Record magazine sacks its foreign critics
mainThe monthly magazine Record Geijutsu, Japan’s equivalent of Gramophone, has sacked its four long-serving foreign critics: Peter Cossé, Michel Parouty, Theodore Libby Jnr (a contributor since 1986) and Graeme Kay.
They received this sweet note from Editor-in-Chief Toshiyuki Nakazawa:
Thank you very much for your continued support for “The Record Geijutsu”. We are very grateful to you for your contributions to each issue. Much as it pains me to make this announcement, we will be updating the magazine effective the January 2017 issue. Pursuant to that change, the Critics’ Reports section will be concluding with the December 2016 issue. We are deeply grateful to you for your long-term contributions to Critics’ Reports. We would appreciate your understanding of this matter and of our plans to change. Once again, many thanks for your many years of support of “The Record Geijutsu”.
A further sign of spreading isolationism?
Probably economic, the way layoffs of critics throughout the West have been.
Yes. This magazine is in danger of cease publication for several years, in addition, few months ago the most popular critic passed away.
As the magazine has disclosed in the statement included in the post, it is shutting down its Critics’ Reports section. Given that, I must think that it did not specifically fire its foreign critics, but rather fired all its recordings critics. That those critics happened to be foreign is entirely coincidental. Thus, both the header and the line re “spreading isolationism” are hardly apposite and misrepresent the magazine.
You’re wrong.They fired the four of us – foreign critics who supplied monthly columns called “Editors’ Reports.” The magazine’s Japanese critics continue to review recordings in each issue, just as before. Mr. Lebrecht’s posting was accurate. And as V. Lind posits above, the reasons were economic.