December 2010 Archives

It's from Wile E. Coyote.
In waning hours of year's end, I struggle to recall great music live and best in fixed form
Local Praise For A Little Museum Prompts Me To Take A Look -- And Concur

A Thought for 2011

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... from the smartest guy on the planet. OK, one of the smartest.
Downloaded music that sounds good and other jokes
Downloaded music that sounds good and other jokes
A conductor's reminiscence
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2010/12/classical_music_site_gets_take.html

It Ain't Necessarily So

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Free classical download #12
Sunday Is His Birthday. Here's How The Foes Of The Move Will Celebrate: A NEW COURT CHALLENGE
My resistance is no match for Francis Davis, who compiles the annual Village Voice jazz critics poll.

The old year passeth

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Thoughts on the year just past and the one to come. Among other things, I've written a play.
Steppenwolf's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" reviewed--plus a recording of the play's original Broadway cast.

Just because

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See Glynis Johns and Len Cariou sing "Send in the Clowns."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Ogden Nash on hope.

Three fiddlers in the drink

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http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2010/12/three_fiddlers_in_the_drink.html

Three fiddlers in the drink

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It keeps losing conductors
A CultureGrrl First as we approach 2011---my narrated slideshow of BMFA's interior architecture and installations. Great bathroom! Where's George?
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: James Branch Cabell on optimism and pessimism.
Starting shot in a long process
Egos go to war in a ratings loser
An Online Gambit To Attract Money: Will The New Donor Generation Go Along?
"A sense of proportion is required." Also, have a look at museum's "unlisted" "Hide/Seek" peep show. (I've got its number.)
He's baring his soul on WQXR
Proposals are circulating to end or significantly change the charitable deduction.
free classical download #10
Arianna's dim view of backlit art. I'm okay with apps; just don't make me use them! Youth will be served.

Snapshot

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This week's video: Alec Guinness as Father Brown, plus a rare sound newsreel of G.K. Chesterton.

Almanac

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Today's entry: G.K. Chesterton on optimism and pessimism.
Times accords puff-piece, front-page treatment to Met's Velázquez story, ignores lawsuit claiming Met's Cézanne. Pitfalls of privileged access.
"New Media Evangelist" Is Reluctant To Advocate Social Media; Worries About Existential Point

Line break

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...spacing, lineation, and pagination have been insufficiently considered. Music has been treated as prose

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

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Talk of the German literary scene: It sounds like he's gossiping about gangsters.
Free classical download #9
Every year, the founding choreographer seems stronger than ever, and the rest of the rep as bad as it ever was.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Rex Stout on the advantage of pessimism.

Do I See A Waltz?

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The Morgan Starts Putting Music Manuscripts Online, Like Juilliard. Is There A Way To Step It Up?
For me, this condition-compromised canvas was dead on arrival (unlike last year's Velázquez upgrade). Museum itself low-keyed it.
For me, this condition-compromised canvas was dead on arrival (unlike last year's Velázquez upgrade). Museum itself low-keyed it.
I had expected reasonable people (like Ross) to disagree with me. I hadn't anticipated the twitterati's distortions and name-calling.
"Gymnopédie No. 1" has entered the jazz repertoire, but how many jazz listeners know it as Satie wrote it?
Who remembers the great radio comedian today?

Just because

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See Ben Webster and Gerry Mulligan play "Who's Got Rhythm" in 1963.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Oscar Wilde on optimism.
Prescient American contemporary collector and major benefactor of the Met, Whitney, MoMA and his eponymous museum at Purchase College, NY.

Igor

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On the Russian Consulate of San Francisco's interesting approach to supporting Russian-relevant cultural programming
Should Clough resign? Removal of posthumously altered video isn't sole criterion by which Smithsonian Secretary's job performance should be judged.

Dear Santa in Apt. 7A

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Get into the spirit of the season with this true story of two accidental elves.

Grab Your Down Coat

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Two Moscow Artists Give A Gift To Ice Sculptors...A Freezing Museum Extends Art's Life
True tales of musical life in 2010, red in tooth and claw
"This video has been removed by the user" (or by the Whitney?). Fly-through is grounded. But images linger on.
Here's my annual best-of-the-year Wall Street Journal drama column for 2010.

