You in Boston, I… in San Francisco
In this modern world, what once seemed like insurmountable barriers or borders are often erased with surprising ease. It is surprising, even paradoxical, that in an environment as scrupulous in appearance as the one we live in, movements take place that perhaps should arouse more than a suspicion and, perhaps, provoke the strange reaction.
It is thought that a conservatory has a fundamental mandate (as would be the case for any University) to obtain the best training for its students, so that they are in the best conditions to face their professional future once they graduate and finish the period as students. . That a conservatory seeks to promote that future is commendable, although one could add that as long as certain limits are not exceeded. What limits? Common sense would suggest that whoever marks the transformation of the conservatory or university into another type of entity, in which it begins to be not so clear where the priority is, whether in teaching… or in other points, and in which begins the integrity of the purpose and the balance between the different goals and interests are unclear.
The United States, that country where money has an exceptional importance and is an instrument capable of erasing any border, is the protagonist of a change that could very well lead to a paradigm shift, without whoever signs it being sure that that change is for the better. Let’s go to the case.
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is, as its name suggests, a conservatory. On their website they themselves answer the question “why SFCM? – Training at SFCM will transform you as an individual, an artist, an intellectual and a professional”. In recent years the SFCM seems to have been striding to become much more than a conservatory, and to get closer to that transformative ambition, which seemed grand and maybe not even that great. In October 2020 he quietly acquired the artists’ agency Opus 3, which represents a whole panoply of top musicians, ranging from conductors like Conlon, Eschenbach, Canellakis or Alsop to pianists like Axe, Bronfman or Lugansky. With similar discretion, the SFCM acquired the Dutch record label Pentatone in May 2022, which has counted artists such as Semyon Bychkov, Herbert Blomstedt, Ian Bostridge or the late Lars Vogt among its recent records.
Now, the SFCM has just gone a step further, acquiring one hundred percent of one of the most powerful representation agencies on the planet: the British Askonas Holt. In this agency we find directors like Afkham, Antonini, Barenboim or Harding, and soloists of the stature of Anderszewski, Ibragimova, Kissin or Ma. Under these conditions, SFCM becomes a kind of Juan Palomo, I cook it for me, eat it. It seems evident that those who are lucky enough (understood as luck and, moreover, as money, as the Mozart-Da Ponte tandem would say) to enter SFCM have better chances, as far as their professional future is concerned, of course. level of success, compared to those who are not trained in an entity, however good it may be, whose arms extend as far as those of the SFCM, which far transcend the field of teaching.
In the minds of many there is the tacit but very evident influence that some illustrious schools (even some in Spain) have on the, shall we say, professional penetration of their students. But flu is one thing and communicating vessels another. And, actually, the transformation experienced by the SFCM is more like the latter than the former. The artists on the list represented by Askonas Holt are said to have a specific role to this of teaching and mentoring at the SFCM. News that will undoubtedly interest prospective students and perhaps disturb a teacher on the SFCM faculty.
Another question is the reflection that follows all this. For the conservatives to start a competition to see who can build the most powerful emporium… I’m not sure that’s the most desirable thing to do. If there are already complaints about the current interference of representative agencies in the world of music management, it does not seem that the growth of emporiums like this SFCM is the most recommendable thing. I doubt that schools and conservatories lacking so many entrepreneurial opportunities contemplate this type of initiative with great satisfaction. But you have to remember that we also have record label bosses running major music hubs, and nobody seems to care. We’ll see… but paraphrasing that story of twins in the sixties film, one imagines two brothers talking about their future destiny. If I were one of them, I would say that on… You in Boston and me in California. To be more precise, in San Francisco. Without hesitation. Conservatory, primary representation agency and record label in the same package.
Rafael Ortega Basagoiti
