The Independence Day holiday and a short lull in music events have meant not much has happened here. New posts are coming. In the meantime, Melinda Bargreen has joined KING FM and will provide concert reviews for KING e-newsletter subscribers.
After a career with the Seattle Times, Bargreen, left as part of staff restructuring. Her insight and expertise is a great addition to KING.
In all of the years that I’ve lived in Seattle, I honestly can’t recall Melinda Bargreen ever writing a single bad review for any of the city’s major musical groups. These organizations must be ecstatic to hear that their Number 1 fan and booster is back on the beat.
I, for one, am relieved that Melinda Bargreen left the Seattle Times. Her reviews were positive–far too positive. She reviewed the Seattle Symphony consistently, with little objectivity. In fact, I have often wondered if she received a salary from SSO, not the Seattle Times. In a city like Seattle, the smaller groups need more support and the larger, better established groups (like SSO) need a rigorous standard set by local reviewers.
Bargreen did a disservice to our community by not holding the SSO to a higher standard and ignoring many other professional orchestral and chamber groups in the area. I have attended far too many excellent performances by small, hard-working ensembles that were ignored by Bargreen and mediocre SSO performances that she blindly lauded.
I agree completely with both of the previous comments. As a former Seattlelite, I remember wondering if audiences in the city ever experienced anything less than absolute artistic perfection when they went to a symphony concert or an opera production.
It’s one thing to give praise when and where it’s due, and I certainly don’t begrudge any critic for doing that. It’s quite another thing to write like you’re on the payroll of the organization you’ve been asked to review, and this, to my mind, was Melinda Bargreen’s biggest flaw.