Dear Associates:In my note to you on July 27, I said I would update you if we learned anything about rumors that Pershing Square, an activist hedge fund, was building a position in ADP shares. It is in that spirit that I wanted to inform you of some new developments.We heard from Pershing Square for the first time on August 1. Pershing’s CEO William Ackman informed me that his fund beneficially owns 8% of ADP, largely in the form of derivatives rather than common shares. He requested that ADP extend the August 10 deadline for nomination of directors to serve on the ADP Board by 30 to 45 days and said he planned to nominate five directors, including himself, to our 10-member Board. The Board subsequently rejected his request to extend this deadline based on its belief that this would not be in the best interests of ADP and our other shareholders.Our Board of Directors takes this matter very seriously and, in response, issued the press release you can see at this link.ADP takes great pride in maintaining an ongoing dialogue with our shareholders and is always open to their constructive input. Our Board and the executive committee are committed to acting in the best interests of our shareholders, clients and associates.As noted in the press release, Mr. Ackman also challenged my leadership of ADP. These criticisms are typical of activist hedge funds looking to get media attention and investor support for director nominations, and I urge you not to be distracted by them. We expect Pershing Square to continue to attack ADP and to nominate directors in the coming days, which will result in substantial media coverage. It is vitally important that we all stay engaged in our day-to-day responsibilities and 100% focused on the execution of our strategic plan. We must continue to “Win as One,” working relentlessly to simplify, innovate and grow our business.As I said before, we are entering fiscal 2018 with high confidence in our long-term strategy and planned investments in our products, services, and sales to capture market opportunities and deliver value for our customers. We are fortunate that ADP has a strong competitive position in our industry. The executive committee and our Board of Directors remain confident that the future is bright for ADP.As a reminder, associates should never comment publicly (including social media) about ADP’s business. If you receive a call from the media, please do not comment, and pass along the information to Andy Hilton at Andy.Hilton@adp.com or Michael Schneider at Michael.Schneider@adp.com. Similarly, if you receive investor calls, please send them to at Christian.Greyenbuhl@adp.com or Byron Stephen atByron.Stephen@adp.com.Thank you for your ongoing commitment to ADP and to our clients. This situation is likely to play out over many months and, as before, I commit to keep you updated as significant developments occur.Best regards,Carlos
Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
- EFII -32%, AAOI -24.6%, PI -21.7%, NGVC -21.3%, CFMS -20.8%, ABTL -20%, INFN -17.3%, GST -16.1%, MEET -12.2%, SYNA -11.2%, FLR -11.1%, CARB -9.6%, VIAB -9.6%, MELI -9%, BIO -8.9%, YRCW -8.6%, INFI -7.4%, CTRL -7%, NPTN -6.5%, APPN -6.4%, OVAS -6%, BGS -5.4%, VTL -5.1%, SMCI -4.8%, BNFT -4.6%, AXDX -4.3%, INTT -4.3%, HBM -3.8%, OESX -3.8%, ED -3.7%, NWL -3.7%, AG -3.5%, ACLS -3.4%, GRUB -3.3%, (GrubHub and Yelp (YELP) announce long-term partnership designed to capitalize on each company's unique assets and propel online takeout and delivery; GRUB to acquire Eat24 for 287.5 mln in cash ), HTGC -2.9%, UEIC -2.8%, VVUS -2.7%, RLJ -2.3%, AL -2.3%, PBPB -2.3%, WCG -2.2%, GSAT -2%, UE -1.9%, (also to sell 6.25 mln common shares to Cohen & Steers), TTPH -1.9%, NE -1.7%, ATVI -1.7%, NYMT -1.6%, CERS -1.6%, LOCO -1.5%, SWN -1.5%, SM -1.2%, INGN -1.2%, CLNE -1.1%, JUNO -1.1%, ESNT -1%, .
