Talk:Nina Assimakopoulos

This page was proposed for deletion by Ohiostandard (talk · contribs) on 2 May 2010 with the comment: The subject is not considered notable under guidelines for musicians. See talk/discussion page. It was contested by Gorrad (talk · contribs) on 9 May 2010 with the comment: remove PROD, take it to AFD

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I am Ms. Assimakopoulos's graduate assistant and am attempting to create a wiki for her. I have her verbal permission to use all information on her promotional website: http://www.ninaassimakopoulos.info/index.html I'm not sure what sort of copyright agreement this falls under.

--arosebyanyother 21:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by A RoseByAnyOther (talk • contribs)

I've checked the criteria for adding an article. I'm writing about a musician and professor and she meets several of both the stated musician and notable person criteria.

Musician:

1) Has been featured in multiple non-trivial published works in reliable and reputable media (excludes school newspapers, personal blogs, etc.).

Rochester City Newspaper: http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/events/choice-concerts/2009/04/CLASSICAL-Nina-Assimakopoulos-4-13/ Classical Connect: http://www.classicalconnect.com/user/238 WGTE public media: http://www.wgte.org/wgte/listen/index.asp?page_id=312

2) Has released two or more albums on a major label or one of the more important indie labels (i.e. an independent label with a history of more than a few years and a roster including several notable performers).

She has released three CDs with Euterpe Records based in Fort Worth, TX

Notable Person:

1)A person who made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field.

She has debuted in Carnegie hall and has commissioned over 40 original works for flute. Additionally, she produces The Laurels Project which advances the cause and works of contemporary american women composers and artists. --arosebyanyother 00:55, 14 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by A RoseByAnyOther (talk • contribs)

See above reasons why this page is acceptable. The language of the page is informative and in keeping with other pages for classical musicians. --arosebyanyother 02:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by A RoseByAnyOther (talk • contribs)

As stated above, I have verbal and EMAIL permission to "drag and drop" information from http://www.ninaassimakopoulos.info/--arosebyanyother (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You need to get somebody to forward that to

WP:OTRS. Simply "saying" it doesn't make it true. Ironholds (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

And, as often happens, the text you want to donate is not encyclopedic: it's not at all neutral, and outright promotional in places. Hairhorn (talk) 14:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I spent 15 minutes and edited this for tone and POV only, to try to make it come at least close to the

Finally, I'll mention for the benefit of the original author that she or anyone else is free to revert the changes I've made. I'd not oppose that in any way, although I'd be sorry to see it done because it seems unlikely to me that other editors could allow the previously-existing version to remain under Wikipedia's content policies. Ohiostandard (talk) 23:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great work on the cleanup - I might take a crack at it later tonight when I have the time. In the meantime, I've declined the speedy deletion and tagged the article for neutrality and tone. The lead needs a lot of work, as it still reads like a CV - but it's a good start. If cleanup isn't enough, though, an AFD may be in order, so we'll see. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 23:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strike that, the CSD is for copyvio, which this is - it takes text verbatim. Until there's an OTRS ticket that shows the official written permission from the copyright holder, we can't use it. Is there an OTRS ticket? UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 23:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, everything before the Laurels section was flagged as copyvio, so I removed it in favor of a stub-style intro. I also added a line to the discography, which serves to sort-of claim notability. We'll need independent sources to confirm that, though. Still lots to do. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 20:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No OTRS ticket. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). The material was copied from: http://www.ninaassimakopoulos.info/pages/main/bio.html. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see

Sometime later, I went back to online search results, and I did eventualy find a web page from the Washington Post that reiterates her claim to having performed there, as part of an announcement for a much more recent concert at a different local venue. It doesn't provide any date for the debut at all, and the brief mention appears to have been taken straight from a press release. For that reason, at least, it seems to fail

So I'm wondering now whether the fact of her Carnegie Hall performance can be admitted under

• I'd say it fails verifiability. Did this kind of thing get mentioned in the
  New York Times for the next day? --Orange Mike | Talk 01:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Thank you for responding. The performance wasn't reported by the New York Times. I'm not a music scholar, but I understand that classical music performances (even at very prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall) by any but very-famous musicians almost never receive mention — let alone actual reviews — in traditional print media anymore. The whole category of reporting on classical music has fallen victim to the overall finanical distress and corresponding cutbacks traditional press outlets have undergone in the past 15 years due to the tremendous decrease in revenue from classified advertising, their traditional mainstay. Ohiostandard (talk) 12:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would a few more editors be so kind as to weigh in here, perhaps more specifically on whether her Carnegie Hall performance can reasonably be admitted under the aegis of

WP:SELFPUB, especially since it's not exactly a case of just self-publication, either, ie given that the performance is listed on the faculty page for this professor

at Bowling Green State University?

