Klarinet Archive - Posting 000173.txt from 2006/09

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Music (Business) Ethics?
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:08:03 -0400


Gary Van Cott wrote,

>Recently someone asked me to get the Martin
>Ellerby Clarinet Concerto (for clarinet and wind
>band; there is a piano reduction) which was
>written for Linda Merrick (UK). In the course
>of looking for information on this and tracking
>down the publisher and distributor, I came across
>a three page article in The Clarinet about this piece
>by Merrick (Vol 31, No. 2. March 2004, page 6).
>There is also some cross promotion on their
>respective web sites.

>What none of these sources say is that they are
>married to each other (according to the Philip
>Sparke web site). Now I expect this is probably
>well known in the UK, but it seems somewhat
>disingenuous for a Clarinet magazine article
>published in the US not to mention this. Nothing
>is mentioned about this in the notes to the concerto,
>either.

You bring up an interesting ethical issue. I haven't seen the March, 2004
issue of "The Clarinet." Was Linda Merrick's article a professional review
of the concerto, or a performer's personal memoir, or a press release (an
advertisement) labelled as such? In small press, special interest and
semi-professional publications, often the line gets blurred. I don't know
enough about this specific situation to pass judgment on it.

However, as a reviewer of books and movies since the early 1960s, and as a
staff writer for the magazine "Scarlet Street" since 1993, I do know the
general rules of the game. It's unethical for a professional reviewer to
fail to disclose a relationship, whether personal or professional, with the
review subject. If I reviewed work by a business colleague, relative,
friend or enemy without disclosing that relationship to the editor, I could
expect to get fired and to have a hard time finding another reviewing job.

What the editor chooses to do with the disclosure is more complex. The
disclosure rule doesn't mean I could never review a work by someone I know.
In tight-knit, special-interest circles, it's almost impossible to find a
reviewer who's both competent and completely objective. In fact (tired old
joke), "The New York Times Review of Books" is known among reviewers by the
nickname, "The New York Times Review of Each Other's Books." The rule
simply means that, when an editor offers me an assignment, either I
disclose any personal connection in full and disqualify myself outright or,
in marginal cases, I disclose in full and defer the decision to my editor.
If the editor decides the relationship is no problem, and assigns me the
review, then we may decide there's no need to tell the reader about truly
fleeting contact with the reviewee--for instance, if we've exchanged a few
informational e-mails, but there's no strong emotional content in these
exchanges and we've never met in person. However, if I felt a need to
disclose the relationship to the reader, either in the body of the review
or in a wti ("Who's this idiot?"--a tagline identifying the article's
author), and if the editor deleted that information, then I wouldn't write
for that publication again. The editor can require an author to disclose.
The editor must never *prevent* an author from disclosing.

The advertising industry holds writers to more relaxed standards than
journalism does, but probably a performer's memoir, press release or liner
notes should mention that, for instance, performer and composer are
married. It's just good common sense: While a clumsily-written up-front
disclosure might lead prospective customers to take the music and/or the
performance less seriously, a tardy disclosure, coming from an outsider who
discovers the relationship and publicizes it, is guaranteed to draw
negative attention. It looks bad if we think Merrick and Ellerby
deliberately tried to hide their personal reason for promoting each other's
careers--but a well-written disclosure can *help* sales. Andrew Lloyd
Webber let the whole world know that he wrote the role of Christine in THE
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for his then-wife, soprano Sarah Brightman. That
publicity didn't hurt either one of them much, did it?

Lelia Loban

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