More About Social Media, Trust Economies, and Classical Music

Grace Nikae has just written a long response to some of the questions I posed regarding Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's ebook manifesto on emerging trust economies on the web. Grace's article is required reading for anyone in classical music that is the least bit interested in the redoubtable field and its encounter with technology. I couldn't agree more with the heart of her argument, which is that the underlying motivation for engaging with people through technology should be a personal and artistic vision rather than a desire to get more engagements or fill seats:

The death of any artist is the day they stop growing - the search should continue to the last day of your life, until the last breath you take. And of course, I don’t mean simply locking yourself up in a practice room and looking only at scores for the rest of your life - although there are many people who believe this is what is meant by growing and improving. One has to grow consistently as a human being, in all facets - emotionally, mentally, spiritually - because this is what will always color the lens through which one can perceive and understand humanity, and thereby deepen one’s relationship and understanding to the nature of music and art itself.