Select AAOI peers showing weakness:
- IPHI -3.8%, LITE -2.5%, OCLR -1.7%, FNSR -1.2%, IIVI -0.6%
Other news:
- IDN -21.1% ( commences common stock offering)
- APLP -11.5% (prices offering of 4 mln common units representing limited partner interests at $13.75 per common unit)
- DVAX -5.9% (U.S. Regulatory Update on HEPLISAV-B(TM) Following FDA Advisory Committee Meeting -- FDA has requested more detailed information about the company's proposed post-marketing study for HEPLISAV-B )
- AAXN -3.1% (Digital Ally announces 'yet another significant victory in its legal battles against Axon Enterprise')
- DGLY -2.7% (Digital Ally announces 'yet another significant victory in its legal battles against Axon Enterprise')
- BAS -1.7% (commenced at-the-market public offering of up to $50 million of its common stock pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement)
- ONCE -1% (prices underwritten public offering of 4,605,264 shares of its common stock at $76/share with net proceeds of ~$330.8 mln)
Analyst comments:
- HTGC -2.9% (downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James)
Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
- YELP +20.9%, (GrubHub and Yelp (YELP) announce long-term partnership designed to capitalize on each company's unique assets and propel online takeout and delivery; GRUB to acquire Eat24 for 287.5 mln in cash ), GPRO +16.8%, WTW +16.1%, ANET +14.9%, SPPI +13.2%, PDLI +12.4%, (also in earnings slides says currently evaluating the possibility of a new stock repurchase program), ABIO +12.2%, MDRX +11.4%, (Allscripts Healthcare to acquire McKesson's (MCK) hospital and health system IT business, Enterprise Information Solutions, for $185 million in cash), GDP +9.7%, AJRD +9.1%, GEVO +8.6%, CBB +8.3%, CBB +8.3%, MX +7.8%, EPZM +7.6%, IOTS +7.1%, CARA +6.7%, CZR +6.6%, BLDR +6.6%, KND +6.6%, NBIX +6.5%, JOUT +6.5%, ASPN +6.3%, FIVN +6%, CLMT +5.5%, ETSY +5.2%, HDP +5.2%, WU +4.7%, UNVR +4.4%, COWN +4.2%, ARWR +4.1%, AVID +4%, KDMN +4%, MTZ +3.8%, JONE +3.7%, ELY +3.4%, (also Callaway Golf to acquire TravisMathew a golf and lifestyle apparel company, for $125.5 million in an all-cash transaction ), OEC +3.2%, OEC +3.2%, CBM +3.2%, SRC +2.7%, (Spirit Realty Capital announced the planned spin-off of a separate publicly traded REIT ), SRCI +2.7%, ISR +2.3%, AMC +2.3%, IRWD +2.2%, WTI +2.1%, VRNS +2%, FSTR +2%, PGRE +1.9%, BRS +1.8%, PETX +1.8%, TXMD +1.7%, MCHP +1.6%, GSBD +1.5%, CI +1.4%, FFG +1.3%, UNIT +1.3%, BEP +1.3%, CRC +1.1%, JOBS +1.1%, TM +0.9%, AEE +0.9%, .
M&A news:
- UTHR +8.8% (The Evening Standard discusses market rumors that Gilead (GILD) & GSK (GSK) may be eyeing UTHR)
Other news:
- CFRX +6.9% (USPTO issues the co patent for claims related to the Company's proprietary technology for the treatment of influenza through the intranasal or inhaled delivery of neutralizing antibodies, and covers the novel methodology used with CF-404, currently ini a pre-IND stage of development )
- ADP +2.4% (Bill Ackman takes 8% stake)
Analyst comments:
- SRNE +8.5% (initiated with Outperform at Oppenheimer)
- BLRX +3.8% (initiated with Outperform at Oppenheimer)
- GBT +2.8% (initiated with Outperform at Oppenheimer)
- CAR +0.9% (initiated with a Overweight at JP Morgan)
NXP Semi: Elliott Associates, L.P. discloses 6% active stake (110.66)
The Reporting Persons believe the securities of the Issuer are significantly undervalued and represent an attractive investment opportunity. The Reporting Persons believe that there are numerous opportunities to maximize shareholder value and the Reporting Persons have engaged, and intend to continue to engage in a dialogue with the Issuer's management, Board of Directors, other shareholders or third parties, including potential acquirers, service providers and financing sources, regarding the Issuer's business, operations, strategies, plans, strategic transactions (including the pending transaction between the Issuer and Qualcomm pursuant to the Purchase Agreement between the Issuer and Qualcomm River Holdings B.V., dated October 27, 2016 (the "Qualcomm Transaction")) and related matters.
