We love Katherine Jenkins? Options

[vectistim]

A friend of mine pointed me at: http://stevesilverman.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/1046/
Which prompted me to go and have a refresher look at welovekatherinjenkins.blogspot.com but all the posts on there have disappeared.
Did someone have lawyers waved at them or something?

[KTViola]

A friend of mine pointed me at: http://stevesilverman.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/1046/
Which prompted me to go and have a refresher look at welovekatherinjenkins.blogspot.com but all the posts on there have disappeared.
Did someone have lawyers waved at them or something?

I think someone waved the Daily Mail at them. Which probably amounts to the same thing. And for what it's worth, according to my 'friend of highly reliable friend' sources, the Mail outed entirely the wrong person.

Which is probably par for the course as well!

[Victoria Clarke]

The Daily Maul has shut the We Love Katherine Jenkins blog spot, because no one is allowed to have an opinion any more.

A friend of mine pointed me at: http://stevesilverman.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/1046/
Which prompted me to go and have a refresher look at welovekatherinjenkins.blogspot.com but all the posts on there have disappeared.
Did someone have lawyers waved at them or something?

I think someone waved the Daily Mail at them. Which probably amounts to the same thing. And for what it's worth, according to my 'friend of highly reliable friend' sources, the Mail outed entirely the wrong person.

Which is probably par for the course as well!

[minimum]

So do people love Katherine Jenkins?
I personally think she is a good role model for young girls and I also thought Charlotte Church was too. Pity the press have to sensationalise their private life, I would love to read their stories of childhood and family background regarding their study. Even at a CofE school my daughter is asked to sing pop songs in assembly rather than opera or folk or classical, which she prefers. How can children of today learn from these people if all they hear about is the latest split up from boyfriend story.
I hate the media - Rant over.

[GMc]

What leads schools to go for the lowest common denominator though - it is the staff and their expectations. Lack of rigour (imagine Mrs Carey putting up with her music scholars opting out of choir/orchestra for heavens sake - she managed to get the whole school singing classical music in the opera house.....).

Ours is an expensive and large school where this principal is the first ever not to be a nun and are very traditional in many ways - but they are still singing pop and kareoke style cabaret ( background tape as no one on staff appears to be able to accompany) exclusively at the one and only senior annual concert. And they have to make a choice between music, art or drama lessons at age 10. Its a joke and all to do with lousy expectations and staff (I would particularly blame the head of music and therefore the appointments committee who chose her and pay her a top rate salary for a fourth rate product).

[Dugazon]

I think she should do what she does best - classical crossover. I am not a fan, I think her technique isn't great, which is really audible when she moves into the trickier operatic stuff. I really can't listen to her overly darkened sound for too long (the standard recipe to sound "classical" in some people's minds), especially not when she tries to sing Rossini - her coloratura technique is non-existent, it really sounds quite awful.

However, as rosfrog says: Why begrudge her her success? On a side-note, she IS quite sensitive about (polemic) critique, as proven recently - problem is, if you show it as someone with her exposure, it just adds fuel to the fire, so I'd just ignore it if I were her. Maybe it just gets too much sometimes though, I wouldn't want to be in her place. I think people who have never had a performance career of any sort are always quick to judge - do it yourself for a while, and then we can talk again. If you don't understand the pressures of a performance career, maybe tone it down a bit. Yes, she IS lightyears away from being able to sing opera, but she does the other stuff reasonably well, and the audience obviously likes it.

I don't have a problem with Katherine doing what she does - I have a bigger problem with the media and public not being able to see the difference between an opera singer and a crossover singer. I believe it's them who made her an "opera singer", not Katherine herself. Maybe she buckles under the pressure of having to prove that she can do "the real stuff" (whatever that may be), and I don't think she is doing herself any favours on the occasions she attempts to. Do what you do best, quite simple really - but seemingly hard for a lot of people, not just Katherine.

Last but not least - we should be allowed to criticise. People do it on a daily basis with pop singers on talent shows - if you put yourself out there, you have to live with the critique, and the sooner you learn to handle it, the better. It would of course be nice if critique wasn't just fueled by the green-eyed monster and too personal. The latter has knowledge of the subject as a prerequisite though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[VH2]

Dugazon for Arts Minister, (based on her recent posts on this and several other threads and her good sense on other topics in the past).

[Tenor Viol]

Dugazon for Arts Minister, (based on her recent posts on this and several other threads and her good sense on other topics in the past).

I'm with Douglas Adams on this one - anyone who wants to be a politician should automatically be banned from holding office!

In Hitchhiker's he had the idea that only people who didn't want to be in politicis should do it. When elected, all their possessions and assets should be seized and taken into public ownership. Then when they leave office, the value of their assets is adjusted by the loss/gain their efforts have had on the economy and returned to them.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

[Cyrilla]

Dugazon for Arts Minister, (based on her recent posts on this and several other threads and her good sense on other topics in the past).

Hear, hear!!!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[HelenVJ]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) with Sop 101's comments above, re Simon Cowell's crass comments to Charlotte. Still, he's having a taste of his own medicine now, I suppose.

Re Ms Jenkins - the fact that a load of people go to her concerts isn't actually any indicator of quality, in my opinion. ( Sorry, my Inner Musical Snob can't help rearing its ugly head from time to time.) I believe Florence Foster Jenkins managed to sell out the entire Carnegie Hall with her random shots at the Queen of the Night etc. Mind you, I'm guessing a few people went along for a good laugh.

[AnnC]

An 18 year old male student said yesterday, "Well, she's not that good, is she? But then I don't suppose most blokes are actually listening to her anyway!" (Out of the mouth of babes, well, almost a babe...)

[GMc]

<<I don't see why singing pop and cabaret are somehow perceived as being less valid choices than singing other types of music, I'm afraid.>>

AndI never said they were less valid choices as part of a balanced program but in a school of 900+ plenty of whom are accomplished classical musicians (we see them at outside events) it is odd and concerning that the one and only annual concert has no serious classical content and the whole school has no orchestra at all. And that music becomes an option at age 10 not compulsory.

<<I would also question why no one on the staff is able to accompany these genres properly>>

Well, one could point out the glaringly obvious to the head (none of her regular staff can play the piano to a reasonable standard) but its clearly not a problem to her or HOM as they could easily afford an outside accompanist if they thought it was a priority. They have a general parent anonymous survey coming up and I was reserving my comments for that.