Markus Wyler has made his name in the classical music industry in various roles including music management, advisory roles, dramaturg, publications manager and opera language coach. A close partner of Classeek, Markus joined the Ambassador roster, offering invaluable knowledge and support to artists of our programme. 

Music Manager & Dramaturg

Markus Wyler

This is probably the question of questions. Or actually, there are two important issues to consider: how far might the sponsor exert his influence on the work of art, and in what way should he benefit from it?

Concerning the first, I think that the sponsor or patron should have the right to outline what he is prepared to pay for and be informed as to use of his money as well as the design of the work.

He should however not interfere with the actual form or content, nor must he put the artist under pressure. Should van Gogh decide to paint sunflowers, the sponsor should not oblige him to paint water lilies. Should Beethoven choose to write a great symphony with soloists and orchestra, the sponsor should not demand a ballet instead. Svyatoslav Richter did presumably not require your advice as to how to employ the pedal in a Chopin prelude.

And of course there is always the difference between commissioning and sponsoring a work of art. To sponsor means to generously provide means that enable a project or a talent to emerge.

I suppose this requires a great amount of knowledge and common trust between the partners. It might be advisable to outline wishes, or even conditions of the sponsor before the work is actually commissioned or the artist begins to work. Maybe the sponsor needs some guidance in order to formulate his ideas and to find something that will give him pleasure to fund. True sponsorship is something very personal and involves not only finances but also enthusiasm, interest and an emotional attachment. This, by the way, is one of the ideas Classeek stands for: if you feel the urge to support the arts but do not know how to go about it or what to sponsor, we will try and give you individual advice. For one thing, on this platform you can find artists and projects that are recommended by experienced specialists and which you might normally not be aware of.

Many young talents simply require sponsorship for the great investment they need to make into their profession: make photos and create a website, buy a decent concert dress or an instrument, travel to auditions or take part in masterclasses. More often than not, they simply need to cover their living costs while studying, practising and rehearsing. In short, there are countless ways of sponsoring artists and new works of art, and any kind of sponsorship is always welcomed with deep gratitude.

How much you yourself might expect to benefit from your sponsorship is another philosophical question that will become the topic of another blog.

How much will you get out of it?

Sponsoring the arts

I am presupposing, of course, that we all agree upon the fact that we actually

the arts - otherwise you would probably not be surfing around this site. And there is probably indeed a common consensus in most countries that the arts have a right to exist and must constantly develop.

The discord arises, however, upon the question as to how much the arts may cost and who should pay for them. In the capitalist world it is usually claimed that those who consume culture should also pay for it. But if we assume that culture has higher goals than simply providing entertainment and since to attain any standard of excellence requires an immense investment in time, effort and manpower, it very soon becomes clear that most cultural events can hardly ever cover their costs.

For instance: an average opera house has around 1000 seats. If you produce an opera like "Aida" there, you will require roughly 80 musicians in the pit, 6 specialist trumpet players who appear on stage for five crucial minutes, a harp player back stage, a chorus of 80, a corps de ballet of 20, a conductor, 8 soloists, 20-30 supernumeraries, a children's ballet, a large stage crew and artistic personnel. Really, only the employment of elephants and horses is at the producer’s discretion.

Even to perform the opera once, all these people will need to work full-time for four to five weeks. Carpenters, metal workers, painters, sculptors, props and armoury specialists, seamstresses and milliners turn the set and costume designs into reality. The performance needs to be publicized, marketed and put on sale. On performance day the theatre will provide box office and front of house personnel, someone controlling the supertitles (translated and programmed by the dramaturgy department), make-up artists and dressers, a backstage assistant conductor and at least one choirmaster in duty, stage hands and a lighting crew, cooks in the canteen.

Assuming that in a middle-sized European city you can sell 8 to 10 performances of "Aida" at an average price in a season, it quickly becomes clear that ticket sales will never meet the production costs.You might ask why there is such a contradiction? I think because it is the wrong way of reasoning and because arts were never supposed to. The point of a great artistic achievement is that it is unpayable. And to find the people who have the talent so create them, to educate them and provide conditions which stimulate their talent is also very expensive since often the process takes years and the result is zero.