'Tis the season (IV)

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Hear Louis Armstrong recite "The Night Before Christmas."
A Christmas gift from the distant past--the first recordings of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Charles Dickens on the power of Christmas.

Narcissism As Art

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A new art installation projects larger-than-life images of passersby on a wall in downtown San Francisco

What I regret about 2010

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Paul Levy alters his opinion of a brave man and praises a production he didn't review
With Paintings! The Nelson-Atkins Again Sets A Model That Can Be Broadened Out

Christmas cheer

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Last blog post till next year, with some Christmas music happiness.
Join me for my first view of Boston MFA's Foster wing façade. See the building acquired for its NEXT expansion!
This is not an April Fools joke: Math teachers are excessed instead of art teachers...
on alcohol and drug abuse in orchestras
Free classical download #4
The dead come back to define what's fresh
NEA's advisory body gets someone with serious visual arts creds. But Landesman's opportunity to push for artists' fellowships has passed.

'Courage Is Contagious'

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Video: Julian Assange speaks to David Frost. Video: Fear is also contagious, fanned by "shock-jock politicians."
Here's my weekly theater guide.

'Tis the season (III)

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"Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Ron Shelton's Christmas credo.
..."One year later, after 14 years of teaching, I was laid off."
On why we shouldn't pay too much attention to Gramophone's rankings and musings about three recent choral concerts I attended

30-Day Deadline

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SF Asian Art Museum Gets Brief Reprieve To Work Out Financial Woes -- Or Else: Bankruptcy?

How do they listen?

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We don't know what the existing classical audience hears at concerts -- how close attention they pay, how much they know about the music.

How could I forget?

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More holiday CD picks -- belated, but they're marvelous: Maya Beiser and Carlo Bergonzi.
Hike with me around the vast perimeter of the expanded Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Norman Foster's wing is...where?
Another one jailed for child molestation
"Those of you that love music, love art..."
Watch it live on webcam!
And here's a star concerto as free track #3

So how many is too many?

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What shall we do with the drunk musician?

Snapshot

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This week's video: the King's College Choir sings Peter Warlock's "Balulalow."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Julia Peterkin on Christmas present.
Do They Reveal More Than We Know? Some High-Placed Italian Experts Think They Do
Now you can! (Update: Maybe not.) Cavernous, sunlit spaces. Where do small-scale works go? Yet to raise---$200 million.
..."Exposure to Arts Means Higher SAT scores"
Trumpeter-composer Randall Sandke writes that blacks' centrality in jazz is over-hyped

Messiah in the Mall

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A performance of the Hallelujah Chorus results in a mall's evacuation.
Am I the only artworld observer who believes Smithsonian Secretary Clough did the right (or, at least, politically astute) thing?
Jonathan Katz defends his alteration of Wojnarovicz's video for museum display; other readers maintain that museums do show gay content.
Performance innovator Herring's 21 day-long "Actions" at Meulensteen were like group meditations rather than some anti-audience, anti-viewer, sacrificial rite.
The last of the series
A case study of public service equivocation

'Tis the season (II)

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See Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas" in "Holiday Inn."

Almanac

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Today's entry: William Hazlitt on hope.
Twelve Museums Send A Monthly Masterpiece "Greeting Card" To The Dulwich Picture Gallery
AAMD-mandated transparency starts at home (or should). Its president's Minneapolis Institute won't come clean about dirt-encrusted Greek krater.

Gifts

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Three recordings I love -- Stockausen, Stewart Goodyear, and René Jacobs's Magic Flute.
44 entries
Musings about a choral concert in the heart of Yosemite and a choral documentary from the heart of Minnesota
Technology, technology, technology

Spare a thought...

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for snowbound musicians

Listri's Libraries

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The Morgan Library Puts On A Show To Delight Book Lovers, Library Lovers, Photography Lovers
Recent results from online coupons.

