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Thursday, October 30, 2003

Canadian Copyright Bill Clears A Hurdle A controversial piece of legislation which would extend the rights of Canadian copyright holders well into the 21st century has passed a vote in the House of Commons. Until the late 1990s, Canadian copyrights had no expiration date, but a 1997 overhaul allowed thousands of old documents and images to enter the public domain. The new bill is a partial rollback of that 1997 legislation, and is also being carefully watched by observers on all sides of the ongoing evolution of copyright law. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/30/03

Met Objects To Lincoln Center Plan The refurbishment of Lincoln Center has hit another snag, as the Metropolitan Opera raises objections. "The dispute ostensibly revolves around parking and the convenience of the paying public. But it also resonates with the longstanding objections of the Met's general manager, Joseph Volpe, to the overall redevelopment project. From the start, Mr. Volpe has been opposed to making major structural changes to the campus. Even if the differences are ultimately resolved, Mr. Volpe's objections threaten to delay the process." The New York Times 10/30/03

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Austin Cuts Back Performing Arts Center Plans for a major performing arts center in Austin Texas are scaled back - for now, at least. "The price tag for the project, stalled by escalating expectations and then an economic downturn, drops from $125.1 million to about $72 million. The group still must raise nearly $25 million - that includes $10 million for an operating endowment - before it can open the center a year later than planned: 2007." Austin American-Statesman 10/29/03

B of A: A Bank Where A Could Stand For Arts? Charlotte-based Bank of America is taking over FleetBoston to create the second largest bank in America. That may be good news for the arts. "Bank of America has been 'a real driving force behind the arts really coming front and center in the state, and particularly in Charlotte. It's just offered the most incredible leadership - not just funding and resources, a lot of human resources, but just really understanding the importance of the arts. It's in large part because of the bank's leadership,' that Charlotte regularly leads the nation in per capita arts spending." Boston Globe 10/29/03

Baltimore Looks To The Arts A wide-ranging collection of arts groups and cultural leaders will meet this weekend in Baltimore for the city's second annual summit meeting on the arts. Mayor Martin O'Malley hosted the first meeting last year, which was billed as a citywide brainstorming session, and which drew 300 artists and activists. This year's event will focus on ways to make up the national shortfall in arts funding, the future of private giving to the arts, and the omnipresent issue of how to draw out a city's "creative class." Baltimore Sun 10/29/03

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Arts Giving Down Sharply In US For the first time in 12 years, charitable giving in the US was down last year. But cultural groups took a big hit, reports the Chronicle of Philanthropy. "A large, one-time gift in the 2001 fiscal year from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund to two arts and cultural groups in this year's survey had the effect of causing donations to arts groups to decline steeply last year in percentage terms. The 14 arts organizations in the survey saw their aggregate gifts fall 26.5 percent in 2002. Some arts groups, however, say that they expect to raise at least as much in 2003 as they did last year, in part from capital campaigns." Chronicle of Philanthropy 10/30/03

Monday, October 27, 2003

Public Art Recalled To Make It More Accessible The state of California recently called up some major changes to a public art project at the state capitol to make it accessible to those with disabilities. "The cosmic recall, scoffed by some and applauded by others, reflects a growing awareness of disability rights among art and design communities." Sacramento Bee 10/27/03

How To Rebuild Iraq's Arts? "How do we take what exists in Iraq, how we fortify those institutions, how do we fortify the schools that teach music and art, how do we fortify regional arts organisations and what holes are left? Under Saddam, sculptors got a monthly stipend. They're not high up on the priority list of people in Iraq, but somebody has to attend to this." Reuters 10/27/03

Santa Cruz: How To Dismantle An Arts Community Support for the arts in Santa Cruz, California has been evaporating. And the city's artists are leaving. "In the last couple of weeks, not a day has gone by when I haven’t heard of an artist moving away. The Diaspora of young artists here is evaporating because it’s too expensive to live here and because there’s a serious lack of venues in this town." Santa Cruz Sentinel 10/27/03

Sunday, October 26, 2003

OC Register Cuts Back Arts Columns The Orange County Register cuts back its arts coverage, cutting its classical music column back from once a week to once a month. "Behind the change, of course, is the thinking that classical music is a marginal art form, patronized by a very few." Orange County Register 10/26/03