To from quote the language of

WP:SELFPUB, in other words, do any of you have "any reasonable doubt as to (the) authenticity" of the claim to the Carnegie performance made on her faculty page? Wouldn't a false claim to such an extraordinary honor have been very likely to have been exposed in the nine years since the performance date? I don't mean to stretch or belabor the point unduly, but I'd respectfully ask fellow editors whether we can legitimately admit her Carnegie performance under a common sense consensus, supported by the "no reasonable doubt" clause of WP:SELFPUB here? Many thanks, Ohiostandard (talk) 13:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

In fact, wouldn't Carnegie Hall's own say-so be a good enough source? Perhaps you could get an OTRS-approved email from that archive dept employee? Gonzonoir (talk) 14:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant, Gonzonoir! Of course it would. That didn't even occur to me. Thanks! Ohiostandard (talk) 14:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: This won't work, after all. I sent a query about this to OTRS and learned that such an e-mail wouldn't support inclusion of the performance. An OTRS e-mail can't be used to admit facts to an article that haven't been previously published in reliable sources. Ohiostandard (talk) 22:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how

WP:SELFPUB is applicable (except to say it is applicable in that this is a case where such a source would be acceptable). This isn't a personal user created webpage. This is an official bio-page from a university. It even seems unlikely that the subject of this article is the person who wrote that text. I don't see any reason why we can't use that as a source, especially when it is repeated in the Washington Post.-Andrew c ^[talk] 22:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

I muddied the waters by first asking whether her own personal web site could suffice under wp:selfpub and then incorrectly extending the question to include her University's bio/page. Thanks for your clarification on that. You're right, of course, that the University's page about her isn't literally "self-published" and that wp:selfpub isn't the relevant reliability standard for that reason. I expect you're correct, too, about the admissability of information supported by the University's page, but I also want to ask the folks at the

reliable sources noticeboard if they know of any policy about citing a faculty bio page in such a case. Thanks again, - Ohiostandard (talk) 11:02, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

The net result of that RSN discussion appears in its final comment, by editor David Eppstein, who wrote:

"Self-published sources such as this are acceptable for uncontroversial factual details about their own authors; see

WP:SELFPUB

. So, in the case in question, I would answer 'yes': the information from the faculty bio can be included, as long as it does not form the basis of notability of the article and as long as there is no reason to doubt its veracity."

The problem is that the faculty page and the subject's own website seem to be the principal sources of information about her; they do seem to "form the basis of notability of the article". In other words, those two sources are the only sources I've been able find so far to support a claim to notability, and are thus insufficient. If there really aren't other sources, then it would seem that the subject isn't sufficiently notable for an article after all, as per David Eppstein's RSN comment. Nor does her discography establish notability since her three CDs were released by a very minor firm. Also, her faculty page includes an apparently erroneous description of her Carnegie performance as having occurred "most recently". Personally, I'd want to see that corrected before I'd be willing to cite the Carnegie performance or any other info from the page. Some other editor may want to continue to search for acceptable sources to establish a basis of notability; I seem to recall something from one of her website's pages that stated or implied that she'd been written about in Flute Talk magazine, which would seem a promising candidate. But for reasons I mentioned on RSN I won't be taking this further myself. Ohiostandard (talk) 07:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a PROD tag to this article. Five or six months ago, I spent considerable time trying to help Ms. Assimakopoulos' graduate assistant, arosebyanyother, save it. Unfortunately, I was less aware of notability guidelines than I have since become, and it now seems pretty clear to me that the subject fails

User Gorrad ( no user page created; here are his contributions ) removed the PROD tag on 9 May 2010 without comment here, and left the edit summary "remove prod, take it to AFD". Ohiostandard (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, you'll see from the above that I PRODed this and that another editor objected. I was about to nominate it for deletion via