July Jobs Report
- In July, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 9 cents to $26.36. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 65 cents, or 2.5 percent. In July, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 6 cents to $22.10.
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down from +152,000 to +145,000, and the change for June was revised up from +222,000 to +231,000. With these revisions, employment gains in May and June combined were 2,000 more than previously reported. Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 195,000 per mont
Every minute counts for duty-free operators
Airport retailers eye new routes to lift sales and encourage more passengers to spend
Any harried passenger knows that minutes count at airports. They matter, too, for airport retailers.
For many air travellers, shopping for duty-free products from perfume and whisky to luxury goods is a part of their trip overseas, while others may feel bombarded by the retail offering. In fact, says Julian Diaz, chief executive of Switzerland’s Dufry, the world’s largest travel retailer by sales, “only 16 per cent of the passengers going through an airport buy something”.
The challenge facing Dufry, which in 2015 acquired World Duty Free for SFr3.8bn, and its main rivals is to increase sales generated from passengers in the time before they embark on flights, as well to profit from shifting traffic flows.
Dufry this week reported annual, like-for-like sales growth of 8.9 per cent in the three months to June — the fastest rate since late 2011 — to SFr3.8bn ($3.9bn).
That was partly the result of strong growth at UK airports, where a weak pound has meant bargain prices for overseas visitors.
Another powerful force was the increase in global air travel. There has been “complete turnaround” over the past six months in the number of travellers from China, Russia and Brazil, says Mr Diaz. The previous 18 months had been “the toughest period of time”, he adds. “Now the situation has normalised tremendously.”
The global duty-free industry is expected to grow to about $67bn by 2020, from an estimated $45.7bn in 2016, according to Dufry. It forecasts that Asia-Pacific will be the fastest-growing market in airport retail sales over the next five years, with 2020 sales nearly double that of 2014.
Chinese travellers offer the best growth potential. “There is no new nationality in sight to take over from China in the next 10 to 20 years,” says Philippe Schaus, chairman and chief executive at Hong Kong-based DFS, the third-biggest duty-free operator by sales and part of LVMH, the luxury group.
“It’s not Indonesia, it’s not India, it’s not Vietnam. All these countries have positive dynamics but they are so far away from the consumption patterns we are seeing in China.”
Distressingly for airport retailers, however, spending per Chinese traveller is falling. Mr Schaus says this is linked to “the economic situation, currency devaluation [and] possibly partially the anti-corruption [campaign]”. But, he adds: “At the same time we should not think that Chinese people travelling on budget trips are low spenders. They can be very big spenders.”
Globally, the average time spent at an airport — from arrival until an aircraft’s doors are closed — was 133 minutes last year, down from 150 minutes in 2013, according to Nigel Dolby, a commercial consultant to the airport industry. As passengers become more familiar with flying, they arrive later at airports.
Because airport processes, such as security and check-in, have become quicker, the time available to shop or eat has remained at roughly 30 minutes over the same period. That may be sufficient time to shop for pre-planned purchases, “however, 30 minutes is not enough to maximise the potential for additional impulse sales, which is where the growth opportunity sits for airport shopping and dining”, says Mr Dolby.
