{"id":714,"date":"2010-09-08T13:18:44","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T17:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=714"},"modified":"2011-10-11T00:40:57","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T04:40:57","slug":"outrage-at-bn-demise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=714","title":{"rendered":"Outrage at B&N Demise"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of people commented to me on my report last week on the imminent demise of the Lincoln Center branch of Barnes & Noble: from Harmonia Mundi\u2019s Ren\u00e9 Goiffon (\u201cHow things have changed since we first met!\u201d) to composer and record company owner David Chesky (\u201cApple is going to put everyone out of biz!\u201d).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

CDs were still on the horizon when Ren\u00e9 and I met.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Apple store, with its appealing, wide-open, two-story glass fa\u00e7ade, gets more traffic than any store in the Lincoln Center area except perhaps\u00a0the largest grocery store. The building\u2019s previous tenant, Victoria\u2019s Secret, literally had no business being in this neighborhood, but even it had more traffic than Tower\u2019s or B&N\u2019s classical-record departments in their declining months\u2014both of which joined the hapless HMV store at 72nd and Broadway in redefining the word \u201cempty.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A friend who lives upstairs from B&N told me that apartment owners were aghast to learn that B&N\u2019s successor will be Century 21 clothing store. They did all they could to stop it, but to no avail. I\u2019d like to rail at greedy landlords, but it\u2019s our way of life that they can quadruple rents\u00a0as long as people\u00a0continue paying them. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So an appropriate pair of superstores for Lincoln Center attendees and Juilliard School students\u2014a record store and a bookstore\u2014will have been replaced by cheapo furniture (Raymour and Flanigan) and threadbare clothing. Such stores have come and gone almost as quickly as restaurants over the years. Aunt Fish was the nadir, garnering perhaps the most LOL restaurant review (from Mimi Sheraton in the Times<\/em>) ever written. And just this summer, the affordable O\u2019Neal\u2019s and Peter\u2019s gave up the ghost after many years of comfortable surroundings and sometimes barely edible dishes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Time marches on.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What is Contemporary Music?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the following piece from yesterday\u2019s Musicalamerica.com<\/em>, the canard about pop music being \u201ccontemporary\u201d music is perpetuated. I\u2019m sure my friend Roger Wright didn\u2019t mean to insult the many \u201cclassical\u201d contemporary composers whose works received their premieres at this summer\u2019s Proms concerts. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

BBC Proms Breaks Attendance Records<\/span><\/strong>
\nAttendance at this summer’s BBC Proms concerts, which opened July 16, has broken all records. Halls this year averaged at 92 per cent full compared with 87 per cent in 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the sell-out performances were programs of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim’s 80th birthday celebration, Pl\u00e1cido Domingo in “Simon Boccanegra” and Bryn Terfel in “Meistersinger.”<\/p>\n

“The incredible attendance figures are a testament to the spirit of the Proms audience, and their eagerness to embrace both core classical music and the more contemporary performances,” said Roger Wright in his comments. Wright is the director of BBC Proms and controller of BBC Radio 3.<\/p>\n