It's rather interesting to hear all these personal anecdotes on meeting
artists backstage after a concert.

I, for one, don't usually have that habit.  I don't particularly like
to communicate with anyone while he is overwhelmed by tens or hundreds
of fans; these meetings usually mean little beyond the simple pleasantries.
If I want to meet them, I try to do it way in advance.  I guess I'm rather
lucky in that my work with a radio station and the local newspaper has
permitted me to meet (and chat) with several musicians, including
Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma, Cho-Liang Lin, Sabine Meyer, and Stephen
Hough, among others.  So far, my encounters with all of them -- yes,
including Mutter, surprisingly -- have been more than pleasant and almost
always musically enriching, but I would single out my meetings with Hough
and Lin to be the most memorable, to the point that we still actually keep
in touch!

But of course, if I know the artist, whether as a result of an earlier
interview or otherwise, I think it's only courteous to go backstage to
at least shake his/her hand and say 'Hi' or something, and nothing more.
After all, there are many other people waiting in line.

Apart from that, I keep my little detours to the backstage minimal, if
only to get autographs from artists whose CDs I happen to own...  but then
again, these days, I look at the queue of autograph-hunters and I just
don't bother sometimes.

Speaking of queues, another thing I truly resent is people who stop and
take tons of photographs with the performer -- for goodness' sakes, time
is very short, and too many people are waiting behind you while you strike
your poses!!

Thanh-Tam Le <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>When I was a kid, I once went backstage to meet Perlman -- I got an
>esoteric curve on a record, and when I asked whether he did some teaching,
>he said: "No." I did not get one more word, nor did I try to.

Not dissimilar was my encounter with Peter Donohoe (maybe he realised just
how awful the recital he had just given was), Pinchas Zukerman and his
piano partner, Marc Neikrug (both of them were far more chatty with the
young Chinese and Japanese girls, no kidding!  Especially Neikrug.)

Contrast this with Shura Cherkassky, who was here just a year before he
passed away.  What a wonderfully genial character that was -- he wanted so
much to chat to each and every one of his fans backstage, but his agent had
to hurry him along as he had a plane to catch.

>What is sure is that some people, who definitely do not have Mr.
>Schwartz's musical competency, love to boast about "knowing" the
>best-known musicians and like to prove it by behaving in a very casual,
>"old pal" way with them.

Oh yes, I can't agree more!  Here's a very funny incident I encountered
once:  a local female violinist (who is trying, rather unsuccessfully IMO,
to establish an international solo career) went backstage once to meet up
with violinist Augustin Dumay and cellist Jian Wang.  She went up to a
visibly-stunned Wang, called him by his first name, hugged him, and asked
if he remembered her.  Well, truth is, he didn't.  Then what ensued was a
very funny episode as she went on trying very hard to describe the lunch
they had together in New York, the things they talked about then, and so
on...  Wang still couldn't recall.  Very amusing.

>Attitudes are often eloquent enough -- starting a long, detailed,
>clinical account of how splendidly the pianist played the E flat at 3:55
>in the adagio is immaterial and tends to prove that you may well have
>missed the point.

Like I said before, overwhelmed by a mountain of fans backstage, I really
don't think anyone should use that kind of time going into specificities.
These should be done at more opportune moments, IMO, when the fans have
dispersed and if the performer still has time to entertain you after that.

Stephen Hough mentioned to me once that he hadn't much enjoyed mixing with
fans after concerts in Japan, because most of them were "note-spotters" and
wanted to know whether he had ever played Feux-follets and, if so, in how
many minutes and seconds...

Lionel Choi
Singapore
http://www.singnet.com.sg/~lionelc/dummies.html