To maximise sales, Dufry is using technology to communicate with customers before they arrive at the airport and to team up with airlines to pitch ideas to customers as flights are booked. “The most difficult thing in this business has been historically to contact customers before they get to the airport and when they are sitting down in the corridors,” says Mr Diaz.
But airport retailers face a number of obstacles. One is that if passengers can shop online at home, they may start shunning retail outlets at airports.
Another is that they have already taken significant steps towards boosting sales — for instance by pushing “walk through” formats, which oblige travellers to pass through duty-free shops after security.
“After seven quarters of negative growth prior to mid-2016, Dufry has a lot of catching up to do. But as a retailer, it is already considered ‘best in class’,” says Jaafar Mestari, leisure analyst at JPMorgan. “Can you really improve the concept further?”
What is more, concepts such as “walk through” could mean “travellers end up resenting duty-free operators and airports”, warns Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research, a travel industry analyst. He suggest airports follow the high street trend towards “pop up” shops, which would open only for a limited period, their novelty attracting time-pressed customers.
Another threat is shifting traffic patterns, as passenger numbers ebb and flow from destinations — and operators have stores in the wrong place. Dufry’s sales have been hit in recent years by the group’s exposure to Latin America, especially Brazil, which has suffered its worst recession in history over the past three years. But the UK’s planned exit from the EU should boost sales opportunities if more goods could be sold duty-free.
Lotte Duty Free, the South Korean company which is the world’s second-biggest operator in the sector, has had to weather the impact of a boycott by Chinese tourists after the deployment of the US’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system this year.
The Korean market has seen a double-digit slump in duty-free sales as a result, according to DFS’s Mr Schaus.
Meanwhile, the election of president Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan — which China considers its sovereign territory — has also hurt sales on the island. Ms Tsai’s party favours autonomy from China.
“This is very volatile. What I’m telling you now, I could be telling you the opposite in a year from now depending on how things move,” says Mr Schaus. “When one destination is suffering, like Korea, some of the flows of tourists diverge to other destinations.
“The overall picture is one of modest but stable growth — but also one with different geographical disruptions.”
Dufry, meanwhile, faces internal distractions. Acquisitive Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, which has interests from airlines to finance, plans to buy a 16.8 per cent stake — although the transaction has not yet been confirmed. Swiss luxury group Richemont — whose brands such as Cartier rely heavily on airport sales — has also acquired a 5 per cent stake in an apparent effort to ensure “window space” for its products as air travel expands.
Mr Diaz says working groups have been formed to discuss possible synergies with HNA. “The strategy of vertical integration in the tourism sector is obviously very relevant,” he says. So far, however, HNA has not indicated whether would it consider a full takeover, or even expect a seat on Dufry’s board. That could depend on the strength of HNA’s complex finances — as well as the outlook for duty-free sales.
Additional reporting by Jung-a Song in Seoul
Chinese spur spending
In the world of travel shopping, the Chinese tourist is king, writes Don Weinland.
In just a few short years, spending by Chinese travellers expanded to capture more than 20 per cent of the global market travel spend of $216bn in 2016, making the cohort the world’s biggest spender on travel, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation. Last year alone, about 135m Chinese citizens left their country for leisure, many intent on stocking up on foreign goods before returning home.
In response, tour companies and duty-free shops the world over have hired Chinese speakers to help operate their businesses. It has become common to hear luxury bag sales in Paris conducted purely in mandarin.
Travel retailers are now homing in on the Chinese tourist dollar in the years to come. “Over the next five years, we expect Chinese tourists to spend an incremental $453bn on overseas travel,” CLSA analyst Oliver Matthew wrote in a recent report. “This will be a huge windfall for those offering products and services that meet their needs.”
But tastes and spending habits among Chinese travellers have also become increasingly difficult to predict. Determining the flow of Chinese tourists in Asia over the next five years is a guessing game, says Mr Schaud of DFS.
