companies calling themselves artistic agencies or record labels. Lots of emails from these companies flattering me and offering me management or a recording contract went through my inbox. When I opened the first email, I was excited to get an offer and I went on reading it carefully, thinking a manager was interested in my projects. In fact what I read was one of the most unfair offer on the market.

Yesterday, I have been going through my music bookshelves, digging for a piano concerto. I was looking for something really specific as it has to be something fitting the requirements of an emerging community orchestra and my practice schedule. My friend the conductor Jaemi Loeb initiated the project and created the Houston Heights Orchestra and I immediately offered her my help.

In my last post, I discussed about the top 5 improvements Internet brought to the musician’s life. But nothing is ever totally black or white and Internet has some negative effects too. Today, let’s review 5 of the top reasons why internet doesn’t help Classical musicians.

Every day I receive dozen of articles about how internet is great for classical musicians. It’s true and we can’t deny it: Internet changed a lot of things in our lives : you can purchase music from your home and listen to it instantly, you now have virtual friends, you can share your experience with people, the list could be very very long… But what did it change in my professional life? Does internet improve my professional life? Let’s first see the top 5 reasons why internet makes things easier for me.

In the previous post about my past year, I mostly wrote about changes in my piano technique and the pianist’s loneliness. In one year, my perspective of the pianist’s job has tremendously evolved and my working life has changed drastically. Let me talk about four aspects of my work I had to improve and which have helped me a lot to develop my professional activities.

I’m sorry I haven’t written for such a long time! I had a lot going on and I will share with you today one of my current concerns. For several months, I have been thinking of a recording project I feel very strongly about. Except the program, the studio, and all the little hassles associated with the recording itself, the question of the label came up. Indie label, major or running my own label, all these solutions have their pros and cons. Let’s do a quick overview of these very different options to grasp the situation clearly.

SIf you are an independent musician, contacting presenters is a part of your daily life. Apparently, it sounds as easy as calling someone and introducing yourself. But in fact, it is much more complicated than it looks. Contacting an institution or a festival to book a concert is often an obstacle course we, musicians, are not accustomed to. I will try here to give you some tips to imrpove your approach with presenters

I realize how time flies and I have not managed to write for almost two weeks already. the past couple of days have been tough for me : a lot of decisions to make, a lot of work to do, so excuse me for not being very punctual at our weekly meeting on this blog. I must say that I spent much time in front of my piano; learning new repertoire, maintaining the old, I found back my student’s pace work! It’s time to make a quick review of the first six months of sabbatical.

Helene Grimaud’s wolves, Kennedy’s faux hawk, Lang Lang’s facial expression, etc, the image of classical music is progressively changing. Democratization or simple marketing tool?

No one can deny it, today, a pianist’s career requires other skills than just playing the piano. After our studies, we often realize that we haven’t been awakened to the reality of our profession. Indeed, once the conservatory is over, we are confronted to stewardship problems. Most of the time, not enough supported, we must manage everything by ourselves: solicit concerts organizers, manage press relations, deal contracts…