It appears to me that there may be sufficient offline sources available to establish notability. I'm the more persuaded of this because it seems to me that the "bar" we set as to the number of media/publishing reports necessary for notability should be somewhat lower for classical musicians than for those who perform, say, rock-and-roll or country music. There are just far fewer

I'll begin by observing that I wrote previously that notability hadn't been demonstrated by Ms. Assimakopoulos' diskography. I was misled by her graduate assistant's assertion that her three CDs had been released by Euterpe Records, a non-notable publisher for the purposes of Wikipedia, despite her assistant's statement to the contrary. That assertion appears to have been in error: the first two cited in the article were, but the third was not. That CD was released by Capstone Records, a notable indie publisher. The notability guideline that's relevant suggests that the artist should have released "two or more albums on a major label or one of the more important indie labels (i.e. an independent label with a history of more than a few years and a roster including several notable performers)". Capstone qualifes as the latter, but (to date) Ms. Assimakopoulos' has had only one CD published on that label. ( A new CD with the Capstone label appears to be imminent, however, based on information published on page 215 of the May-June 2009 American Record Guide. See further below for more information. )

Another of the notability guidelines for musicians suggests that a person who has been a member of two or more independently notable ensembles qualifies herself as notable on that basis. My research hasn't uncovered that, precisely, but she has commissioned compositions by the notable composers Maggi Payne, Beth Anderson, Shulamit Ran, Emma Lou Diemer, Sylvia Glickman, and Joan Tower. These compositions were commisssioned and recorded under the banner of Ms. Assimakopoulos' Laurels Project, and appear on the first (and currently, the only) of that project's CDs, published on the (notable) Capstone Records label. To my mind, especially given the guideline's passages concerning "common sense exceptions", this accomplishment goes quite a long way toward establishing Ms. Assimakopoulos as notable, all on its own. See below for more information about the Laurels Project.

That same "two or more notable ensembles" guideline might also be able to be fulfilled more directly. Ms. Assimakopoulos' faculty page and her own web site pages claim she was at one time principal flute with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, a notable orchestra. If that could be verified and cited through a reliable source, she would need one additional past or present membership in a notable ensemble to meet this criterion. I'd guess that she has been in another notable ensemble, although I've not attempted to determine whether that's so.

The information is no longer present in the article, but since Ms. Assimakopoulos' faculty page and one of her own website pages describe her as "the recipient of two two Fulbright grants, the National Society of Arts and Letters Career Award..." I thought I'd try to find an acceptable source for the NSAL Award, but I've been unable to do so:

It appears she didn't win first place in the organization's national competition, which is given in honor of the organization's founders, Nicholson and Nielson, so presumably the claim refers to having received one of the other national-level prizes, given in honor of a different benefactor, presumably for second, third, or some other place. ( The recipients of other-than-first-place national awards are not listed on the organization's website, unfortunately. See http://www.arts-nsal.org/awards.html for more information.) Or possibly (?) the claim refers to having received one of the organization's regional/chapter awards rather than a national-level prize; some of the chapters evidently provide prizes, awards, and scholarships directly, rather than through the national organization. I was unable to find any information online about recipients of past regional/chapter awards, however.

There is one source for the award claim that I thought, at first, might adequately support it, viz. the article's external link to http://www.wgte.org/wgte/listen/index.asp?page_id=312 from WGTE-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in Toledo, Ohio. It's not clear when one views that page exactly what it's meant to communicate, but it presumably comprises a program note from 2006 in which four of Ms. Assimakopoulos' tracks were played. Unfortunately, the NSAL claim there gives no more information than Ms. Assimakopoulos' own web pages, and indeed appears to have been sourced from those pages or related promotional materials, rather than being fact-checked, independent coverage.

The Laurels Project mentioned on her Wikipedia article page has an impressive assortment of web pages under Ms. Assimakopoulos' own web site. It may provide helpful orientation to note that this project was described as "LAURELS: The twenty-first Century American Women Composers Project" in what appears to be a user-generated entry from 2004 or earlier; see this external link listed currently in the Wikipedia article about her.

