Ana Vidović: commitment

Transcript context

…What’s the best piece of economic advice you could give to a talented young person who wants to make classical music their career? Not musical advice — economic advice, like, don’t go on streaming, or give as many concerts as you can, or whatever. [laughs] That’s a very good question. When I started, the world looked very different. The world has changed, and today everything is online. It wasn’t like that when I started and when some of my colleagues started. Today, they really have to — actually all of us — we have to learn how to present ourselves online, and there are many, many different aspects of that world. From my own experience, I always wanted to have a touring career, so I focused on that. I didn’t focus so much on recording. I just wanted to be out there and perform as much as I can, so I did that. Then YouTube came, and I had to find a way how to present myself online. I don’t do too many online performances. I do a few because I still want to continue to perform and tour and play live for the audience because there’s nothing that compares to that. Online is great — you can present yourself to the listeners, but you still have to be successful performing live in front of people. Most of my performances online are live. They’re not prerecorded because I find that when you play live, this is who you truly are. There’s one take, and that’s it. It sounds natural, and that’s what I like to do, personally, but it’s everybody’s choice what they want to do. The only thing is that, of course, you have to make a living with this, so you have to learn the few tricks. They’re not tricks, but it’s just you have to find your way, to navigate. For me, still, number one thing is to always work on my ability, my craft, and I always want to get better because the audience, the listeners — they always expect more. Every time you perform, you have to be better. I respect my audience. They’re very loyal to me, and so I’m loyal to them, and I always try to do the best I can. That always comes first. Now, if I type your name into Spotify, only seven pretty short items come up. How do you think about that decision? Because streaming doesn’t pay much —…

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