A once-staid scene is marketing its stars with ever-hotter photos, but most programmers agree they need talent to back them up

Robin Lynn Braun is a 27-year-old blond, blue-eyed classically trained musician. If you frequent the Orpheum, you might have noticed her in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s first violin section: she’s the one wearing the black leather pants. Like any other aspiring pro musician, she regularly gets new head shots taken, wears eye-catching ensembles on-stage, and generally works it when she has to. Talent will get you so far, she knows. But today, more than ever in the classical world, marketing will get you farther.

“Being image-conscious and having a bit of sex appeal is going to put you over the top,” she asserts in a call from Toronto, where she has just wrapped up a stint playing for the Canadian Opera Company’s elaborate staging of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. She is hours from heading off to a photo shoot for new publicity material. “There are so many talented people out there, but there’s not the jobs for the talented people, and there’s not the concerts for every talented person. You need to be special. You need to have something that that other person doesn’t have, and maybe it’s looks.”

It was only a matter of time before the PR excesses of the pop world crept into the more staid realm of classical music. Okay, so we haven’t seen anything quite approximating Christina Aguilera’s Dirrty video, but London, Ontario–born violinist Lara St. John sure got tongues wagging—and, in some cases, drooling—when, at age 25, she released her 1995 debut CD, Bach Works for Solo Violin. The album’s cover depicted an adolescent-looking St. John, nude from the waist up, her long hair slightly dishevelled, her violin held to coyly cover her breasts. It was enough to send one local scribe sputtering that St. John looked like a “bedraggled nymphet”. It seems St. John and her management took note. For the cover of her second album, Gypsy, St. John covered up just slightly; she donned a black leather jacket—and very little else.

Which isn’t to say that image hasn’t always played a part in filling concert halls—hard to believe it, but Anne-Sophie Mutter sparked whispers of disapproval way back in the ’80s, when she began playing her Stradivarius in gravity-defying strapless gowns and discussed her passion for fast cars. It’s just that, according to Alan Gove, marketing director for the VSO, slick, sexy marketing is being used to drive classical musicians at earlier and earlier stages in their careers.

“Twenty years ago, this [kind of marketing] never happened in the classical world,” Gove points out. “But it has been, more and more, because things are so competitive.” Adds David Pay, artistic director for the Music on Main series and a consultant on marketing and strategic planning in the arts: “The world has changed dramatically. Donald Trump came to power in the late ’80s, and now we’re all about the buck.”

Getting noticed these days takes a lot more than talent. Braun, who exudes an infectious, hyperactive energy, says she isn’t planning a career as a concert soloist (“That would have happened already”) but she certainly aspires to go beyond being a desk player in an orchestra. In addition to performing in the Ring Cycle, she played on the soundtrack for and appeared in Ann Marie Fleming’s 2006 short film “The French Guy”, and last July she was on-stage with Il Divo, the classical/pop crossover male vocal quartet. This November 24 and 26, she’ll be performing Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Op.35 with the West Coast Symphony, a local amateur orchestra.

“I want to contribute to classical music in a positive way, in a creative way, in a different way,” she says. “I’m happy doing different stuff, stuff that’s not like the regular classical musician. Symphony is my bread and butter.” And good publicity material, she says, is helping.

It certainly helped Nicola Benedetti, the 19-year-old Scottish violin sensation who will be appearing with the VSO this Saturday through Monday (October 28 to 30). Benedetti, who could accurately be described as a looker, has been given a full-throttle public-relations campaign by Deutsche Grammophon. “She, I think, very smartly realizes, and her people smartly realize, that she lends herself to terrific photo shoots.”¦I don’t blame her and her label for pushing that forward. Why wouldn’t she?” observes Gove.

For the most part, Benedetti appears to have happily gone along with the marketing blitz. She even recorded a set of ringtones last year—which includes excerpts from Havanaise by Camille Saint-Saí«ns, Meditation by Jules Massenet, and Contemplation by Johann Sebastian Bach—in the hope of gaining traction in the youth market. But in a telephone interview from Glasgow between concerts, Benedetti made it known that keeping the PR engine humming is not the most thrilling aspect of her job.

“I think all these kind of things which can sometimes be snubbed by classical musicians”¦is a very small price for me to pay. When I’m doing these things, I’m not thinking ”˜Whoop-de-doo, I’m going to have my picture taken.’ To be honest, having my picture taken is not something I enjoy that much.”