But this has always been the case since the arts came about. Moreover, the higher standards rose, the more funds had to be invested. In fact, I would stipulate that once a work of art covers its costs it inevitably turns into a commercial enterprise: you either compromise on quality in order to make it affordable, or you exclude a large number of possible audiences by charging a "realistic" price, thereby abandoning much of the mission and intent of the arts.

Throughout history, great works of art were always commissioned and largely paid for by patrons, in earlier centuries particularly by the church and people of higher standing, later also by governments. They were thrilled about enabling the creation of wonderful new works, they felt an obligation to support the arts and obviously took pride if some of the success rubbed off on themselves.Today, the patronage of arts is no longer limited to cardinals, kings or ministries of education and culture. It is open to everyone and you are heartily invited to join.

Just imagine if thanks to you a new Mozart-Requiem could be written, a Sistine Chapel built and adorned, a Margot Fonteyn discovered, a "Carmen" rehabilitated, a Bach rediscovered.

Great art cannot exist without your support. But if you are honest, I think you will have to admit that neither will you find fulfilment in life without truly great art.

Strangely, I have not heard many voices claiming the same regarding sport although in that field too there exist a huge amount of public funding - and thereby by people who do not consume it - whereas the amount of money generated is far higher and consequently, one might as well wonder whether sports should be far less.

Your ticket didn't pay the opera star

How much would you pay?

The funny thing about social networks is that they are an oxymoron as ever there was one: They are totally unsocial because you communicate with a machine, not real people and therefore cut yourself off from interaction with the real world. And many of them no longer function as structures where communication works in two directions – between yourself and your partners. Social networks are becoming one-way channels for powerful advertisers while you turn into a helpless recipient, or an outlet for weirdos dumping their personal trash.

But the good news is that this is why we are here on Classeek, and yes, I do have a facebook page, and I am on linkedin and twitter.

Social networks are wonderful means of learning new things and keeping in touch, especially for those whose friends and families are far away. Naturally, this applies to musicians who have different working hours from most people, who travel and need to be alone a lot. Or to keep updated with what their artistic and business partners all over the world are doing. Or maybe you are a music student on a distant continent and would like to keep in touch with what goes on in, say, Europe.

But please remember to partake of the real world from time to time: go and talk to real people, give someone a call to hear their voice, go outside and look at the wonders of nature, take a book or a real score into your hands (have you ever touched an 18th century manuscript? Have you ever seen Bach’s, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s handwriting?? NOT in the internet but in the British Library, for instance).

Use the social networks, by all means, but do not clog them up with millions of holiday photos and the croissants you are just having for breakfast. Or at least decide which network you use for what: Instagram for croissants, Classeek for your music!

Most people have no time and patience… are you actually still reading this…? You see! Nowadays, we want to be sure to find the information we are looking for quickly!

Be well aware of what you post. Nowadays, many employers skim the web and look in what shape they find you there before they think about giving you a job. It is not going to help if you argue that they tracked down only a digital, momentary print and not the real you. They might not know the difference…

Social networks

More than just croissants and beach photos

The other day I was talking to the colleagues at Classeek about what a CV should look like. I like to tell myself that over the years, I have become the master of masters over all CVs. I have indeed seen practically all imaginable CVs and have probably written most of them - at Zurich Opera between 10 and 40 per week for more than a decade, whereas I still translate, edit, rewrite and write dozens of them for my various projects – earlier this year around 90 for the Trans-Siberian Art Festival...

Sometimes I am quite proud of my abilities as a writer of CVs. For the Trans-Siberian Art Festival last Spring, for instance, I had to edit and translate from Russian into English a CV of a leading Tuvan overtone singer who excels in five styles of throat-singing. Apart from being puzzled by the fact that no one could tell me for sure what was the gentleman’s first and what his last name was, it took me some time to research the intricacies of overtone singing and how to translate them. In the end I discovered that most of the Tuvan names of the different styles are simply transliterated when written in English, so this particular problem was resolved quite easily.