Connecticut's New Super Culture Agency Connecticut creates a "super-agency" of culture that combines all the state's cultural programs under one roof. "What there is plenty of, are politicos. This could bode well when it comes time to go after significant state dollars beyond the $24.48 million the new agency now oversees this fiscal year ($20 million comes from lodging tax revenues) and at least $20 million for the next; but when it comes to allocating those funds politicians haven't the best of track records of fairness, merit and accountability." Hartford Courant 10/26/03

After The Lottery... Now What? In the past decade, a flurry of ambitious lottery-funded attractions went up around the UK. Opened in a blaze of publicity, some of them are now finding the going tougher as they try to earn their way. Can we expect a rash of lottery-funded cultural failures in the next few years? The Guardian (UK) 10/27/03

Saturday, October 25, 2003

The Man Who Saved The National Arts Center Peter Herrndorf is an arts turn-around artist. His latest triumph is revitalizing Ottawa's national Arts Center. And he didn't do it by playing safe. "The trouble was that as money got tighter through the nineties, people [within the NAC] became risk-averse, and this is an organization where you want the sensibility to be exactly the opposite. We're going through a fascinating experiment. We're trying to take an organization and say it will play an important national role, not in rhetorical terms, but in its ability to support arts organizations in different regions and to build communities and have this organization raise funding across the country." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/25/03

Another Melbourne Fest Hits the Books This year's Melbourne Festival comes to a close. "Festival-goers could take their pick of about 70 offerings this year, but it seemed that most wanted to talk about just two of them: the public program Dancing In The Streets and the controversial Belgian production I Am Blood. The former was roundly judged a success, having attracted nightly crowds averaging about 1000 to dance classes at Federation Square, many of them people who had never attended a festival event. But Jan Fabre's bloody meditation upon humanity's inhumanity won few fans." The Age (Melbourne) 10/26/03

Thursday, October 23, 2003

The Trouble With Slash-And-Burn Government With deficits plaguing cities, states, and provinces across North America, and a political culture that deplores anything that looks vaguely like a tax increase, the arts are increasingly becoming a victim of a me-first society that doesn't believe that government ought to be in the business of handing out any money to anyone, ever. Charles Gordon wishes more people would pay attention to the fundamental mistake that is being made by those who would zero out the arts as a budget item. "You feel for the artists, who are only trying to make half a decent living, and for arts organizations that are merely trying to give opportunities to young writers, actors, painters and musicians who struggle to find an audience in a world of couch potatoes." Ottawa Citizen 10/23/03

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Back To Worrying About The Lincoln Center Problem With the New York Philharmonic back at Lincoln Center, attention is again turned on the need to rebuild New York's West Side cultural campus. "While Lincoln Center jump-started gentrification around Columbus Circle, this case study in superblock architecture also provided city planners with a definitive lesson in how not to design cultural institutions. Nor has the center exactly stood the test of time—with 10 million visitors annually, the place is in need of major repair, plagued as it is by pesky plumbing and crumbling floors." New York Observer 10/22/03

The Comic That Scared Washington "In an unprecedented move that angered readers and generated industry criticism, The Washington Post recently killed an entire week of "The Boondocks" comic strip with a story line suggesting the world might be a safer place if national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had a more active love life." Comics have been being pulled from newspapers since the days of Pogo, of course, but the fact that a paper of national import such as the Post would find the strip, which was not explicit, too hot to handle, is raising old questions about censorship, humor, and the purpose of a newspaper's comics page. Boston Globe 10/22/03

Sunday, October 19, 2003

The NEA's Misguided Populism The National Endowment for the Arts is taking an ambitious but misguided step with its plan to bring Shakespeare to the hinterlands, says Michael Phillips. "Class is a commodity like any other, and with the Shakespeare touring projects the NEA is spending more than $2 million on a classy image makeover. These days the NEA does not concern itself much with tossing seed money to artists or companies who may be controversial or risky or untested. In [NEA chairman Dana]Gioia's words, the agency intends to focus on bringing 'art of indisputable excellence to all Americans.' It sounds right. It sounds inclusive, and unassailably democratic. Yet somehow a Shakespeare initiative sounds like an investment in yesterday's culture, not tomorrow's." Chicago Tribune 10/19/03

