Case Study of a Solo Artist: A Two-Part Series on a Solo Artist and their Award-Winning 2020 Album Release
Part I. Brand Essence in Music: The Vital Importance of Distinctiveness in the Career of a Classical Solo Artist
A two-part series featuring a four-part dialogue across three centuries between two composers, a pianist, and, of course, you, the listener.
Why brand matters for classical solo artists
The bread and butter of most performing classical artists today is music that’s at least a century old. To the modern listener outside the world of classical music, that makes symphony orchestras kind of like cover bands (written with apologies). And for those that frequent the concert hall, that means you’ve heard it all before.
Thus the particular importance of brand, and especially, distinctiveness, in the career of a classical artist. If you’re going to perform or record something that’s been performed thousands of times and recorded dozens if not hundreds of times, how will this time be different? How will it be better? In other words, how will it be distinct?
Distinctiveness matters more than ever. With the advent and proliferation of streaming services, we find ourselves able to access rivers of content and have it served up to us thoughtfully through curated playlists, fan podcasts, niche services, and so on. And we expect it to be cheap if not free.
To put it in concrete terms: if your Spotify subscription is $9.99 per month, you can listen to 720 hours of music for under $10. That works out to $0.014 per hour or $0.0002 per minute of music streamed. According to Statista, the actual amount that Spotify users listened to music, as of 2017, was 25 hours per month on average, up from 19 hours per month in 2015. That helps the math, but still works out to $0.40 per hour and $0.007 per minute: not a great hourly rate if you’re the performer, not least because you only get a fraction of that.
And even though digital audio represents a growth category for the future, a projection that bodes well for the music industry in general, the real revenue for most artists these days is in concerts, a medium decimated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With streaming, the audience is vaster, the long tail longer. But the double-edged sword of increased access to fans and potential fans is those fans’ increased access to the multitude of musicians. With vast amounts of music available, how does one succeed in the attention economy? How do you, the artist or music industry professional, take advantage of this growth in audio?
The questions here bring me back to that four-part dialogue across three centuries between two composers, a pianist, and you.
The Case Study: 2020’s “Debussy-Rameau” by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson
As in Economics, so in Art: The Mirror is the Thing
The album “Debussy-Rameau,” released by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson in March of 2020 was a bit of a revelation when I discovered it last summer. Ólafsson takes the keyboard works of two composers, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy, and intersperses selections from each across the album.
So what’s interesting about it? The traditional classical album typically features either works organized around a specific set of pieces by a single composer, e.g. the Piano Sonatas of Beethoven; or works organized around a theme, e.g. French art song. While the “Debussy-Rameau” album may be construed to fall under that second “thematic” category--in this case, “keyboard works by French composers”--both the idea and the execution of the album are, to my mind, much more inventive than that. It is an original idea, brilliant because it seems so obvious if only in retrospect. An economics professor at the Haas School of Business once said something to the effect of “you win a Nobel Prize for coming up with an idea that fits on the back of a napkin.” The concept here is that you’ve done the work and arrived at an insight that was previously unknown but ultimately inescapable, true, and elegant at the same time.
We’ve come now to the central point: whether in economics or music, the economist/artist helps us arrive at something simple and elegant by holding up a mirror to society, themselves, and us at the same time. They offer something distinct, something that is different and better than what came before it. Ólafsson has done such a thing here with this album.
The Line Blurs
A bit more on why, because what’s really so interesting about an album that features two French composers? What’s so interesting is that it is interesting. Jean-Philippe Rameau lived from 1683 to 1764, a contemporary, if slightly longer-lived one, of Johann Sebastian Bach. Claude Debussy lived two centuries later, from 1862 to 1918. But beyond their shared cultural identity (or perhaps national identity but the series of kings, Republics, and Emperors between the two renders me less certain as to the appropriate political nomenclature) they were also both composers known for their innovation in the use of harmony. Rameau wrote an entire treatise on the subject. Debussy expanded dramatically the harmonic landscape of music with his own advances, earning him the “Impressionist” label, much to his chagrin.
So here we have two French composers, both interested in exploring the bounds of the harmonic language of their respective times, and both capable of evoking very specific natural sounds and worlds. (Take as prime examples Rameau’s “Le Rappel des Oiseaux” or Debussy’s “Jardins sous la pluie,” evocative soundscapes both.) But what is most remarkable about this album is not just how effortlessly the pieces flow one from the other, but those moments when, for a fleeting instant, I’m not sure which composer I’m listening to. And that is striking. It speaks certainly to the ahead-of-their-time innovations of Rameau, but also to the fundamental insight Ólafsson had in coming up with this album idea: there is a direct line between Rameau and Debussy, the same way I hear a direct line from Schubert to Mahler, and there is something to explore in that direct line. Their similarities make their differences more pronounced even while they briefly blur together.
Ólafsson could have simply recorded an album featuring a selection of pieces by Rameau followed by another selection of pieces by Debussy. Here, we’d be able to see that same direct line Ólafsson heard when exploring the keyboard works of Rameau. But instead, Ólafsson elects to intersperse recordings of pieces by each: open with a piece by Debussy, follow with a few works by Rameau, a few more by Debussy, and so on. In this way, a conversation emerges between the two composers. When reflecting on why he used this approach rather than one piece by each composer at a time, I sense Ólafsson wanted to let each composer speak a while. It also allows us, the listener, to settle in a bit to the sound world of each composer—to understand, and to listen.
The Arc of Time
It’s tempting but misguided, I believe, to think of this as the musical equivalent of “what if we put these two interesting figures from history in a room together? What would they talk about?” One does get the sense that Ólafsson has selected the works in a manner suggestive of Rameau and Debussy meeting and sharing some of their favorite works. “Look what I can do with harmony!” “Ah, that’s wonderful. Now listen to this!” In this light, it’s an extended musical repartee of a rather high order.