As "commissioning artist", producer, and primary or ultimate controller of the project, Ms. Assimakopoulos intended, under its banner, that a collection of new flute tracks by women composers should be published beginning in 2004-2005, and again every two years for the subsequent ten. ( Statement documented here. ) The project's pages on her website identify 33 composers with quite impressive credentials as being involved in the project. The "performers roster" information page names no actual performers, however, and the link it contains to the list is circular; it just reloads the page. This is presumably because on the only CD published for the project so far, "Points of Entry- The Laurels Project, Volume 1", Ms. Assimakopoulos was the sole performer. I infer, however, that her intention was that on subsequent CDs that other performers were also to be included; more on that in a moment.

The publisher's catalog entry for the "Points of Entry - Laurels Project, Volume 1" CD includes samples from 18 musical tracks by 15 different composers, six of whom are notable. It also includes four poems read aloud, upon which some of the musical compositions are based. The catalog entry also allows one to listen to 30-second samples from the beginning of each track.

The Laurels Project appears to have been quite well-planned and executed in its initial phase, although it's my private opinion that it would have been more reasonable to have included other performers besides just herself on its first and (so far) only published CD. Perhaps funding problems arose that prevented the timely production of subsequent recordings? No new CD appears to have been published to-date, in any case, but perhaps one has been recorded and released to critics. I surmise so because The American Record Guide's May-June, 2009, edition includes a declarative statement ( but no review ) in a section called "The Newest Music", that appears to list four other performers along with Ms. Assimakopoulos on a CD entitled "Laurels Project II: Points of Entry". The Guide also lists a Capstone recording number as 8806, but there appears to be no corresponding entry in Capstone's actual online catalog at this time. Capstone was bought by Parma Recordings early in 2010, however, so perhaps that change of administration might explain the apparent discrepancy, too.

A search for "The Laurels Project" (not "II", note) via my library's gateway to the proprietary music literature database, The Music Index Online, yielded only the following:

Title: CD-bespreking: "Points of Entry--The Laurels Project Vol. 1" (Capstone) and "Arcadian Murmurs--Pan in Pieces" (Euterpe); Language: Dutch; Authors: W. Karsten; Source: FLUIT Sep 2006 Vol. 14 Issue n4 p49; Publication Type: Non-Printed Material; Country of Publication: Netherlands; Journal Subset: Flute; Physical Description: Illustration; Subject Terms: NINA ASSIMAKOPOULOS; ISSN: 0928-9003; Accession Number: MAH0001563640.

I'm not sure what to make of this citation, in that it appears to describe only an illustration or image, rather than any text. Perhaps it refers to a photo-scanned image of a page from paper journal, although the contents of the "publication type" field which describe a "non-printed" (presumably online-only?) resource argue against that interpretation. The contents of the title field, however, do suggest that there might be a corresponding article in the journal edition that reviews the Volume 1/Points-of-Entry CD and also Ms. Assimakopoulos' "Arcadian Murmurs/Pan-in-Pieces" CD. I don't have access to that journal, and couldn't find it online ( I don't read Dutch ). In any case, the possibility appears to be worthy of further investigation. The extensive liner notes for this CD, btw, can be found here.

The Music Index Online, when searched for "Nina Assimakopoulos", however, does yield this promising offline source:

Title: "Women's Work" concert series (Weiler Recital Hall, New York City, February 12, 19, 25, 2004); Language: English; Authors: MARK W. GREENFEST; Source: IAWM JOURNAL, International Alliance for Women in Music (formerly AWC NEWS/FORUM) 2004, Vol. 10 Issue n2, p40-42 3p; Publication Type: Performance; Country of Publication: United States; Journal Subset: Women Composers; Subject Terms: NINA ASSIMAKOPOULOS, ANA MILOSAVLJEVIC, FRANÇOISE VANHECKE; ISSN: 1082-1872; Accession Number: MAH0001457056; Database: The Music Index Online.

That appears to refer to a concert review in a well-established music journal (see http://www.iawm.org/publications_iawm.htm) in which Ms. Assimakopoulos was one of three composers or performers featured.