Rebuilding Iraq's Artistic Infrastructure It may seem a bit premature for a country in which large chunks of the population are still without power, private homes, and schools, but a group of U.S. arts leaders have been dispatched to Iraq to survey the damage caused to the country's cultural scene. Iraq's global cultural significance cannot be overstated - this is the cradle of civilization, after all - but at a time when the future could not be more uncertain, many arts leaders are concerned that even the country's most venerable institutions will have a hard time making the transition to a post-Saddam Hussein reality. Boston Globe (Reuters) 10/18/03

D.C. Arts Center Facing Eviction A seemingly endless battle between the city government of Washington, D.C. and a small arts center housed in a former junior high school came to a head this week, as the District served the Millenium Arts Center with an eviction notice. Accusations are flying back and forth - the MAC doesn't pay its rent; the city doesn't keep its word; etc. - but both sides seem almost eager to force a public confrontation over a dispute which has been simmering quietly for several years. Washington Post 10/18/03

Friday, October 17, 2003

Latino Museum Plan Takes A Step Forward The idea of starting a National Museum of the American Latino has begun to gain traction in recent years, and this week, supporters got a legislative boost, when a California congressman introduced a bill to authorize a feasibility study for the museum. "The museum would be based in Washington and might be under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution." If it were built, it would join two other new museums dedicated to American minorities: "A museum dedicated to Native American culture is nearing completion at the southeast corner of the Mall. An African American museum is awaiting full congressional approval." Washington Post 10/17/03

Thursday, October 16, 2003

A Snapshot Of Scotland's Artists There's the romantic notion of what an artist's life is like. Then there's the economic reality. A new study of Scotland's artists shows that "40% of artists under 35 made work that generated no income. Only 17% of the artists earned more than £10,000 a year from artistic practice alone, and many supplemented their income. The figures also contain a fascinating snapshot of contemporary Scottish artists as economic players. In the past two years, they pumped £4.6m into the economy through their expenditure on art materials, transport, and premises, of which £443,000 was spent on assistants." Glasgow Herald 10/17/03

After The Budget Cuts Comes The Pain It's been a tough year for arts funding, with cutbacks in public funding across America. "Taken together, it's clear that last spring's budget battles, in which most state legislatures agreed to substantial cuts in arts funding, are now being acutely felt by not-for-profits nationwide." Backstage 10/15/03

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Music And Dance Schools To Merge Two major English arts schools are planning to merge. "Trinity College of Music and Laban, which have international reputations, are to become a fame academy for the classical world from next autumn. The move has been hailed as a breakthrough for the two disciplines, which have always been taught separately in Britain despite their long shared history." The Guardian (UK) 10/16/03

Aussie University Strike Teachers at Australia's universities have gone on strike. "Classes were cancelled and libraries closed as staff picketed outside universities to protest against government moves to link higher education funding to industrial conditions." The Age (Melbourne) 10/16/03

Foxy Plan For Oakland Arts School "The Oakland City Council is considering spending $13 million to renovate the long-shuttered Fox Theater downtown, with $5.5 million of the public money helping fund a new home for Mayor Jerry Brown's arts charter school." San Francisco Chronicle 10/15/03

Scottish Ballet, Visual Artists Call Truce "A Row between Scottish Ballet and Scotland’s visual arts community showed signs of being defused yesterday, following what was called a 'positive' meeting of the two parties. The meeting was the first sign that Scottish Ballet may be willing to compromise on its plan to take over Glasgow’s Tramway arts venue." The Scotsman 10/15/03

Carded - Orange County Arts Orange County arts groups introduce an arts card. "The OC Arts Card, sponsored by Arts Orange County, will provide 10-40 percent discounts at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, South Coast Repertory and about 40 other local arts institutions. Discounts will range from savings on admission and tickets to reductions on classes and gift-shop items. Proceeds will support arts education in the county and help fund arts grants." Orange County Register 10/15/03

