Did you hear about the indie makeover that opera star Renée Fleming is getting? The People’s Diva’s next album, entitled Dark Hope (Decca, due out June 8, 2010), includes music by Arcade Fire, The Mars Volta, and Death Cab for Cutie, among others. And here’s a little quote from Renée lettin’ everyone know that she totally knows what’s up:
It’s become clear to me that lines are blurring in a way that promotes collaboration across musical genres. It’s not clear yet where this will lead, but the choices are endless. It’s possible I can well imagine that this type of collaboration will help classical music move out of the “museum” and into the 21st century, since for example some young musicians are using string quartets to form bands.
Damn. Doesn’t that kind of feel like if your mom told you she was really into whatever music you had thought until that moment was completely unknown to everyone but you and like only three teenage Japanese kids? Come on, Renée! There are well-defined rules to how things are deemed trendy and cool. Rule #1 being that if your mom likes it, it’s not cool anymore.
So on June 8, 2k10 when Renizzle Fleming drops her new album, is this whole indie/alt/un- classical thing over? Because as crazy, sexy, and cool as she is in that Katie Couric sorta way, isn’t she part of Big Classical Music? And you know like when The Man gets all colonial on the indies, the indies inevitably move on to the next undiscovered island.
Is Renée gonna ruin it for indie-classicists?
Will she single-handedly create a new class of bro-classical musicians?
What do yall think will be the next alt-classical trend?
[...] many important questions about the ‘burgeoning’ indie classical movement, including is it all over now? No word on what the album cover is going to look like yet though you are encouraged to speculate [...]
It’s pop-opera star in reverse. I am cautiously optimistic, but I have a nagging feeling that this is going to end up next to Michael Bolton’s opera album.
@Mike hahaha, touché! Thanks for the comment, also. I’m not pre-judging the product or the artist or where the artist is coming from discipline-wise. Nor have I made any judgements about crossover projects by any of the artists you mentioned. I do have something in the queue that goes to that point, however. Stay tuned for that.
What I think is interesting is that this whole indie/alt- classical movement has been sort of an underground thing that the kids have been doing and now a big time star on a major label (‘The Man’) from a different generation has picked up on this trend. Is that going to matter to the indie-classicists? Will the movement shift if this trend is perceived to have gone ‘mainstream’? Cuz nothing takes the allure out of alt quite like having that culture appropriated to a mass market.
Hum … let’s see – Itzak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, the London Symphony, Leonard Bernstein, John Adams, Michael Daugherty, John Williams, Keith Lockhardt – even Marin Alsop – and many more move back and forth across the “line” that seperates classical and popular music – no problem. I’ve even heard of a classically trained saxophonist who performs while a colleague is spinning lps back and forth on a turntable – and that’s all cool. But let an OPERA SINGER try something that breaks the rules, and brickbats come out 4 months before the album hits the streets. Can you say “double standard”? Either the album will stink and find a place in the cut-out bins next to “Classically Barbara” or, by jove, maybe she’s “got it”! Maybe we could wait to hear the music before we decide?
I was FREAKING OUT about this. It’s amazing in all the worst ways.
My enthusiasm for this train wreck was sadly somewhat diminished when I realized that the original Mars Volta song, rather being their usual insane fare, is actually something my mom might like.