"Welcome to Shorworld": the rise of wealthy dilettante composer Alexey Shor

[Brian]

Well, this is an engrossing read.
https://van-magazine.com/mag/alexey-shor-kononenko-ishkhanov-russian-influence-classical-music/

Alexey Shor is an apparently Saul-like composer of derivative new music with simple harmonies and blandly inspirational moods. (WA Mozart might like his music!) He's also a multimillionaire, and he has partnered with a Russian oil and gas baron, Russian "cultural attaches," and Russian performers like Mikhail Pletnev and Evgeny Kissin to spread his music far and wide around the world.

Some of the highlights of this long read:
- a Dubai-based piano competition that appears rigged in favor of the jurors' students
- another piano competition that requires the winner play Shor's music at every stop on their next tour
- a conductor's job being saved by a petition from Greco-Roman wrestlers
- Malta's buy-a-passport scheme
- loads of performers who play Shor's music, including Steven Isserlis, James Ehnes, and Gautier Capucon, declining to comment on why they do it
- a photo credited to "Reanu Keeves"
- famous dossier compiler Christopher Steele
- videos of Shor's compositions so you can judge them for yourself

Additionally, if you're curious about albums featuring Shor, there are a surprising number.



The conductor on the Naxos album is a minor character in the article.

[(poco) Sforzando]

(WA Mozart might like his music!)

This is why Mozart wrote "A Musical Joke."

[Karl Henning]

Socially fascinating. 

[Florestan]

Alexey Shor is an apparently Saul-like composer of derivative new music with simple harmonies and blandly inspirational moods. (WA Mozart might like his music!)

For a while, I didn't get your joke and took your comment literally. It's just when I was in the middle of writing a reply that I suddenly got what, or rather who, you really meant. 

[Florestan]

Immediately following the performance, the musician who played Shor in Dubai two years ago swore that he would never play the composer's work again. "I did it once for the good money," he said, "but in and of itself, it's just too shitty."

Then he was asked to perform another handful of Shor concerts. The combination of high fees, low required practice time, passive peer pressure, and broad funding freezes for classical music performances meant that the musician felt unable to say no. He performed the work twice more, in Europe this time, for the same fee and with the same uncanny feeling: that reaching audiences with excellent performances wasn't quite the point. Would he do it again in the future? "Hopefully," he said, "that won't be necessary."

This guy is a coward and a hypocrite, a far more obnoxious person than both Shor and Ishkanov taken together.

[AnotherSpin]

From an article: "In Vladimir Putin's Russia, classical music has served as a potent tool of influence, though a more subtle one than troll farms, election inference, and disinformation. In 2014, Putin signed a decree encouraging the use of music to strategically "encourage a positive image of Russia on the international level." What a surprise! However, isn't even this forum an opportunity for interesting observations?

I listened to Alexey Shor on Qobuz. Repulsive. Nevertheless, we can look at this story more broadly. Are we not told permanently that the ordinary and invisible are no different from the best and most talented? Aren't mediocrities now given the same opportunities as geniuses? After all, if mediocrity is not given its due, it may take offence, whereas what does it matter to genius? The genius is already mad, creating not for common people, but for who knows who. The common people, they don't understand them. But a composer who writes music that can easily be hummed by any passerby is another matter. This is a sign of the times: mediocrity creates for mediocrity, everyone is equal, everyone is included, and everyone now has the right to be heard.

Somehow, I'm not surprised that Pletnev allows himself to be used. A slimy, spineless character.

[(poco) Sforzando]

"Multiple musicians pointed out that Shor's work reminds them of music composed by artificial intelligence." This, I think, does a disservice to artificial intelligence. After hearing Shor's 4th Violin Concerto (sad to say, there are more), I do indeed think it a work worthy to be placed alongside the best of Saul. It is somewhat shocking however to hear Shor's work played by a violinist as qualified as Daniel Lozakovich, whose Tchaikovsky concerto is one of the best I've heard. Shor must pay well. But note that Daniel hasn't memorized this music, as if to say he's doing little more than sight-reading and couldn't bother to memorize this garbage.

[Cato]

"Multiple musicians pointed out that Shor's work reminds them of music composed by artificial intelligence." This, I think, does a disservice to artificial intelligence. After hearing Shor's 4th Violin Concerto (sad to say, there are more), I do indeed think it a work worthy to be placed alongside the best of Saul.

Now THAT was funny!



For those who cannot understand the reference to "Saul," Saul Dzorelashvili is a former member here, who had a very modest musical talent, hindered perhaps by an obsession with Mendelssohn, whose music, Saul believed, could never be bettered, except for his pieces, which were usually imitative of Mendelssohn's style.


From 2010!

October 19, 2010, 06:29:31 AM

I agree that Sforzando has, together with Luke some time back, provided genuinely helpful critique from which Saul might have profited. greg has also weighed in to try and clarify the thinking on key shifts.

Saul has taken marginal aspects of these remarks on board, but really, if anyone thought that he was about to rush off for formal composition classes, well....you are now I hope completely disabused.