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Donor Demands Princeton Return $525 Million A donor who gave Princeton's business school $525 million to help train talent for the US government, is demanding the money back. "Princeton has known for decades that the goal of our foundation is to send students into federal government, and they've ignored us. Princeton has abused the largest charitable gift in the history of American higher education, and that's embarrassing. They will lose the money." Chicago Tribune 10/14/03

Adelaide Fest Goes European "The indigenous content of the 2004 Adelaide Festival was a vexed question given the emphasis put on it last year by Los Angeles' modern opera impresario Peter Sellars before his spectacular resignation over disagreements with the Adelaide Festival board. Seemingly to avoid the issue altogether, artistic director Stephen Page, an indigenous man and artistic director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre, has programmed a strongly European festival in the conventional arts mode." Sydney Morning Herald 10/15/03

Darwinism As Applied To The Arts Two Minnesota theatres are going out of business. That's sad, writes Dominic Papatola, but not really. "I'm a believer in what one arts consultant calls the 'limited life organization.' Not every arts group that pops up should grow into a major institution. To be brutally honest, Minnesota's historically generous philanthropic support for the arts has kept some groups on life support longer than would be considered merciful elsewhere. We live in a new age of artistic Darwinism: Some groups will expire as the energies of their founders fade. Some will not earn audience support. Some will not have the hustle it takes to find funding and endure." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 10/12/03

Sunday, October 12, 2003

Complacency - Enemy Of Art? Leaders of Hartford's arts institutions get together to talk about the challenges their organizations face. "I think I see a widening complacency on the part of a big chunk of our audience. Not the best of our audience, which remains smart, risk-taking and just as ambitious in their own way as we try to be as the leaders of arts agencies. But I see a creeping complacency. Maybe it's a taking for granted of the uniqueness of so many wonderful institutions in this town. Increasingly I fear that our audiences don't know how good they have it, living in a place like this. I don't think [the public] gets it the way they used to in the 1930s [up until the] early '80s. That's what I'm worried about because that will affect all of us." Hartford Courant 10/12/03

Friday, October 10, 2003

Seattle's "Genius" Awards The MacArthur awards have been announced for this year. But Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger decided to give out its own "genius" awards. While winners get a much smaller prize ($5,000 rather than the MacArthur's $500,000), there's a lot of honor that goes along with them. Organizers say they're "steering a middle course between the MacArthur Awards and Publishers Clearinghouse. All the hugging and kissing between critics and award winners brought a disclaimer of sorts from editor Dan Savage. "None of our critics has slept with any of the award winners. Not yet. Maybe it's time they paid up." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10/10/03

Michigan: Hip To Be Cool Michigan's governor says she wants to make her state so cool that people will be drawn to it. "The governor said she mailed letters to 200 Michigan mayors encouraging them to organize 'cool commissions' to make their cities attractive enough to keep young adults in the state. 'More than 33,000 young adults ages 25-34 left Metro Detroit between 2000 and 2002, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report. It was the biggest loss of that age group in the country, an exodus that could put the area's long-term economic outlook at risk'." Detroit News 10/09/03

Yerba Buena At Ten San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center is a different kind of arts center. "Inspired by the German Kunst- hallen, exhibition spaces that maintain no permanent collections, the center instead has focused on visual and performing arts that showcase emerging talent from across the town's diverse cultural populations. Curators make a special effort to showcase Asian, Hispanic, and African-American artists." Now Yerba Buena is ten years old. Christian Science Monitor 10/10/03

Thursday, October 9, 2003

10 Years In, and Still In Search Of An Identity "It has been called a godsend for the arts and a major disappointment, 'the Lincoln Center of the West' and 'a conundrum in concrete.' When it opened, in 1993, former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto viewed the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as a pallid substitute for what might have been. Today, composer Paul Dresher dubs the South of Market complex 'a great institution and invaluable resource.'" So which is it? Well, it seems to depend entirely on who you ask, and what their perpective is on the Bay Area's exceedingly diverse arts scene. San Francisco Chronicle 10/09/03