For example, few would have predicted that a political row between China and South Korea would lead to a slump in inbound tourists this year. CLSA says that inbound traffic fell 66 per cent year on year in April this year. Although China and Japan have experienced a series of diplomatic and territorial disputes over the past five years, tourism spending in Japan remains strong.
Chinese tourists may also spend less on shopping during their trips in the future. Average spending by Chinese travellers on goods such as cosmetics and luxury clothing declined to 53 per cent of overall spending last year, from 57 per cent the year before, CLSA data showed. Spending on meals and accommodation is up.
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Roll over Beethoven! Classical music and the real gig economy
Even for those with a commission from the Proms, making a living as a modern composer is challenging
It has to be the best £50 ever spent. Exactly 200 years ago, Britain’s Royal Philharmonic Society commissioned Beethoven to compose his ninth symphony, a work that cracked open the form (and gave us the Ode to Joy melody). It has been in performance ever since.Now, just as in Beethoven’s time, classical music is the definition of a gig economy, with composers dependent on the haphazard arrival of patrons and their commissions. Yet the landscape in which they operate could scarcely be more different. Classical music, though in many ways a vibrant scene, sits mostly at the margins of contemporary culture: it made up just 53m of the 1bn hours of radio Britons listened to last quarter. Cash-strapped schools are cutting music from the curriculum. And while Beethoven has 2.5m monthly listeners on streaming service Spotify, Katy Perry has 22m.
The main way of making a living in this world occurs when orchestras, festivals, broadcasters or (occasionally) private individuals ask a composer for new work. Yet apart from the very top composers, the fees are often vanishingly low. “A pop tune may take an afternoon to write — a symphony will take several years to write and may only be performed once. The remuneration for those things should not be the same,” argues Sally Cavender of publisher Faber Music.
Tom Coult is a young composer with a big commission. On July 14, the new season of the BBC Proms opened; Coult, 28, was commissioned to write the First Night’s first piece. The Proms are as mainstream as classical music gets: an annual series of more than 90 classical concerts — with excursions into jazz, gospel and theatrical music — featuring the world’s best orchestras. Founded in 1895, they attracted more than 300,000 attendees last year and the Last Night of the Proms, which reached 9.1m people on TV in 2016, is adored or derided for its flag-waving audience and sequence of patriotic tunes. The First Night gains second-most attention; Coult set the tone, quite literally, for the whole season.
Coult heard the news in February; the six-minute piece had to be delivered in May, so it was “action stations”, he says, given such short notice. He took a 21st-century approach to inspiration: he would watch YouTube videos of previous Proms, see the conductor come on, wait for him to lift his baton — and then press pause. “I’d think, right, what would I do to puncture that silence?” He finally settled on a “very hesitant solo violin” that leads into “a series of dances, but all of them in various ways spiral completely out of control”. When performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the First Night, tubas thumped out a hefty rhythm and a xylophone broke in while the strings flew wildly, seeming to open up a space for the two months of music to follow.
The BBC is a big commissioner — about 30 pieces a year, overall from Christmas carols to symphonies. Other prominent orchestras vary in their appetite for commissions: the London Symphony Orchestra has had 27 world premieres during the past five seasons while the Vienna Philharmonic has had only 11 since 2010. All stress their commitment to new music, though a Vienna spokesperson conceded that “part of our audience isn’t too fond”.
Coult demurs when asked what his big commission might mean for his career, only saying it is “easily the most public thing I’ve ever had and possibly even ever will”, but Cavender, who publishes him, alongside major living composers such as Thomas Adѐs and George Benjamin, is definitive: “That single fact will now help build his career further on.”
***
The task of publishers is to create, filter and recommend these opportunities, shaping careers, and ensuring fees stay sufficient. Janis Susskind, managing director of Boosey & Hawkes, which publishes John Adams and Harrison Birtwistle, says that “for any composer with a name, we would always begin at least £1,000 a minute”, and often several times that. The music is not actually sold by quantity, like cloth, but “that’s how you get to a ballpark figure”.