Snapshot

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This week's video: Mel Tormé and Judy Garland sing "The Christmas Song" in 1963.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Jimmy Cannon on Christmas.
A captivating, completely audio-driven scavenger hunt navigated by only your wits and your ears.
What might a slow arts movement look like?
Biden's sick-making Wikileaks contradictions... Zombie lies in the decade of the living dead... Is there no concept of objective truth?
Government support: rethink it...
If you don't mind adventurism in holiday music, Matt Wilson's Christmas Tree-O gives you plenty of it.
The artist wrote it in the Wall Street Journal
Musings about a choral concert in the heart of Yosemite and a choral documentary from the heart of Minnesota
Even kids on American Bandstand dug Don Van Vliet (1/15/41-12/17/10)
Iconography -
We are not there yet.
Per Husby writes: I'd like to share a little remembrance of mine of James Moody - from Oslo, Norway somewhere around 1990
Two Norton Museum Curators, In Five Days, Prowled Miami Beach Fairs: The Results

Another portent

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In another sign of big changes coming to classical music, the Cleveland Orchestra wants a younger audience.
Art of the Americas isn't BMFA's only reinstallation news. Let's visit the first gallery in Shackelford's European arts re-do.

Wikileaks Wrap

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The roundup and the rap continue ...
Not-for-Profit v. Commercial Art --
Mary Zimmerman's "Candide" reviewed.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Ford Madox Ford on good and bad books.

Everyone's A Curator

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The Walker's Crowdsourced 50-50 Exhibit; A Model For The 21st Century? Or Abdication?

In "The Hard Nut" Mark Morris's renegade streak has every opportunity to flourish

Portent

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Work for NYC freelance musicians is drying up -- a serious sign that classical music is in trouble.
Curator Katz's inflammatory "American Taliban" quote. Plus his public admission of tampering with Wojnarowicz's video for "museological" purposes. Curatorial license?
...When people think say that arts education is elite, I point to the art of espresso
Short and simple --
Join me at NYPL, seated beside National Portrait Gallery director Martin Sullivan, and listen to "Hide/Seek's" curators (and Martin) expound.
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Rebecca West on boredom.
Artist-Collector Donates 400 Works By Women: Bourgeois, Spero, Neel, Coe, Saar...More
Museum's officials "haven't heard a peep from Sotheby's" about art-rental nibbles. Will the Shigeru Ban addition ever get built?
...I learned that Washington never told a lie. I learned that soldiers seldom die.
Continuing the series --
Actually, many themes - new piece by young Chinese composer
Reasonable people can disagree, and I disagree with just about everyone on Smithsonian "Hide/Seek" controversy. Most rational voice: David Wojnarowicz.

Clark Terry Is 90

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Admired for his trumpet, flugelhorn, singing and blues mumbling, CT has been an inspiration to generations of musicians.
Revealing Statistics On Who Came, Why, What They Spent...$784 Million In Economic Activity

Snapshot

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This week's video: Bert Lahr and Stanley Holloway in the 1964 TV version of "The Fantasticks."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Mary Renault on courage.

Fire Up Your Netflix Queue

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Why reduce your yearly experiences to ten items when the sum of all the parts can generate something like this
Fairouz singing Mahler Fourth? Could be...
Cooperative ventures --

Great Scot!

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New Book Tells How Even van Gogh's Roommate -- A Great Dealer -- Missed His Genius...Was It The Suicide Pact?

Almanac

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Today's entry: Jonathan Yardley on the novelist of manners.
Farewell to Peter Andry, EMI's spinmeister

Cage Against the Machine

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John Cage's silent piece, 4'33", might just go to the top of the British pop chart.s
Violence in the streets scares the shit out of the authorities more than guerrilla geeks. Internet attacks are an abstraction.
Weekend cultural happenings...
How far back should museums go to right historic wrongs? Is a claim related to Russian Revolution expropriations too stale?
...the forces conspiring to diminish the field of concert music are much more complex, difficult to understand, and perhaps impossible to alter than most people might believe or admit
How sex and celebrity distort the high fliers
Continuing the list --
Crisis mounts for second-city arts

How Moody Became Famous

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A reader wondered why she had never heard Moody's "I'm in the Mood For Love." So do I. Here it is.
It Works: MFA-Boston Says It Will Reinstate Its Prize For Women Artists In 2011
Jacob Lateiner was a leader in a generation of pianists who regarded the composer... as its highest authority
Nancy LaMott, who died fifteen years ago this Monday, sings "Time After Time."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Franz Werfel on timeliness.
Counterpoint, the think tank for the British Council, publishes a new pamphlet on culture and class.
Will digital natives think "about anything bigger than our Facebook profiles and our TV screens"?

