Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Robert Spano

Robert Spano
I've completed a radical expansion of this article from a stub. It was rated "Start" by an admin; since then I've added the infobox w/ photo, plus subsection headings & a bit of miscellaneous formatting & cleanup, but I'm stuck on how to further improve it. I left out some addtional material -- such as a section of musico-philosophical quotes from Spano -- as possibly unencyclopedic overkill. It's pretty exhaustively sourced, I think -- maybe overly so? the multiple footnotes do kind of break up the text, but I wanted to be careful. GA or FA status would certainly be cool. Any comments or suggestions would be hugely appreciated. Thx -- Turangalila (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Rayis

 * I fixed a few spelling mistakes, also I am not sure about the "--"s, is that standard? overall an informative article and good job. The lead could probably be worded a little bit better --Rayis 12:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry -- I'm not sure what bit you mean when you mention: "--"s. Are you referring to orphaned letters "s", as in "Wagner's Ring Cycle"?  Or do you mean the double-hyphens themselves?  On the latter I'm not sure if there's a standard; I'm in the habit of using them as a sub for the long dash, but maybe I should replace them w/ Unicode dashes?  -- Turangalila  (talk) 19:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Mahanga

 * [copied over from article talk page --- Turangalila ]

One thing I noticed off the bat is the four quotes in the lead section. The quotes should be moved to a new section, possibly in a recognition section. See also Lead section. Your concern about over-referencing is understandable. I noticed a sentence with five references and many that are double referenced, which does seem a bit excessive. That only happens for controversial statements, but now that the citations are in, I see no reason to remove them. The Recording and Affiliation sections are lists that take up almost as much space as the other content. I'm not quite sure what to do there...

Lastly, I think it would be great if you could put up 30 sec samples of his work like in Bradley Joseph. I think this could easily be a Good Article and maybe a Featured Article in the future.

You may want to check out some of the musicians that are Good_articles and Featured articles to get an idea of what GAs and FAs look like. MahangaTalk to me 15:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Review by Awadewit
This is a concise, informative article. Nice work. Here are my suggestions.
 * The quotations in the lead should be included in the article and the reader should be told in the text of the article who is saying them. The lead is supposed to be a summary of the article. WP:LEAD
 * He is regarded as an advocate of new music - you link to "contemporary classical music" so why not say that Spano is an advocate of emerging classical composers or contemporary classical music? I found "new music" vague.
 * lead any of the most prominent (and richest) orchestras - I would delete "richest" - it seems oddly placed and prominence requires wealth in the classical music world.
 * The younger Spano began making music early - The tone here is rather cheesy.
 * After high school he went to Ohio to study at the Oberlin Conservatory - how about emphasizing the conservatory? "After high school, he went to study at the Oberlin Conservatory in [town], Ohio"
 * After high school he went to Ohio to study at the Oberlin Conservatory, where he would earn a degree in piano performance, while also pursuing the violin and composition and studying conducting with Robert Baustian. - run-on sentence
 * From 1993 until 1996 he travelled the world nonstop - tone is colloquial
 * while also exploring the use of visual elements to augment (or fundamentally alter) the standard orchestra-concert experience - could you provide an example?
 * In 2002, Spano announced his intention to step down from the Music Director position in Brooklyn at the end of the 2003-04 season, remaining as an advisor, and then principal guest conductor, until 2007. - a bit awkwardly worded
 * By then, Spano was ensconced in his new position, as Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. - I love the word "ensconced," but I am not entirely sure it is the best choice here.
 * After some troubled years for the orchestra in the 1990's,[18][8] and despite his would-be gala debut as Music Director being marred by the tragedies of 9/11 just four days earlier,[18] Spano's tenure has been judged by most to be a lift to the orchestra's spirits, as well as its artistic standards, which are generally seen as having improved. - awkwardly worded
 * I wonder if you could separate the "Awards" from the "Recordings" or if you could somehow make the "Recordings" section easier to read. Right now, the awards are buried amongst the publication information.
 * I noticed that most of your sources are from major newspaper like the New York Times; that is good, but what about the publications that are for the classical music world? Certainly they have talked about Spano? What about Gramophone, for example?
 * You say in your comments above that you have left out Spano's philosophy of music, but I would definitely include that. Wikipedia is more expansive than most encyclopedias and since Spano is a conductor, his philosophy of music is certainly relevant to his "notability."
 * You might also think about including more pictures. Are there free or fair use images of him conducting, for example?
 * If you want to go for FA, you should probably fix the red links either by de-linking or creating stub pages for them.
 * This article needs a very brief copyedit. There are tiny problems with commas and other minor writing problems. Awadewit 16:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)