The NewsBank database yielded this reference, and a corresponding abstract:

Title: Musician blends music and art in concert at museum; Authors: SALLY VALLONGO (Special to The Blade); Source: The Blade (Toledo, OH) September 17 2009 Peach Weekender City Final 2pp; Accession Number: 12B2BF09356766E8; Abstract: Musicians choose their instruments for many reasons, but usually for the sounds they make. Not Nina Assimakopoulos, who started playing the flute at age 11. Instead of the silvery sound of the woodwind, "I picked the instrument because ..."

The text below follows up on some of the review comments posted on Ms. Assimakopoulos' website. Many of these comments also frequently appear in her press releases and independent (but apparently press-release-derived) media coverage:

Ms. Assimakopoulos' web site includes the following quotation:

"Assimakopoulos has a dramatic sense of pacing...from beginning to end she changes styles freely and remains in control of what she is doing musically."

"-American Record Guide, Johnson (CD, Flute Impressions) 2002".

I was able to access the American Record Guide review to which this refers, via the Gale/GeneralOneFile/Infotrac proprietary database, courtesy of my public library. The quotation is excerpted from a review by "Johnson" ( reviewer's first names seem not to be published in the American Record Guide ) of Ms. Assimakopoulos' 2002 CD, "Flute Impressions". The review reads as follows:

"I generally don't enjoy this kind of piecemeal recital. If you do, this one is not bad. Assimakopoulos has a dramatic sense of pacing - her strongest asset. From beginning to end, she changes style freely and remains in control of what she is doing musically. She does a good Carnival of Venice, and her performance of Bossa Merengova from Mike Mower's Sonata Latino has a nice rhythmic drive. Her vibrato sounds a bit too automatic sometimes, and her dynamic range doesn't quite match her dramatic range, but her performance is convincing. The sound is average. Even though the piano sounds a bit muffled, George Boespflug has a sensational touch with the French repertoire."

( Please note that the above cannot be cut-and-pasted to the article itself, as it's copyrighted material. )

Her website also includes this:

"Assimakopoulos has not just perfect technique and total breath control but supreme intelligent, elegant phrasing; broad tone color; lyricism; a full range of dynamic expression; and above all STYLE that paints the differences from Bach to Bartok…”

"- American Record Guide French (CD, Nina Assimakopoulos Live at the Sheldon) 2001"

Despite trying several different ways, I couldn't find any corresponding entry online via the GeneralOneFile index to the American Record Guide. It's possible that this could be due to my unfamiliarity with the rather cumbersome online interfaces I have access to, although the search string I used from the "basic search" screen of the GeneralOneFile database

(ke (Nina Assimakopoulos)) And (jn ("American Record Guide"))

does return the two other results reported above. It seems more likely that this discrepancy is the result of an indexing error, i.e. that the necessary entry wasn't properly extracted from the printed or soft-copy version of the American Record Guide. Also, I note that her website page for her recordings doesn't include any such CD, nor is it on her CDbaby page. Perhaps it's no longer available? Or perhaps the review was not of a CD after all, but of the live performance itself, i.e. that the letters "CD" in the above quotation constitute an error? I suppose, btw, that the live performance behind this is the one she lists on her web site as having taken place at "The Sheldon" in St. Louis, MO. in 1999, since her site lists no other live performances there. Finally, please note that the word "French" in the above review excerpt does not refer to a French-language edition of the Guide, but rather to the reviewer's surname.

Her website also includes an excerpt from a review by New York Concert Reviews of her Carnegie Hall debut in 2000. Since this is a paid review service, however, it doesn't meet reliable-source requirements for Wikipedia. ( It's my understanding that the use of performer-paid review services is not unusual among classical musicians, please note, although I know very little about the world of professional music. I'll also note that the single edition of the publication that is available online, the most recent issue, appears to include only quite favorable reviews. )

Her website also includes this:

"Assimakopoulos...has a beautiful tone and plays expressively..."

"- Flute Talk Magazine, October 2002"

Flute Talk is a subscription-based online journal that I can't access through my library, so I have no way to verify or cite the corresponding review.

I think it's a close judgment call in this case, but my opinion is that Ms. Assimakopoulos probably does qualify as notable for our purposes on Wikipedia. As one might expect concerning an individual classical musician, a good deal of additional effort would probably be necessary to document offline resources to demonstrate that. If the article remains in its present state for any considerable time, however, I'd say it needs to be deleted without prejudice. Ohiostandard (talk) 14:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]