SCHMITTblog

The end has come

I started blogging seven years ago when it was “cool.”  More than 200 blogs later, I will stop.

Technology has moved on; thus, SCHMITT has to move on.  We will leave the blogging to the professor who discovered it just recently.

Please find (as long as these technologies last):

My videos at www.YouTube.com/MeetSchmitt.

My videos, photos, and text at www.facebook.com/MeetSchmitt.

My short views on things at www.twitter.com/MeetSchmitt 

And all sorts of information at my web site, www.MeetSchmitt.com

This blog will be left as a historical document.

 

On Managing and Conducting

Musicians of the New York Philharmonics seem to be upset about Gilbert E. Kaplan, a wealthy businessmen, who recently conducted Mahler’s Second with them.  Mr. Kaplan stands accused to be a talent-free conductor who only got to conduct the New York Philharmonics because he donated a  lot of money to the orchestra. (see  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/arts/music/18kapl.html?hp) 

Mr. Kaplan is not the first to raise eyebrows within the classical music community.  Former Sony Chairman  Norio Ohga, a classical  music lover,  received similar reactions when in 2000 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonics at the opening of the Sony Center in Berlin.

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Maybe the community of musicians could be placated a little bit by letting one of them manage a company rather than play in an orchestra or conduct it.  After all, who knows – maybe conductors are as good as managers, as managers believe they might be as conductors.  Thus, how about Maazel running General Motors?