A comment!

A comment! A comment!

Sorry, I love attention, and someone actually posted a comment in response to my last entry. I'm not the only person (other than my colleague Scott) reading my blog after all!

The writer points out that there were a lot of people other than Sara Sant'Ambrogio who were involved in making the video. Quite likely, most of the creative input came from others. Not to diminish either the credit she's due or her culpability, depending on one's point of view. She had to approve the whole thing.

Last night, after having written that post, I had dinner with two adult women classical musicians. Both are, well, disgusted by the trend to market classical instrumentalists as sex objects, and by the Eroica Trio in particular.

I must say that when the Eroica Trio played here at DePauw two or three years ago, I had the impression that the pianist, in particular, was uncomfortable with the whole thing. But that's the life they've chosen, and it has worked for them. It is interesting, how genuinely angry it makes some other musicians. (They gave an excellent master class, and the concert was very well received. The performances were admired by a wide range of professional musicans. I admired their skill, for sure, but found the whole thing to be hyper-vibrated. So I didn't really like it.)

One thing my dinner companions and I did agree on; the video does make Sara look a lot younger than she does in person. And so what? Models and movie stars get that treatment all the time, as the supermarket tabloids regularly show us by running candid photos. There's no question that Sara, who must be 40-something, is in great physical shape, of course. She has that in common with the almost-40 Joshua Bell, who I just learned is an avid bowler. I guess you take the boy out of Indiana, but not the Indiana out of the boy. Josh looks much younger than his years.

I just took a look at the websites of Josh Bell, Zuill Bailley (a cellist whom even a 70-something straight man described to me as the most handsome man he'd ever met), Gil Shaham, and Maxim Vengerov. In other words, four young or youngish, good-looking male string players. Only Vengerov has photos on his site that have clear sexual overtones (bedroom eyes in a few, and one in which he's actually lying--albeit fully clotherd--in bed). Shaham doesn't even have a website, just a listing on the IMG site.

If anyone knows of a male classical instrumentalist who is being marketed as a sex symbol/object as overtly as the Eroica Trio has been, or who has made a video as sexy as Sara Sant'Ambrogio's, let me know.

And feel free to write a comment, any comment!