Yet even if a composer can achieve near this rate for a piece, it is distressingly far from a sustaining income. Coult reckons about £800 a minute is his maximum so far, but given his current rate of commissions, “I might make £10,000 a year, with a couple of grand either side, let’s say, for those two or three pieces.” Since living in London on £10,000 a year, plus or minus, is almost impossible, Coult supplemented his income with a funded PhD in composition and, as of October 2017, will undertake a two-year residency at Trinity College, Cambridge, with an annual stipend of £25,000. Academia and benefices, not the act of composition, make music pay for him.
Tansy Davies is best known for her well-received opera Between Worlds, which was based on the events of 9/11, its characters trapped in the North Tower. As a “crazy-hard” worker, Davies, 44, says she might spend 18 months writing a 25-minute piece for orchestra (weaving in other compositions); even at the £1,000 rate, that does not seem a sufficient income.
For most, the returns are underwhelming: a work by a living composer earns 4.5 per cent of the box office for a concert; if there are works by more than one living composer, that percentage is split between them according to the length of the pieces. More lucrative are “grand rights”, where a composer has written an opera or a ballet — here the publisher will negotiate the cut, which can be 10 per cent. In any case, the composer has to share it with their publisher.
In her office in Bloomsbury, Cavender flicks through a composer’s income statement from TV and radio royalties. “Some of the earnings we’re taking about — one pence, £1.24, £12.85, £10.49, £1 . . . A penny for being played on the radio!”
The economics have not always been quite this bad, she says. About 20 years ago, the BBC and the PRS (which collects royalties for composers and performers) changed the formula for how fees were calculated. Previously, classical music received “a kind of multiplier” on its fees compared with pop music, in recognition of its smaller audience; now it is subject to “straight-lining”, where you are paid according to the number of people listening, genre regardless. The latest quarterly figures from Rajar, which measures radio audiences, show that Radio 3 reached 2.1m people; pop music station Radio 1 had 9.6m.
What publishers really do for composers is make a long-term investment. This manages to be both a conservative and strangely radical strategy in such a creative economy. “Because the returns are so meagre for the publisher,” says Cavender, “you’re thinking on a 20, 30-year timespan . . . not like detergent, [which has] got to make its money in two years.” This investment includes editing scores, digitising manuscripts, preparing parts for each instrument and, naturally, publishing them. Susskind says, “New music is very hungry on our infrastructure,” but she adds that this long-term approach works well: Boosey is profitable on its living composers, she says, and many have stuck with the company for decades.
British music publishers also have a striking deal with their composers, unlike in any other branch of music or the wider arts: the composers sign over their copyright for their lifetime, plus 70 years, to the publishers, and the publishers grant them (and their estate) a half-interest. (According to Cavender, Adès joked, “When I die, it will say ‘Copyright Faber Music’ on my tombstone”.) After a composer’s death, she says, “We’ll carry on earning the same amount but without the expenses.”
Giving up copyright is controversial: if a composer leaves the publisher, they leave their copyright with them. When Benjamin Britten quit Boosey & Hawkes to found Faber Music in 1965, Boosey kept the much-performed Peter Grimes while Faber has Death in Venice. American composer Philip Glass has argued against this copyright clause, and he has sufficient clout to have kept his, but he is rare. It is a tough deal, but hardly Faustian. “Composers have to have something of value to offer to the people who are going to invest in them and their music,” says Cavender. “If they want their music to be disseminated around the world, someone has to do that job.”
