![\"Poster](\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/brBlomstedtGasMask3.jpg\")
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By ANDREW POWELL MUNICH \u2014 Creative exhaustion appears to have arrived for a whimsical, multi-year promotional campaign here. Its subject: the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra<\/a>. Its budget and goals: inscrutable. The thing would never have seen the light of day in the U.S., if only for legal reasons, and its existence is one of several signs of a vain administration within parent entity Bavarian Broadcasting, or Bayerischer Rundfunk<\/a>, known as BR.<\/p>\n Centered on posters, or Plakate<\/i>, the distinctive campaign<\/a> eschews images and color and relies for its life on typography, specifically the manipulation of one clunky serif-and-sans-serif font, used until recently with flair. Typically, names or numbers related to a concert program are toyed with. Riccardo Muti comes to conduct, and so we see a giant MU. At some distance, not where spelling dictates, we land on the TI. Or RAT tops a Ligeti-Schumann-Haydn-Sibelius poster, its TLE completing the conductor\u2019s name lower down. III, heavy like prison bars, blares out for a Bruckner Third Symphony.<\/p>\n The layouts show up on street posters, the Internet, handouts, even on the BRSO\u2019s scholarly and free concert program books. They are the brainchildren of Bureau Mirko Borsche<\/a>, whose trending design clients include Zeit Magazin, Harper\u2019s Bazaar and the Bavarian State Opera<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the design firm\u2019s ideas have become less flattering of late. A gas mask promotes Herbert Blomstedt\u2019s all-Brahms program this week (Feb. 13 and 14). In use for months already, the image results from a zoomed-in, weighty letter B, rotated right. The composer\u2019s name forms a facial pout that traces the B\u2019s dimple, with the conductor\u2019s name straight, above the mask\u2019s eyes. No slur is meant, one must assume. Other inverted or morbid layouts, including distorted initials, have dampened the aging campaign\u2019s fun as options for novelty have narrowed.<\/p>\n Is there oversight? Only of the lightest kind, apparently. Beyond the posters, questions lurk about misleading buttons and missing contact information on the BRSO website, extravagant BRSO sales literature, and a peculiar organizational structure.<\/p>\n Orchestra administration is buried deep inside BR, a Munich-based, license-funded broadcaster with a budget above $1 billion and more on its plate than classical music. Just how deep is reflected on BR\u2019s giant website<\/a>, whose home page offers no direct link to the orchestra. Site visitors must learn that the acclaimed BRSO is part of BR Klassik<\/a>, and then a link can be found. Once on the orchestra\u2019s home* page, material is clearly presented. But not all of it. A click on \u201cPresse\u201d at the top, for instance, loops you back to BR and no fewer than sixteen press officers<\/a>, one of whom, Detlef Klusak, has \u201cMusik\u201d after his name. In a brief call last week, however, Klusak confirmed he has nothing to do with the BRSO.<\/p>\n Finding the orchestra\u2019s managers from its home* page is a trip in itself. You first click on \u201cOrchester,\u201d then on \u201cDie komplette Besetzung\u201d (the whole cast) under an illustration showing only musicians. You scroll down to the lower right corner of the next page, click on \u201cManagement,\u201d select and copy the name of the person you want \u2014 there being no email addresses or phone numbers on the secluded page \u2014 and Google him or her!<\/p>\n Nikolaus Pont<\/a> is in charge. New, with less than a year on the job, he did not initiate the promotional campaign or plan the website, and it isn\u2019t clear yet whether he is more than a caretaker. (Fundraising, to be sure, is not front-and-center for him as it would be for an American counterpart.) Still, he must have reviewed the BRSO\u2019s 2013\u201314 season brochure<\/a>.<\/p>\n Or rather book. Weighing in at 1 lb. 6 oz. (more than half a kilogram), its 180 pages lie between thick, gloss-coated card and a cloth, die-embossed orange spine. Inside are concert details and color photographs, including four hopelessly sullen shots of Chefdirigent<\/i> Mariss Jansons<\/a>. Freely distributed, the Bureau Mirko Borsche-developed book carries no paid advertising. Broadcast-license-payers can only imagine its cost and the fees earned for design and printing.<\/p>\n An area optimistically labeled \u201cKommunikation\u201d is headed by Peter Meisel<\/a>, while another group has its own person under \u201cMarketing.\u201d Meisel works directly with the design firm (a Facebook favorite) but his diverse duties include photography, video liaison and special events. He is, moreover, tasked with keeping the world\u2019s press (including this blog) informed of, and involved in, BRSO activities. A recent round-robin list showed 78 email contacts for the orchestra\u2019s media outreach: 14 within BR, 9 at the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung<\/a> (Bavaria\u2019s answer to The New York Times), 16 at other Bavarian media outlets, 16 German outlets, 2 foreign (including Musical America), 6 German freelance music journalists, 2 non-media and 13 private.<\/p>\n Is it time for fresh approaches at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra? By U.S. standards, certainly, on several fronts, starting with more management accessibility and a promotional campaign that respects visiting artists. As for this week\u2019s concerts, Brahms will pout or smile depending on Blomstedt and the musicians, not on any poster design. The serene and sage maestro, still effective in his eighties, will no doubt laugh his gas mask right off, but of course that would suggest an altered formation for B-L-O-M-S-T-E-D-T.<\/p>\n [*Domain and site changes<\/a> in April 2015 removed the awkwardness described here.]<\/span><\/p>\n Screenshot \u00a9 Bayerischer Rundfunk<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: February 10, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n
\nZimerman Plays Munich<\/a>
\nJansons Extends at BR<\/a>
\nJansons! Petrenko! Gergiev!<\/a>
\nBRSO Adopts Speedier Website<\/a>
\nBlomstedt Blessings<\/a><\/p>\n