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Fun use of a free newspaper

October 29, 2009 By

Sitting in the fug of London's Northern Line in the summer of 2007, Christopher Fox began to compose a vocal piece on the small ads in the freesheet London Lite. He called it 20 Ways to Improve Your Life and it has just been released on record by the Cambridge a capella group, The Clerks. The work is a telling reflection of the trash that gets thrust in our faces every time we board public transport - Give your sperm a life, don't run low, … [Read more...]

10/29/09 1:38 PM | filed under: main |

The snowman cometh

October 28, 2009 By

Attempts by Liz Forgan, chair of Arts Council England, to defend her veto of the Mayor of London's candidate are sounding more plaintive than her usual robust self. In a letter printed yesterday in the Guardian, whose ownership Trust she chairs, Dame Liz bleated that she was trying protect the ACE from political interference and to promote the cause of candidates who are more qualified than the Mayor's. Hmmm... let's examine those two points. The ACE is yoked … [Read more...]

10/28/09 2:02 PM | filed under: main |

Emily is a lousy composer, I’m so glad to say.

October 23, 2009 By

News that a computer boffin in California had successfully manufactured a simulacrum of 'classical music' was of such overwhelming importance that I was asked to analyse it on BBC Newsnight, while the leader of the British National Party was contentiously being given parity time on another channel. To my relief and delight, the musical samples obtained from Professor David Cope at the University of California, Santa Cruz, were of such derivative transparency and inventive poverty that the … [Read more...]

10/23/09 10:29 AM | filed under: Uncategorized |

Opera becomes an app

October 22, 2009 By

Opera magazine, parish newssheet of hard-core devotees, has gone on-line at iTunes. From this month, you can download the entire issue and a partial archive for $1.99 (£1.19 UK) a week, the equivalent of a couple of chart singles. Try it here.  Can't quite see how it will fit into my usage, but if I were an air-miles collector it might make a refreshing change from last week's Economist on the rack. This month's Opera cover is Glyndebourne's Rusalka.   … [Read more...]

10/22/09 12:20 PM | filed under: main |

Pots and kettles

October 21, 2009 By

The BBC's Culture Show is making a film about the decline of arts criticism in print media. It starts from the premise that the Daily Telegraph sacked some critics nine months ago in a cost-cutting drive and now pays freelances a pittance for their reviews. The story is neither new, nor confined to one newspaper, but it takes BBC television a very long time to wake up to what's going on in the arts world and the Culture Show, its supposed monitor, is not only off the pace but absurdly … [Read more...]

10/21/09 9:30 AM | filed under: main |

tweeto ergo sum

October 19, 2009 By

A Dutch-American blogger, Marc van Bree, has compiled a preliminary list of classical music writers and institutions on Twitter. The list, displayed here, makes no claim to be comprehensive and Marc warmly solicits additional contributions. There is something of the zeitgeist about this catalogue. Last week Alex Ross, pioneer of the music-crit blog, froze his main site and announced that his future contributions would be rather more occasional and under his employer's banner. Alan … [Read more...]

10/19/09 11:16 AM | filed under: main |

Playing politics with British arts

October 8, 2009 By

The first victim of the next Conservative government was sacrificed in this morning's Times. Liz Forgan, chair of the Arts Council, was reported to have vetoed Veronica Wadley as the Mayor of London's arts chief, on the grounds that her nomination was motivated by political preference rather than cultural commitment. Come again? Every such appointment, including Lefty Forgan's is overtly political and her own head is now on the line. The next Government will not forgive her bias and … [Read more...]

10/8/09 2:57 PM | filed under: main |

My best singing pupil, ever, ever, ever

October 7, 2009 By

Here's a round-robin from the head of opera at the music conservatoire of Vienna:   Dear friends all over the world.I would like to wish you all the very best and also let you know that apart of my every day enjoyment and success as a Head of Opera Department at the Vienna Conservatorium I had the privilege to sing and record with the worlds finest lyric soprano, Albanian Inva Mula. Her new Cd "Il Bel Sogno" was released from EMI at the beginning of this September and has already … [Read more...]

10/7/09 12:13 PM | filed under: main |

What happens to the arts when a newspaper goes free?

October 5, 2009 By

The London Evening Standard, which I served as Assistant Editor from March 2002 until stepping down in May this year, will become a giveaway paper from next week. The paper was selling 440,000 copies daily when I joined and about half as many when it was sold at the end of last year - after a battle with two free newspapers - to a Russian investor, Alexander Lebedev. The full-price sale in August 2009 was down to 107,000, according to the Financial Times, indicating that the new … [Read more...]

10/5/09 4:47 PM | filed under: main |

Prime minister lays into arts chiefs

October 2, 2009 By

At the memorial service for Geoffrey Tozer in Melbourne, former prime minister Paul Keating slammed past directors of the Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestra for deliberate and malicious neglect of the country's most gifted pianist. 'This malevolence more or less broke Geoffrey's heart,' he said, adding that the saga was a prime instance of 'bitchiness and preference within the arts in Australia.' Keating has written an article to the same effect in the Sydney Morning Herald, while the … [Read more...]

10/2/09 9:01 AM | filed under: main |

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