***
Composers who work without a publisher are spared such a commitment. Yet without the commercial or administrative support of a Faber or Boosey, they have plenty of others. Samantha Fernando, 32, describes the “extra skill set” a self-published composer needs to get their music remunerated and heard: building a website; typesetting scores for sale on sites such as Composers Edition and BabelScores (a kind of Amazon for the modern Shostakovich); building relationships with orchestra managers and musicians; negotiating commissions and contract fees, armed only with the Musicians’ Union rates (unchanged since 2008) and whatever premium their reputation commands. The internet helps: Bach’s assistants hand-copied The Well-Tempered Clavier, his collection of works for solo keyboard, to ensure swift dissemination. Today, YouTube and Spotify allow an instantaneous global distribution he’d have envied.
At no point during Fernando’s time at a conservatoire or at Oxford for her PhD in composition did anyone explain to her how to live as a composer, which seems remiss. After university, young composers are often commissioned by trusts such as the Britten-Pears Foundation or win places on development programmes such as the London Symphony Orchestra’s Panufnik scheme, but entrepreneurialism has to kick in as these run out. Fernando’s forebears sought patrons, too: Ludwig II of Bavaria supported the premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde; Haydn was a musician at the Hungarian Esterhazy court; the church funded the music for liturgies. But such figures and institutions — career-sustaining — do not exist now.
Nina Whiteman, 36, has had a similarly exploratory journey to Fernando. When she could not find repertoire for her ensemble — flute, cello and Whiteman as mezzo-soprano — she started commissioning it herself, which raised her profile, bolstered her network and in turn led to her own commissions, including one from BBC Radio 3, which was performed by the BBC Philharmonic. Whiteman says her typical fee is between £1,000 and £4,000, for which she might write a 10-15-minute orchestral piece, taking two or three months part-time. She, like the other composers I spoke to, stressed she did not write for the money (which would anyway be futile): their pleasure lies in composition conquered.
Surprisingly, perhaps, not every unsigned composer would jump at the chance to be represented by Faber, Boosey or their ilk. Whiteman talks about keeping her independence outside a publisher, and Fernando says that full-service system is a “dying model” in the internet era, despite its cachet and simplicity. But she sounds a regretful note, too: “There are times where I think it would be so much easier not having to do all these other things. Sometimes I think I should just be composing music.”
***
All composers fall victim to one peculiar disease, which might serve to illuminate the art form’s parlous broader economics: Premiere Syndrome. An element of a composer’s livelihood ought to be the fees earned from the re-performance of works, but Premiere Syndrome, which crept up about 20 years ago, says Cavender, privileges the kudos of the new.
This doesn’t add up financially, says Mark Pemberton of the Association of British Orchestras: “What slightly backfires about all of this is that because it’s quite costly to get a work ready for performance . . . all the cost is loaded into that first performance . . . So we’re all a bit trapped and all keen maybe to find a way out.”
The paradox gets to the heart of classical music’s problem: composers would like older work performed more than once, but this would mean — in a market that is not growing — fewer commissions. Yet without re-performances, works stand no chance of entering the repertoire and building a composer’s long-term reputation.
It might also be bad art. Elena Kats-Chernin, who may be familiar to British readers as the composer of music used for several years in an advert for Lloyds Bank, compares a new composition to a “crinkled” baby just born: “It has to grow. It’s the next performance that will be much better, because I as a composer have time to look at it again and have time to maybe tweak a few things which I didn’t like. That’s when it’s really good, and then you don’t get that chance.”
Listeners, too, can wish for more opportunities to hear work again (and again) because new music, with its dislocation from traditional melody and harmony, does not always present itself as agreeably as a Haydn symphony might at first.
I have seen Davies’ Troubairitz — based on the songs of 11th-century female troubadours — performed at the Wigmore Hall, an Art Nouveau gem in London’s West End. But such is the spectrum of new music that I later saw the same piece — all the more thrilling — in the sweaty, dark back room of a pub in Dalston, east London, as part of the Nonclassical gig series. The singer was sly, defensive, seductive, defiant, and the audience — holding pints and sporting topknots — whistled and whooped when she was done. As long as the economics of classical music can triumph over their poverty and perversity, the 21st century’s troubadours can sing on.