\u201cI probably underestimated how resistant some people would be to anyone presuming to think they had anything new to offer\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n
Juliana Farha, founder and MD of Dilettante Music<\/a>, was one of only two women from the classical music world to be picked for the new Cultural Leadership Programme\u2019s Women to Watch<\/a> list of 50 movers and shakers. We\u2019ve featured Dilettante here before \u2013 it\u2019s a lot more than just another website. You may remember their composition competition to find a composer in residence, and in my round-up of the most exciting classical music sites on the web<\/a> in the Jan\/Feb edition of Standpoint it came out basically tops. So I decided to ask Juliana a few questions \u2013 and got back, amongst other things, some home truths about the British music business and national priorities\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n JD: What do you think it is about Dilettante Music that stands out from the crowd and has helped to bring you to such attention?<\/em><\/p>\n JF: There are several elements that make the Dilettante site unique. First, there\u2019s the tone: the design, the editorial \u2018voice\u2019, and even the name make it clear that we\u2019re challenging some of the stereotypes about classical music, while also communicating our own love of the music and support for the people who make it. \u00a0<\/p>\n Second, the point of Dilettante is to bring musicians and listeners together, and it\u2019s the only site that has set out to provide compelling features for both. Musicians can upload their concerts and their newest recordings, which listeners can discover on the site. Listeners can post reviews, debate concert hall acoustics in our forums, and buy music and concert tickets.\u00a0We\u2019re also committed to broadening the audience and supporting young musicians and new work, and our Composer-in-Residence competition, which we launched last year to provide a year-long platform for a young composer on our site, is a good example of that.\u00a0Third, there\u2019s our revenue model: Dilettante is a business that presumes a somewhat altruistic motivation \u2013 namely, that registered members and casual visitors will choose to support our community of musicians and composers by using Dilettante to buy music and concert tickets from our retail partners. Of course, we\u2019ve added value through our price comparison tool, for instance, but the altruistic element is still there.<\/p>\n And finally: we\u2019re still here. I suspect that when I first started telling people about our plans for the site, they figured it was a dot-com fantasy that would disappear as fast as it had arrived. If so, they vastly underestimated our stubbornness. \u00a0 <\/p>\n JD: There are so few women in classical music on the list of 50 that one wonders why\u2026do you have any theories about why the classical music world is still so male-dominated?<\/em><\/p>\n JF: Let\u2019s face it: we live in a male-dominated world, and I certainly think that classical music remains the most traditional art form so it stands to reason that it would be slower to change than some other industries. While music-making is often very collaborative, of course, there\u2019s a strong sense of hierarchy within the structures of classical music and I think certain kinds of masculine behaviour signify \u2018leadership\u2019 in that sort environment.\u00a0Also, a lot of the classical music media is aimed at hardcore audiophiles because they\u2019re the people who spend money \u2018cultivating their collections\u2019, as we say in one of our adverts.\u00a0The profile of your average audiophile is older and male, of course, so\u00a0much of the dialogue consists of those people talking to each other. \u00a0 <\/p>\n JD: What does it mean to you to be on the list?<\/em><\/p>\n JF: I was utterly delighted to be on the list.\u00a0I\u2019ve been at this for several years now and it\u2019s often been tough, so the acknowledgement of what we\u2019re trying to achieve and what it\u2019s taken to get this far was really welcome.<\/p>\n While I certainly never expected anyone to embrace Dilettante as the saviour of classical music, I admit that I probably underestimated how resistant some people would be to anyone presuming to think they had anything new to offer. This sector is a pretty closed shop, and in order to stay true to your vision you really do have to make up your own rules, if you\u2019ll forgive the cliche. I think that\u2019s doubly true if you\u2019re a woman. I\u2019ve seen some other businesses launch in our industry \u2013 backed by big investment, and lots of swagger \u2013 that were received a lot more warmly than Dilettante has been, and yet those businesses certainly haven\u2019t proved to be more viable or visionary than Dilettante. Still,\u00a0I gave up banging my head against the gatekeepers\u2019 wall a long time ago, because it sucks up enormous energy and gives nothing back except a bad headache. Instead I\u2019ve focused on\u00a0people and organisations that are genuinely open to collaborating with us and to understanding what we\u2019re about, and fortunately there are lots of them. That\u2019s what\u2019s kept me going.<\/p>\n The other reason I was so pleased is because\u00a0I imagined the list would mostly be populated by women from charitable arts organisations, and I was right. Interestingly, I have it on good authority that there was a robust debate among the judges about whether being a private sector entrepreneur disqualifies me from being a \u2018cultural leader\u2019. I find that shocking on the face of it, but of course many people in the arts are squeamish about money \u2018polluting\u2019 culture. Still, I\u2019m struck by the irony that conceiving of how to support music and music-making, and then assuming significant risk to realise that conception, might disqualify a person from being recognised as a \u2018leader\u2019. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 JD: Where do you hope to go from here?<\/em>\u00a0JF: Well, there\u2019s lots still to do with Dilettante, both in terms of reaching new audiences and offering more to our users, so that will keep me busy for some time. In terms of a \u2018job\u2019, whatever I do will be driven by my conviction that we express and experience our humanity through culture, so it\u2019s vital that we support cultural output at every level. Recently, Simon Jenkins alleged that the arts need to make a better case for themselves. Perhaps he\u2019s right, but I\u2019m astonished at the bottomless pit of money that\u2019s apparently available to fight wars on whatever flimsy pretext, while funding for culture and even education are axed with relative ease. I call it \u2018bombs not circuses\u2019 \u2013 and I\u2019ll take the circuses, thanks. <\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n No related posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I probably underestimated how resistant some people would be to anyone presuming to think they had anything new to offer…” Juliana Farha, founder and MD of Dilettante Music, was one of only two women from the classical music world to be picked for the new Cultural Leadership Programme’s Women to Watch list of 50 movers and shakers. We’ve featured Dilettante here before – it’s a lot more than just another website. You may remember their composition competition to find a composer in residence, and in my round-up of the most exciting classical music sites on the web in the Jan\/Feb edition of Standpoint it came out basically tops. So I decided to ask Juliana a few questions – and got back, amongst other things, some home truths about the British music business and national priorities…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n