Looking Up in Texas

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Thoughts on Deborah Hay's "Lecture on Beauty" at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Dan Flavin installation at The Menil Collection's Richmond Hall, and the influence of the Waco limestone flats on theater director and artist Robert Wilson. Author Theodore Bale begins an adventure of looking at art and performance in Texas.

Ten Work Items for 2011

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A Top Ten list for the arts sector

Just say no

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How funders can increase their effectiveness -- my response to the capitalization report.
An op-ed denouncing Simon Cowell and the Tate

Two centenarians on video

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Carter and Barzun, the great survivors

Anna Mahler on live radio

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A key figure in the Shostakovich controversy

Life After Brandeis

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Ex-Director Of Rose Art Museum Lands A Job In East Lansing, At The Broad Art Museum

Cutting Room Floor

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On feeling bad about interviewee comments not making it into the final cut of an article
Skilled at fundraising, eager to mount single-lender blockbusters (even at high cost). He partly funded current Nigerian show himself.

A cautionary tale

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Often we worry that bad things will happen if classical music changes. But aren't we just speculating?
How did this beloved, very familiar painting grow eightfold after leaving the Met? Vogel doesn't say. I blame the Brits!

Peter Marzio Has Died

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Sad News From Houston MFA...UPDATED With Some Personal Reflections On The Man
...access to this heritage, in a manner that provides engagement and ultimately ownership, is fundamental to what education is ultimately about.

Break a neck?

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It's the new work on the block
Eighteen years after his death, he still makes the monkeys dance

James Moody, 1925-2010

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We knew it was coming. That doesn't make it easier.
Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's "I Capture the Castle" reviewed.
How Adolf Busch wrecked his career by doing the right thing.

Almanac

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Today's entry: André Malraux on the meaning of art.
Moody's music was virtuosic, warm and humorous; he died of pancreatic cancer, age 85
The trend in Manhattan's main clubs is red, hot, wild electric, post-genre eclectic improv

Scoreboards -- yes or no?

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People who didn't like my "Orchestra Scoreboards" post seem unfair to new listeners.
Neil Young and Joanna Newsom help to raise millions to support a new children's hospital. If only their performances could have been better
Morgan's study plus two spaces opened for first time---J.P.'s vault, his librarian's office. Trying to tame Piano's immense atrium.
Those who are very high on high-stakes accountability, will surely deride this film as being against rigor, another swipe at failed progressive notions in education.
Lucky Dallas Museum Of Art Offers "Big New Field"...No Pandering Here
For those who think arts education is part of the core, shall we look to high flying Shanghai?
"... when the operation of the machine becomes so odious ... you've got to put your bodies upon the gears..."
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: André Malraux on torture and terrorism.
The Henry dips into the image stream
Does Times really want to return Rosetta Stone, Nefertiti to Egypt? Stop berating the NPG: Instead, call for "Hide/Seek" tour!

Arlequin

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New Yorker envies San Francisco arts industry hub
Roman Bust, 2nd Century, Fetches Multiples of Its $2- To $3-Million Presale Estimate
Two iconic images

Snapshot

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This week's video: Sammy Davis, Jr., and the Will Mastin Trio perform an excerpt from their nightclub act in 1954.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Margaret Drabble on identity.

Impasse

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An unusual animated film captures the frustrations of trying to raise money as a non-profit arts organization

Orchestra scoreboards

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From a student frustrated by orchestra concerts -- an idea to make them more comprehensible.

Who's On Park?

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Armory's Rebecca Robertson On The Challenge Of Doing All The Arts "Equally"...A WSJ Cultural Conversation
Time to look back, so we know where to go
a rare look at the classic quartet--Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello--at the Blackhawk
I don't know yet whether it was "Boston Museum of Fine Arts on Fire," but it sure was "BMFA Evacuated"!

Almanac

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Today's entry: Margaret Drabble on quotations,
The last living member of the Northwest School checks out
A quick summary of four interesting and contrasting events around town

Wonderful students

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Students in my music criticism class write something terrific -- perceptive, and evocative, too.