The underlying attitude is not one of teachability and I again therefore ask, rhetorically, to others not specified above; why bother to repeat earlier ignored remarks? Some have fallen into the trap of direct insult.

While it is true that everyone is entitled to post here, I am getting the impression from some posters that they embark on a parallel exercise to entering into a vegetarian restaurant and insisting that meat be served; then persisting with the futile campaign when the owners are obdurate.

I am locking this thread for now and I will be tidying away a few intemperate posts that have been reported and perhaps some that have not. Even if someone is a fool, saying so explicitly here is against the rules.

Knight

See also:

https://www.music-discussion.com/showthread.php?tid=6718

[Brian]

Are we not told permanently that the ordinary and invisible are no different from the best and most talented? Aren't mediocrities now given the same opportunities as geniuses? ... This is a sign of the times: mediocrity creates for mediocrity, everyone is equal, everyone is included, and everyone now has the right to be heard.

This is an unusual circumstance because the mediocrity here is wealthy and purchased its opportunities. It's even paying for soloist competitions to reward other kinds of artist for their loyalty to the mediocre man in charge. So while I take your "everyone is equal" point in the artistic sense, Alexey Shor's "equality" as an artist was purchased with his millions.

[Karl Henning]

I love the trenchant understatement of knight's The underlying attitude is not one of teachability

[AnotherSpin]

This is an unusual circumstance because the mediocrity here is wealthy and purchased its opportunities. It's even paying for soloist competitions to reward other kinds of artist for their loyalty to the mediocre man in charge. So while I take your "everyone is equal" point in the artistic sense, Alexey Shor's "equality" as an artist was purchased with his millions.

Obviously, here mediocrity buys talents to perform its opuses. On reflection, this is more of a plus than a minus. It's much worse when mediocrity is pushed forward for free, simply because that's the current trend.

[Karl Henning]

I'm thinking Valley of the Dolls. 

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Well, this is an engrossing read.
https://van-magazine.com/mag/alexey-shor-kononenko-ishkhanov-russian-influence-classical-music/

Alexey Shor is an apparently Saul-like composer of derivative new music with simple harmonies and blandly inspirational moods. (WA Mozart might like his music!) He's also a multimillionaire, and he has partnered with a Russian oil and gas baron, Russian "cultural attaches," and Russian performers like Mikhail Pletnev and Evgeny Kissin to spread his music far and wide around the world.

Some of the highlights of this long read:
- a Dubai-based piano competition that appears rigged in favor of the jurors' students
- another piano competition that requires the winner play Shor's music at every stop on their next tour
- a conductor's job being saved by a petition from Greco-Roman wrestlers
- Malta's buy-a-passport scheme
- loads of performers who play Shor's music, including Steven Isserlis, James Ehnes, and Gautier Capucon, declining to comment on why they do it
- a photo credited to "Reanu Keeves"
- famous dossier compiler Christopher Steele
- videos of Shor's compositions so you can judge them for yourself

Interesting to read Van Magazine's own confession to having taken paid advertising from the composer.

The article left me wondering; how much--or how little--things have changed in terms of funding for the arts and artists over the years?  You have enough money?  You can hire certain artists to perform for you and your buddies...or as part of a wedding festival.  Do politics matter? 🧐

PD

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Nothing unique about being a "wealthy dilettante composer." Before there was Shor, there was this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nanes

[(poco) Sforzando]

This is an unusual circumstance because the mediocrity here is wealthy and purchased its opportunities. It's even paying for soloist competitions to reward other kinds of artist for their loyalty to the mediocre man in charge. So while I take your "everyone is equal" point in the artistic sense, Alexey Shor's "equality" as an artist was purchased with his millions.

This is similar to wealthy Gilbert Kaplan conducting Mahler 2 with no experience in conducting.

I did hear him do it live in London once, and he did hold it together. But how much of that was the orchestra's contribution, I don't know.

[Karl Henning]

did hear him do it live in London once, and he did hold it together. But how much of that was the orchestra's contribution, I don't know.

Indeed, a good orchestra can manage even if there is an orangutan at the podium. They won't be Orpheus Chamber Orchestra tight, but they'll keep it together.

[(poco) Sforzando]

a former member here, who had a very modest musical talent

I'm sorry, but I think that statement unjust towards anyone who genuinely possesses a very modest musical talent.

[NumberSix]

Indeed, a good orchestra can manage even if there is an orangutan at the podium. They won't be Orpheus Chamber Orchestra tight, but they'll keep it together.

Orpheus are the ones with no official conductor, yes?

[Florestan]

Nothing unique about being a "wealthy dilettante composer." Before there was Shor, there was this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nanes

And before there was Nanes, there were Benedetto and Alessandro Marcello, Tommaso Albinoni, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia and Mikhail Glinka. That their music is infinitely superior to that of Nanes and Shor is evidence for the fact that back then dilettante was actually a term of praise, not abuse.   

[Karl Henning]

Orpheus are the ones with no official conductor, yes?

Correct.