Sam Bergman on tour with the Minnesota Orchestra: We’re getting more press on this tour than we ever have. But it reminds us how little relationship we have with critics when we’re not on tour. “The upshot of this dumbing down of the arts press is that most orchestra musicians have little to no contact with their local cultural reporters, and the vast majority could probably not pick the critic who reviews their concerts out of a police lineup. Only maybe half of musicians bother to read the reviews, anyway, since so often, most papers will spare only a few paragraphs for such elitist claptrap, and even a well-constructed column is always in danger of being brutalized for space by some overzealous editor who has to make room for the latest installment of the five-part series on Janet Jackson’s Super Boob.”