I am new here so please do not kill me if this is posted under the wrong category.
I remember liking Khozyainov during the first two rounds of the Chopin Competition back in 2010, and then not liking him as much during the Cliburn in 2013. I haven’t paid much attention to what or how he is doing for years, and then I recently came across this:
It is not my cup of tea. But I noticed that his videos get a lot of clicks, and he has quite a few followers on social media: 38K followers on YouTube, and 10K on instagram, a lot more than, say, Beatrice Rana, who also competed in Cliburn 2013, placed much higher, and now have a more successful career.
So how much does social media matter? Should young pianists spend time and energy developing their social media presence? I know some people think Mariinsky ballerinas with larger following on social media often get promoted more quickly. But for pianists things might be different?
I saw Khozyainov in an interesting programme of rarities earlier this year. I don’t like him that much as a pianist however. I didn’t think his technique was anywhere close to Rana’s. As to his social media, I follow him on fb nominally, although I never watch any of the videos. He seems like a likeable person but following blokes on social media seems a bit pointless to me, unless I like their playing. I follow Rana and think she instagrams very well, even if she doesn’t have many followers. Social media is a useful tool for a number of reasons; it gets your name out there, helps to keep people informed of your activities, but it also helps to build a rapport with the public.
Whether a pianist has a large social media presence or not is probably a function of their personality. For example, this kind of sharing seems to come easily to Rana, Levit and Khoreva. It’s fun for them, and not just a promotional tool. However, Lise de la Salle recently announced she would be closing all her social media and replacing it with a blog on her site (which no one will read) and Debargue has a fb page maintained by others and no instagram.
Incidentally, I don’t think Khoreva got promoted because of her instagram. She has a perfect ballet body, beautiful lines, strong technique and musicality too. She didn’t get 200k followers by slutting it like Lola. She’s a star. I was a lot more annoyed by Somova’s rise 10 years ago. Although now, I’m fairly indifferent. If anything the rapid promotion of Khoreva will make casual Mariinsky followers like me pay attention to the company again. In recent years, most of my attention has been on my “home” company, the POB, whose dancers are very present on social media.
I like Rana as a pianist and also enjoy her instagram posts quite a lot. It’s a mystery to my why she does not have more followers.
I agree that social media presence has a lot to do with one’s personality. While I like Rana and Levit’s willingness to share their activities on these platforms, and I would love to get updates from pianists I like, I also appreciate de la Salle and Debargue’s approaches. In Debargue’s case, I think it’s probably even a good thing that he does not have a “personal” social media account. While I do not always like everything he does, I also feel that sometimes critics write reviews based not entirely on his performance but on what they think he is. The kind things they say–“immaturity”, “just doesn’t understand things”, etc.–would probably just be “I don’t agree with this interpretation” if it were another pianist. But then I recall how after the competition the criticism used to be “no real technique” and “can’t play with others” I just fear if he posted non-work things these critics would probably start to say he should practice more and take more lessons.
(That said, if Debargue ever wants to do social media, he should go for it. Some critics are just going to write nonsense anyway and it probably does not matter what they write.)
I don’t think Khoreva’s promotion is undeserved. She is clearly talented and Mariinsky needs its new generation of stars. Some people I know however are upset that she has been out of school for only a few months and now she is already a rank above the likes of Shakirova.
This happens all the time in ballet, you can never please everyone with who gets promoted and who is held back. Even the “democratic” solution of the POB concours means dancers are held back “unjustly” (e.g. if there are no spots available at the next grade).
I just fear if he posted non-work things these critics would probably start to say he should practice more and take more lessons.