Benedetti has stated many times that she will not be going down the path of crossover artists such as ?Vanessa-Mae (the cover art for her 1995 debut album, The Violin Player, had her emerging from the sea in a clinging, wet shirt) and British tabloid fodder Charlotte Church (a classical singer turned pop diva once billed as having “the voice of an angel”). But not everyone has this luxury. “I had a choice of contracts,” admits Benedetti, who clearly has the dream package of talent, looks, and marketability. “I could really sit and take my time and figure out what was best for me.” Other musicians, she says, are not always as fortunate. “People sometimes think the record contract is worth more than their self-worth, than their art and what they believe is actually good.”

But does the marketing work? While no music director likes to admit to booking artists solely on the basis of their looks and packaging, it does happen. “All orchestras like to be able to avoid a loss, and they promote artists who are able to sell tickets,” says Bramwell Tovey, conductor and musical director of the VSO. “We do occasionally promote headliners of dubious quality,” he goes on, then corrects himself. “No, that’s not true. We promote headliners of contemporary interest.”¦I think five years ago there was quite a crisis and the record companies began to tumble and this kind of phenomenon took over. You should see some of the gumf that I get sent. I probably get sent about a dozen to two dozen leaflets a week from agents, and you wouldn’t believe the talent we’re missing out on, if you believed all the hyperbole.”

Leila Getz, artistic director and founder of the Vancouver Recital Society, says she gets “tons” of unsolicited material. “It just goes straight in the garbage. And sometimes the glitzier the package, the faster it goes in the garbage. I’m always nervous when I see a pretty face.” But, she concedes, if a dazzling musician just happens to come with an equally dazzling physique, she’ll “play it up”.

It’s not just female artists who are being given the glam treatment. Take 23-year-old concert pianists Lang Lang and Yundi Li. They may be lauded as true talents, but Deutsche Grammophon has not been letting their careers rest solely on their musical prowess. They, too, have been branded—Lang Lang as the passionate, fiery extrovert, Li as the contemplative, introspective artist. Lang Lang is hawking Rolex watches; Li is endorsing Nike shoes. “The images that we get for Yundi Li and Lang Lang now are very different than they were a few years ago,” says Gove. “They’re highly stylized, they’re highly posed, they’re very, very ultraprofessional.”¦Lang Lang has gone out and lost weight, got a completely different haircut and a completely different style of clothing that he wears.” Gone are the images of a pudgy, smiling kid in tight turtlenecks and pleated beige slacks, replaced by fashion shots of a young metrosexual sporting designer duds, carefully tousled hair, and an affected air of casual nonchalance.

Li, who will be appearing with the VSO in April, says in a call from China that he’s only too happy to work with stylists and play with his image. “My image has changed a lot. Even myself, [I] have changed a lot.”¦Every month or two months I’ll change my hairstyle or see a new style, and I’ll want to change.” For album covers, he says, he joins forces with a stylist in addition to a photographer.

Which is where people like David Pay come in. “We’re in a world where you cannot escape marketing, and if you want classical music to be an integral part of that world, why in God’s name should it have to play by different rules?” he asks. “If you are a great young artist and you have some super-sexy photos, awesome,” he says. But “the marketing should only ever support the art. And when it turns into being about the marketing, that’s the slippery slope.”¦It’s extraordinarily unfortunate when slick marketing drives people to the concert hall and the concert doesn’t live up to it.”

Ultimately, the audience decides. While the public “sometimes has the wool pulled over their eyes”, as Tovey puts it, only the best can sustain long-term careers. “I do know of one very famous American orchestra this season that opened their season with one of these headliners who’s a world-?famous star who sings with a microphone,” Tovey confides. “The artist said, ”˜It’s a great honour to sing with the orchestra.’ And the manager said, ”˜You better enjoy it, because it’s the only time you’ll ever come.’?”

Due to the “unplugged” nature of classical music, there simply isn’t a lot of room for error. “At the end of the day, in our industry, you can’t be Paris Hilton,” acknowledges Braun. “As a live classical musician, you can’t get away just on the fact that you are beautiful. If you’re going to show up to an orchestra and play your concerto like crap, it’s going to be obvious.”

Still, Braun is careful to maintain appearances. She wants to craft an image that will be sexy but not provocative. At her upcoming photo shoot, she’ll try three different looks: casual jeans, a formal dress, and a sassy white suit. “If you have poor marketing, your product doesn’t sell,” she declares. “Why do we go to Starbucks instead of Tim Hortons? Because it’s cooler walking down the street with a Starbucks than it is with a ghetto Tim Hortons cup.”