In general, I have noticed one particular thing: a curriculum is a living organism and changes its shape all the time – like Barbapapa…! It starts with practically a few lines at the beginning of your career when you have nothing much to tell. As your career develops, your CV grows and grows accordingly: you gradually fill in every master class you attended, every city and country you played in, every foundation that gave you money, every recording you made (labels, musical partners and detailed programme included), every radio and TV programme that featured you, every award you won (and what for). And of course all orchestras, conductors and chamber music partners you ever played with, preferably in alphabetical order so that noone can get offended and bar your future career.

One day you realize that most people stopped reading your CV and that you yourself can no longer keep the inventory of orchestras, conductors, festivals and awards in order, that even you have lost count by now.

So you start reducing. You cut it down, summarize, focus on milestones and moments that truly meant something to you, cut out details – until it is about as short again as at the outset of your career...

For some reason, costume designers are masters in brevity. I remember a bunch of them whose CV consisted of one single sentence, maybe two. It was surprising but it worked.

The trouble about CVs is that you must constantly revise them, keep them up-to-date and make them appropriate for every individual occasion. Take your time to think about it – it is one of the small things that let audiences and organisers remember you favourably.

Think of what might be relevant to a particular country, hall or genre. If you are going to play chamber music, you might focus on that part of your work and shorten the part about orchestra concerts. If you play in a particular place, it will be appreciated if you elaborate on something relating to that area.

Try to write it up in a slightly different way and avoid endless (and totally boring) lists of names. However, do not try to be exaggeratedly funny and quirky – some promoters might not appreciate that and change your text completely.

Try to be short or ask beforehand how much space they foresee – otherwise your novel will be cut down to a short story or worse, mere snippets – and you might be disappointed with the editor’s work. For commodity on electronic devices brevity is also advisable.

Don’t invent things because you feel you have nothing of importance to say. The secret is to remain short, generic and sometimes vague enough to discreetly pass over some gaps in your career.

Check the proper spelling of people, orchestras and venues – out of respect for your colleagues. And do not trust presenters. They might not translate it properly or print your text one-to-one, without proofreading, and once published, your CV might turn out to be an embarrassment for you.Try to be generic and general – the text will age less quickly and spare you some rounds of revision.

Americans are in more of a hurry than Europeans, so they invented the system of writing the newest things first and facts like where you are from and where you studied at the very bottom. As you will have guessed I find this tiresome and annoying – I am always grudgingly scrolling down pages after pages in search for the one paragraph that tells me whether Mr N.N.-ov is in fact from Bulgaria, Moldavia, Russia or the U.S.A. and – since he is so brilliant – with whom and where he studied.Somehow I find this more interesting than to be told that he went on tour to Germany last month. And my brain feels far less hot when a text starts with the beginning and finishes with the end, rather than starting with the end and leaving the top waiting at the bottom.

Unfortunately, the writing of your cv is a task you cannot shun even though you might hate it. My basic advice is: be conscientious about your CV. First of all, it adds to the overall good impression you want to create (if you are taking your profession seriously) and secondly, you yourself will be pleased if what is written about you sounds decent and to your own liking.

And - as I mentioned before, in digital times things get spread around very quickly, so you are better off if the facts are right.

How to write a CV

What to include and what not to

Ok, so they’re usually biassed and certainly the methods of evaluation and marking always have their flaws. And the jurys end up in rows, while audiences are offended that their particular favourite was not given the prize they consider proper.

But I like to listen to my venerable great-aunt, Dame Fanny Waterman, founder and year-long chairman of the legendary Leeds International Piano Competition (prize winners include Rafael Orozco, Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, András Schiff, Louis Lortie, Boris Berezovsky, Lars Vogt). She has Yorkshire grass-roots and simply says "What’s the alternative?".

As a person who devoted most of her 97 years (and still is!!) to furthering piano playing and music on all levels and ages and who has seen the world’s greatest competitions from the inside for decades, she sees this business in a sober way: in her words, competitions are the best alternative to our modern age’s lack of wide-spread patronage by royalty or the church, who in olden times furthered talent and thus enabled a life in music.

If there weren’t competitions, how would you be able to draw attention to yourself, where would you be able to present yourself to a considerable number of leading performers, conductors, managers, promoters and eager listeners all sitting in one hall? Where indeed would you get a chance to perform a series of programmes, solo recitals and concertos, in front of a curious audience? Who would let you play with a renowned orchestra and conductor (without a generous bribe)?