"Of which vertu"

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Virtuoso playing can almost physically uplift us... I'd like to root the word "virtuosity" in "virtue"

Balanchine's vintage Nutcracker--with Sara Mearns

A Quibble Or Two And A Question Or Two

Among the thorny issues raised by the Detroit Symphony strike is whether orchestras can afford to offer "full-time" jobs to their musicians -- and the consequences. If I seem unsympathetic to the players, it's because I've heard the union litany once too often.

How Mrs. T and I escaped from a Philadelphia.

Just because

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See American Ballet Theatre dance Antony Tudor's "Pillar of Fire" in 1973.

Almanac

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Joseph Conrad on resolve.
Protesters assert one was handcuffed and both banned for life from Smithsonian. See video of the incident on CultureGrrl.
Vandalism On Latches Lane: Meant To Intimidate Foes Of The Barnes Foundation Move?
Who, or what, is harmed by broadening the definition of art?
Better off without it?
My second attempt to make it to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' American wing, the new Norman Foster expansion.
David Lynch is now writing electro-pop

It's Easy To See Why

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From Today's WSJ Masterpiece Column: Beckmann's Self-Portrait In A Tuxedo, From 1927

The New Brubeck Documentary

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Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood coalesce and blend disparate elements into a coherent and entertaining story of an amazing life.
Unlike "Piss Christ" artist Andres Serrano, David Wojnarowicz isn't around to enjoy the wider audience. Flagged as "inappropriate" on YouTube.
"Unwarranted, uninformed censorship from politicians" who hadn't seen the show or the hot-button video. Removal of work "extremely regrettable."
A service organization for chamber music gets to grips with the fast-changing artistic landscape
Commitments to consignors, whether or not bidding reaches promised price, up 14-fold from year ago. Irrevocable bids a factor.
Commitments to consignors, whether or not bidding reaches promised price, up 14-fold from year ago. Irrevocable bids a factor.
Commitments to consignors, whether or not bidding reaches promised price, up 14-fold from year ago. Irrevocable bids a factor.
Looking for a special little gift?
Here's one way the print version of a daily newspaper beats the online version.

The Case for Alma Mahler

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A fine singer re-examines her 'suppressed' songs
Weston explores African rhythms, McNeil and McHenry go west coasting, sort of

Just because

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See Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Ormandy, and the Vienna Philharmonic perform Mozart's C Major Piano Concerto.

Almanac

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V.S. Pritchett on living in the moment.

Hope Springs Eternal

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Pennsylvania Officials, Assessing Economy, May Help Foes Of The Barnes Move
National pride can be a beautiful thing to express as an artist, especially if it's expressed in a unique way
Even though most of his figures were born old, warped in time and oppressed by place, they kick up their misshaped legs to dance

Is Art Boring?

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Are The 92nd Street Y, Peter Greenaway and The Hide/Seek Incident Saying The Same Thing?
AAMD's contacts with Crystal Bridges did nothing to dissuade Alice Walton's planned museum from exploiting Fisk's disregard of donor intent.

Colliding with reality

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Spiffy new branding at Lincoln Center might backfire.
AAMD's contacts with Crystal Bridges did nothing to dissuade Alice Walton's planned museum from exploiting Fisk's disregard of donor intent.
I was never much of a boy band fan, but the Maccabeats, coming to us out of Yeshiva University, have stolen my heart.
or why the hapless director of the National Portrait Gallery should reconsider or resign
Mahler's time has truly come
With Dave Brubeck's 90th birthday five days away, anticipation of the event is widespread
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: V.S. Pritchett on youth.

Surely The Red Shoes, created by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is the most beloved ballet film of all time. My innocent eyes and heart were ravished by it shortly after its premiere in 1948.

You can hear me now...along with National Portrait Gallery director Martin Sullivan and newly minted art critics lambasting Wojnarowicz.
National Portrait Gallery tells me why it agreed to jettison the controversial Wojnarowicz video; says there won't be other changes.
From Picasso and Francis Bacon to the detachment of the austistic

The "Best" Of 2010

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Apollo Magazine Honors Excellence: Person, Book, Acquisition, Exhibition And Museum Opening
Tales from the pre-Christmas trade
Why always look to the East for inner peace when a western concert hall will do?

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from December 2010 listed from newest to oldest.

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