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

Cuban Artists Increasingly Kept Out Of US Increasingly, cultural events in the US featuring Cuban artists(primarily in south Florida) are having to be canceled because the US is failing to issue visas. "We did everything on time, knowing all that is happening with the visa process - and nothing. Some big name writers have declined to participate in the Book Fair all together because they don't want to endure the humiliation they are being put through in this process. This situation is creating tension, ill-will, and is hurting our cultural events." Miami Herlad 10/08/03

Cross-Gender Confusion Cross-arts collaborations are all the rage in London. "Collaborations at their best can be energising creative moments produced by artists headed in unexpected new directions; about extraordinary melting pots of ideas. Or they can be a disaster, like the Steve McQueen and Jessye Norman encounter. They should also be undertaken with enormous care. Hitherto, there have been a few certainties about the capital's artistic life: the Wigmore was the home of chamber music and song; the ENO was the home of opera in English; Sadler's Wells was the home of modern dance. One might have found those certainties deadening or dull, but at least it was clear what those organisations were for. There's a problem with mixing it all up: you can get all mixed up." The Guardian (UK) 10/09/03

An Old Debate Renewed In Canada, as in the U.S., battles over controversial images have often been waged with the definition of the term "artistic merit" at the center. Now, a bill is being debated in the Canadian Parliament which would remove the "artistic merit" defense from the federal law banning child pornography, in favor of a requirement that an artwork be proven to be a "public good." Kate Taylor says the change would have a crippling effect on Canadian art and freedom. "The artistic-merit defence can at least be argued by bringing artistic peers, critics and academics into court, but how do you prove the public good of an individual art work -- no matter how much you might believe in the public good of art in general?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/08/03

Detroit's Culture Czar As Detroit continues a concerted effort to remake its image and turn its fortunes, the arts and culture have been playing a big role. But according to Karen Dumas, the city's newly appointed Director of Cultural Affairs, what's still missing is a sense of cohesion among Detroit's arts groups. A marketing specialist, Dumas says that her goal will be to find ways to connect the area's larger arts organizations, such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, with smaller, more flexible groups, in an effort to craft a cohesive arts strategy for a city on the mend. Detroit News 10/08/03

Monday, October 6, 2003

Editor: Why I Killed A Negative Review The editor who killed a negative review of a book by one of her newspaper's writers, defends the decision: "I didn't kill the review because I disliked it (though I've been widely quoted saying that I did). And I didn't kill it because I thought it was poorly done. A tamer version of the same review has since appeared in at least one newspaper, and I find no fault with that. I assumed the freelance writer would sell it elsewhere, and I wasn't trying to protect Albom from a negative review. I decided not to publish it because that's not how I want to treat any single employee, and because I think all our employees should be protected from, as one colleague put it, the ethical dilemma and no-win position of passing critical judgment on a colleague's work." Detroit Free Press 10/05/03

  • Previously: Detroit Newspaper Kills Negative Book Review Of One Of Its Own The Detroit Free Press has killed a review it had commissioned of a book by Mitch Albom, the newspaper's star sports columnist, because the review came in negative. The paper's executive editor "confirmed that she decided not to run the review by freelance writer Carlo Wolff simply because the reviewer didn't much like the book. She said Albom was not involved in the decision. The book is titled 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven.' 'I was not really comfortable with disparaging one of my employees that way. Yes, it's because the review was negative'." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 09/27/03
Sunday, October 5, 2003

Non-Profits Find a Little For-Profit On The Side "For a long time, pop music acts have been selling T-shirts, videos, coffee mugs, beach towels and the like as a separate revenue stream. Now, increasingly, non-profit arts groups are getting into the act." Want a piece of Disney Hall? It's yours, for a price... Chicago Tribune (LATimes) 10/05/03

Getting The Arts Into Electoral Politics The arts are not generally on most people's lists of hot political topics guaranteed to spark rousing debate between candidates. "But scratch the surface and you'll find that, when elections roll around, Canada's provincial politicians increasingly do have cultural policies. Partly that's because many of them have started to buy economic arguments in favour of nurturing the arts; partly it's because arts lobby groups have had some success in getting their issues seriously debated, even if they aren't decisive on election day." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/04/03