Dame Fanny’s view is that "a competition reflects your decision that this is the moment when you are ready to take the risk. Have you got the courage? Are you prepared not to succeed where you had hoped and are you going to be put off completely by the result, or should your attitude be: I’ll show them…? The jury are not listening for mistakes. They’re listening, waiting and hoping for some magic, something that you are saying that is different from the competitor they have heard before."

I tend to agree with Dame Fanny, in spite of all shortcomings of competitions. See them as a unique showcase, see them as a moment of defiance, a moment when you test your nerves and stamina. By enrolling, you force yourself to learn a certain repertoire and bring it up to performance level within a defined period of time, you train yourself to go out on stage, to fight against many, if not all odds.

If you brave a competition, you can defy anything! Having regularly gotten through various stages of a competition lets you take adverse situations lightly: you will be able to play while feeling totally ill, when the lights unexpectedly go off (or mobile phones!!), when a patron in the audience collapses while you need to get to the end of a late Beethoven sonata, when your dress pops open on stage or when (what normally only happens in nightmares) you forget the music you are playing... Bad reviews or half-empty halls, creaking pianos and broken strings, insecure conductors and insensitive partners – nothing will prevent you from delivering an inspired, beautiful performance.

Having gone through the artificial set-up and heightened stress of competitions, you are practically shock-proof! And you needn’t win! I myself for instance prefer going to second rounds and semifinals and come to a decision of my own. And have made wonderful discoveries in the process. So even if you don’t win, people will hear you and who knows, some might be important and just make the difference.

But don’t forbear with that winning spirit…! Always go in with the conviction that only you are worthy of the First Prize and fight your way through to the end! Every time you go on stage you should feel the same kind of adrenalin and energy. You have to win your audience every single time you go out there.

Sense and nonsense of competitions

Winning the audience

I grew up in a world where one thought that if you practise enough you will have a career. And if you didn‘t have a career you simply hadn‘t practised enough, so sit down and practise!

However, after 25 years in the business (and mostly on the organiser’s side of things) I have understood that this is not the case, unfortunately. Also, I suspect that it was never how major careers actually got shaped but in pre-digital days and from the point-of-view of ordinary people it was very difficult to imagine that it could be otherwise. In many ways we were far more innocent then. After all, we believed what we read in the newspapers and what we saw on television.

Today, it is clear to me that to make a career – in music or elsewhere – you do indeed require the basics: talent, devotion, the ability to sit down and stay at it for endless hours, patience and endurance, favourable surroundings, encouragement.

But you must look beyond your music-making and keep your eyes open: You must be endowed with large portions of astuteness, independent thinking, self-confidence and… diplomacy. You should be organised, reliable, know languages and used to travelling through different countries and cultures. And you should not mind spending hours after hours on your own.Like a good friend of mine, excellent Spanish composer and pianist Antoni Parera Fons, says "I am never bored. I love being on my own thinking thoughts to myself. It is the most wonderful pastime."  Above all you should love music and your instrument, no matter what your career is doing. You should never force yourself to play only because somebody told you so. The audience can hear this. It immediately reacts to a musician that is not inspired. To put it bluntly: if you feel no vocation, you are not making real music. And you should not be making music professionally.

But you must also have the humility to understand and accept the fact that you might not be made for a professional career in music, for whatever reason. Or that you are maybe not made for a stellar career (who is?) but for „only“ an ordinary one that keeps you in the profession, lets you earn a living (more or less) and allows you to spend your days doing the thing you enjoy most.

Like in all aspects of life, you will unfortunately not be able to influence that crucial factor, luck: to find the right teachers, those who inspire you, those who can help you – those who will help you selflessly, those that will give you the right advice. And most importantly: the chance to be in the right place at the right time.

You can, however, work on things that might pave the way once you have indeed encountered a spell of luck, things that might help you unlock some doors that take you further on your way.

I would like to write about some of the things that in my experience have proven important and that are evidently often not taught to aspiring musicians. Or ignored by them. Many will be questions (me too, I like thinking my thoughts) rather than answers. But they might give you some helpful insights when thinking your own thoughts about music and your career.

Discover, Follow and Support Talent Globally

Markus Wyler

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