But listening to this thoughtfully-curated collection of works gives one also a sense of history, a sense of the arc of time. That direct line between the two composers is of course not so direct; rather, one feels as if the curtains of time have been drawn back, individual moments pushed closer together in the fabric’s folds, and a window revealed.
And here’s where what Ólafsson has to say comes in. You get it from his programming, this album especially. But also from the arc of his album releases. Focusing on his releases under the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label, he starts with etudes (works that typically emphasize the performer solving a particular technical problem or challenge) by the contemporary minimalist composer Philip Glass. His next release jumps back several centuries with a curated selection of keyboard works by J.S. Bach. And from Bach to “Debussy-Rameau.”
His catalogue suggests someone less interested in going through the motions of recording the standard collected works and more interested in sitting with both standard and less familiar works, seeing them in new lights, and exploring whether those new lights might offer some new insights or joy in the works themselves. It suggests a patience, an overarching contemplative approach to music, one that echoes Monet and the time he spent with, if not the aesthetic of, his haystacks.
The juxtaposition approach certainly flirts with risky territory--think marketing gimmicks or attempts at being different for the sake of being different. But not in Ólafsson’s hands. His technical and musical artistry alone ensure the music is worth listening to, but the concept comes together beautifully, presented as it is with careful attention to color and line throughout.
Brand Essence, or The Art Comes First
Thus the central if obvious point: his art is his brand, but the art comes first. It’s not his technical prowess, his artistic sensibility, or his musical maturity, but rather their culmination alongside his unique view and appreciation for the breadth of music. This thesis leads us to the notion of brand essence, which we might define as the “enduring and internal-facing articulation of what the brand stands for…” that is, “the soul of the brand” (with credit to UC Berkeley Haas CMO and marketing professor Bill Pearce for the concept and definition).
The brand essence of Ólafsson as pianist, then, might be “contemplative precision,” where precision applies not simply to accuracy of playing but also clarity of thought, the sound that results, and the inescapable feeling that the listener has encountered someone with something to say. His promise to you, the listener, is that he will share music with you honestly and almost certainly with a fresh lens. You will hear something new or something old as if it were new. In marketing lingo, his target insight would be that he understands his listeners are craving not just something new but something presented with depth. He knows we crave respite from the exigencies of daily life. Thus, the True North for him is to consistently present old and new works in fresh ways that invite the listener in to a deeper listening experience, a deeper understanding of the music, and ultimately a deeper understanding of themselves.
And why is that important? How does a business-minded concept like “brand essence” matter to a musician? And how does it look from the perspective of the success of the artist and his team? It comes back to distinctiveness. To succeed as a performing musician, you have to perform. To perform, you have to get booked by venues. To get booked, you need to demonstrate that the venue will take on minimal risk in booking you. To do that, you need to promise “butts in seats.” And to promise those ticket sales, you need to compete in the attention economy, not just among other musicians, but other forms of entertainment. And to do that, you need to offer something unique. And that is the brand, which is his promise. With Ólafsson, at least for me, it is that promise of honesty and perspective, the certainty that I’ll hear something thoughtfully programmed and particularly well-executed. I’m left with either a moment’s respite, invited to share in his way of contemplating the broad arc of music, or perhaps a new lens to inspire my own exploration of music.
Once identified, this brand essence, this promise, this “contemplative precision” in my estimation, it is the job of the artist’s team to cultivate and market that brand. Of course, your primary targets are those who manage the concert hall’s season programs and book the venues, but also the fans whom you hope to excite to come to the performance.
The programming and its marketing, then, should follow from his brand, his promise, his True North. Accompanying visuals, videos, promotional materials can (and do) emphasize his thoughtfulness, his creativity, his curiosity, his boldness… that is to say, his art. And those to whom one should be marketing are precisely those who crave the deeper listening experience. Certainly classical music fans in general and pianists in particular, but as we’ve seen with his collaborations, fans of other music genres who are similarly drawn to the contemplative precision he exudes. In the case of Ólafsson, we see this through the albums he’s released, including the “Reflections” companion album that follows “Debussy-Rameau” with additional tracks that follow the contemplative journey a bit further and in new musical directions. But even as he stretches his brand into other genres, it works because it still fits within his broader brand essence, his promise, and his True North.
Coda: Blurring Art and Brand
One might get a bit of whiplash from his journey, and I suspect lesser artists than his brilliant manager Tugce Tez or his producer at Deutsche Grammophon Christian Badzura might have. But it is the journey of someone exploring something deeply. It is the journey of someone looking at old things in a new way. This artist’s journey is most compelling in its thoughtfulness, and the depth to which it explores an idea. That thoughtfulness, that depth, offers a necessary salve to the existential shallowness that can so easily pervade our rhythms, not least during a pandemic when many of our normal rhythms blurred together under the shadow of anxiety and duress.
The Debussy-Rameau album, then, represents a bit of a metaphor for Ólafsson’s approach to music and his career. Ólafsson’s success (225M+ streams and 320k albums sold) speaks to the importance of distinctiveness, whether in branding or in art. But it is the cultivation of that distinctiveness that matters for the artist to be known and therein lies the key task of the manager. When successful, the distinction between brand and art blurs, as they have here with Mr. Ólafsson and his supremely compelling “Debussy-Rameau.”
Stay tuned for the next post, which features an interview with Tugce Tez, the manager who began working with Ólafsson in 2014 and who developed the strategy that fostered Ólafsson’s growth into one of today’s preeminent classical solo artists.