The Money's There. But Who Knows How To Get It? You could make a fairly convincing argument that, even in times of economic downturn, there is always plenty of money in America that could be used to fund our perennially underfunded theaters, orchestras, and other arts groups. But for many arts groups, the central problem is finding a truly qualified professional who knows how to find that money and convince the people who have it to give it up. In fact the non-profit development director may be the most understaffed position in the American cultural scene at the moment. And that's a dangerous thing, because, like it or not, money makes the arts world go round. Chicago Tribune 10/05/03

Making Art, And Maybe Some Money No one teaches marketing in art school. Most students studying line drawing don't get much of an education in fiscal self-management, either. A new web site aims to give artists a head start on making their profession pay, and it all begins with a realistic lesson in Selling Yourself. Baltimore Sun (AP) 10/05/03

Holding Tight To High Culture Is Lincoln Center too devoted to high culture? Deborah Solomon thinks so, and argues that, in the wake of the New York Philharmonic's planned departure a few years down the road, Lincoln Center would do well to start embracing a bit of moneymaking pop culture. "What is art? Philosophers have debated the question for centuries, but at Lincoln Center the answer is clear. Art is anything that loses money... The greatest threat to the institution comes not from within, but from without, as it struggles to sustain a 20th-century, Rockefeller-style conception of high culture in the populist, mass-everything 21st century." New York Times Magazine 10/05/03

Detroit: The Arts City? Detroit has had its share of bad times. But a new flurry of arts-related development in the city's dismal Woodward Corridor has even cynical observers speculating that we could be seeing the rebirth of one of America's most notorious urban failures. "Expansion of [multiple local arts] organizations will increase the already huge economic impact of the arts, which in 2002 pumped $700 million and 11,755 jobs into the Detroit economy. And that doesn't count the spinoff from those facilities," which looks like it will be considerable. Detroit News 10/05/03

Boston, City Of Geniuses It's time again for the MacArthur Foundation to begin handing out its so-called "genius grants" - $500,000 gifts with no strings attached, awarded to the "most promising creative thinkers" in America - and this year, the city of Boston is home to no fewer than six of the recipients. "It is not surprising that Boston, with its top-tier universities and hospitals, would attract geniuses. But the Boston winners also represent something else: the triumph of synergy as people cross the traditional boundaries that divide one field from another." The Boston winners include composer Osvaldo Golijov, female circumcision activist Dr. Nawal Nour, and Xiaowei Zhuang, a Harvard physics professor. Boston Globe 10/05/03

Friday, October 3, 2003

Texas Mayor Backs Off Slashing Public Art Program Last week, Fort Worth's mayor Mike Moncrief suggested axing his city's public art program. But in the face of opposition from his city council, he's backed off the idea. "This was an appropriate discussion to have. But we need to move forward and close the debate on public art funding." Fort Worth Star-Telegraph 10/02/03

Thursday, October 2, 2003

Celebrity Trumps Politics Arnold Schwarzenegger has brought the big Hollywood machine approach to dealing with the media to politics. Not that the movies and politics haven't been keeping time together for some time. But this is a whole new level. "If Schwarzenegger wins, he will have done so by studiously and stealthily avoiding the traditional news media, supplanting newspaper interviews with softball entertainment TV appearances along the way." San Francisco Chronicle 10/02/03

Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Big-Time Funding, But At What Cost? "While many companies jockey for the naming rights to large sports stadiums, General Motors Corp. during the past few years has set its sights on cultural institutions. And this fall, the company is partnering with the mother of them all. When the General Motors Hall of Transportation opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on Nov. 22, it will be the largest one-time financial contribution the company has ever made to a cultural institution. It will also add fuel to the ongoing controversy of the Smithsonian's acceptance of corporate gifts in exchange for naming rights." Detroit News 10/01/03

Kansas City Dumps Acoustician The board in charge of building a $304 million performing arts center in Kansas City has fired Russell Johnson as acoustician, and replaced him with Yasuhisa Toyota of the Japan-based Nagata Acoustics. Johnson is known as the world's preeminent acoustical designer of large concert halls, and consulted on the new Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and the renovation of Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall, among others. The board cited rising costs as a major reason for the change, and also expressed concern with Johnson's tendency towards using "expensive sound chambers and movable panels" in his recent projects. Kansas City Star 09/30/03


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