Perrault Wins Mariinsky Theater Sweepstakes "Dominique Perrault, best known for designing the French National Library in Paris, and his team beat 10 other entries to design the new building for the Mariinsky Theater in the most important architectural event in Russia in 70 years." But not everyone is happy with Perrault's dome-based design, which involves a lot of black marble and gold glass, and looks a bit like a half-inflated hot air balloon. Most of the concerns are of the practical variety: how do we clean it, will all the snow collapse it, and how much will it cost to build? St. Petersburg Times (Russia) 07/01/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:27 am
Baltic Director Resigns "The man behind the Baltic - Europe's newest contemporary arts complex - has quit as its director. Sune Nordgren steered the centre for contemporary arts in Gateshead, through it's first turbulent year... The £46m project transformed the former Baltic Flour Mills, a disused 1950s grain warehouse, into an international contemporary arts venue." Nordgren is heading home to Norway, where he will become the director of the National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design. BBC 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:05 am
China's Great Wall Crumbles In Obscurity Chinese officials are scrambling to deal with the discovery that large chunks of the famous Great Wall are no longer standing, and more will likely be gone in the near future. "Of the portion built during the Ming Dynasty, less than 20 percent is still intact. A probe of 100 sections drew the alarming conclusion that a third of the structure has already vanished." Survey teams were shocked to find "local farmers living along the Great Wall simply unaware of what it is. They witnessed bricks being carted away by people to build houses, sheep corrals and pigsties. One 1,000-meter section in Hebei Province, which neighbors Beijing, vanished in the space of a year after locals took stones and foundation materials for repairs." Wired 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 5:47 am
ARTnews' Top 200 Collectors ARTnews names its annual list of the world's top 200 art collectors. ARTnews 07/01
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:57 pm
Iraq Museum's One-Day Show "The Iraq Museum plans to hold a one-day exhibition Thursday — its first since the outbreak of war more than three months ago. The show is designed to ease the minds of those who worried that the museum's collections had been devastated by a frenzied, two-day looting spree in mid-April while American troops were fighting to secure the city." Los Angeles Times 07/02/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:49 pm
CheckMate A new exhibition features chess sets made by artists in the 19th and 20th Centuries. "There are 19 sets on display, each one set out to illustrate a move in an apocryphal game played between Napoleon, playing as white, and General Bertrand on St Helena in 1820. Five new sets by contemporary artists Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Paul McCarthy, Yayoi Kusama and Maurizio Cattelan mark out the climax of the game." The Telegraph (UK) 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:16 pm
Olympic Dreams...But Can You Deliver? What should hosting an Olympic Games mean to a city? "Many Olympic cities have promised regeneration and few have delivered. From the Foro Italico in Rome to Homebush in Sydney, the world is littered with desultory, underpopulated Olympic zones that were once the subject of some planner's proud boast. If the Olympics automatically gave its sites a boost, then Wembley, where the games were held in 1948, would be the hottest place in north London. This time, London has to mean it, and it has to deliver." London Evening Standard 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:12 pm
First Impressions At Disney Hall The Los Angeles Philharmonic won't officially open its new Frank Gehry-designed digs until the fall, but a special open rehearsal/performance by the Phil this week allowed musicians and critics their first shot at assessing the acoustics of the much-anticipated space. The hall will have to be "tuned," of course, a process which will last months if not years, but Mark Swed was encouraged by the "plentiful bass, crystalline clarity and forceful immediacy" of the orchestra's new home. Los Angeles Times 07/01/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 7:05 am
Cleveland Orch Goes In-House For Top Hiring "Gary Hanson, who was responsible for the restoration of Severance Hall as associate executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra, will become executive director when Thomas Morris retires from the position on March 1... Hanson's biggest project - and triumph - was the $36.7 million Severance Hall restoration, which both improved existing areas of the orchestra's home in University Circle and added needed administrative and public spaces. Hanson managed the $17 million renovation of Blossom, which opens Saturday with a gala concert conducted by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 7:00 am
And Could The Conductor Wear An "Everybody Loves Raymond" T-Shirt? Apparently, the "1812 Overture" is just too much music for CBS's tastes. The network, which is supposed to be televising the Boston Pops' annual 4th of July concert, has decided that it only wants the big, loud part of the Tchaikovsky overture - y'know, the part everyone can sing along to - and so it will 'cut in' to the performance near the end of the work, just in time for the cannons and the fireworks. The 1812 is approximately 20 minutes long when played without cuts, roughly 15 minutes longer than television executives believe that Americans are capable of paying attention to anything. Boston Globe (3rd item in the column) 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:37 am
Spoleto USA Packs 'Em In "Spoleto USA says the just-ended 2003 festival was the highest-grossing ever, with ticket sales surpassing those of the previous record year, 2001. The Charleston, South Carolina-based festival, which ran from 23 May to 8 June, says in a press release that it sold $2.5 million worth of tickets and half of its performances sold out." Andante 07/01/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:24 am
How Does A City Become An Orchestra Magnet? Why do some cities attract regular visits from touring orchestras, while others almost never see anyone but the hometown band? The answer is largely about money and resources, and it explains why many medium and large cities across America missed out on, say the Philadelphia Orchestra's recent tour, while small college towns like Lincoln, Nebraska, packed a hall to enjoy the Fabulous Philadelphians. The fact is that, if your city has a decent-sized concert hall that's going unused a lot of the time, and some spare funds to pay the orchestra's costs, you have a better chance of landing a touring orchestra than a big city with a thriving music scene where the performance spaces are already booked. Denver Post 07/01/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:17 am
Temirkanov Walks Out On French Opera Production Yuri Temirkanov, the well-regarded music director of the Baltimore Symphony and the St. Petersburg (Russia) Philharmonic, has walked out on a production of Tchaikovsky's opera, Queen of Spades, which he was to have conducted at the Opera National de Lyon in France. Temirkanov isn't talking about his departure, but his translator says that he was infuriated by what he considered to be distracting and unnecessary staging, and changes to the original Pushkin storyline. Temirkanov issued a statement after his departure, saying that the Lyon production "does not correspond in any way to my own cultural heritage, nor my love and my understanding of the work of Tchaikovsky and Pushkin." Baltimore Sun 07/01/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:09 am
But CDs Are Still $18, Hmm? Who would have thought that a 20-cent price cut could make such a difference? In the month since the (legal) digital music service Listen.com cut the price of its downloads from 99 cents to 79 cents, it has nearly doubled the number of songs it sold. The price cut was initially a response to the much-ballyhooed new download service offered by Apple, but Listen.com (which is owned by RealNetworks) wound up with 11 million songs downloaded from its servers in the month of June. Wired 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 5:53 am
Zinman, Davis, Conlon Reportedly Top PSO's Wish List As the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra moves closer to hiring a new executive director, its list of candidates to replace Mariss Jansons as music director is slowly narrowing. No one expects a decision before next spring, but some intriguing names have emerged as serious candidates, while others have fallen by the wayside. Reported to be at the top of the PSO's list of potential MDs are David Zinman (formerly of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra,) Sir Andrew Davis (who led Toronto in the 1990s,) and James Conlon, whose reputation is firmly established in Europe, but has yet to take on the top job at a North American orchestra. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/29/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 5:36 am
Strad-Tagging Each year 1 million string instruments are stolen, and only 2 percent are ever recovered. Now there's a plan to track them. ISIS (Instrument Security Identification Systems) embeds atiny electronic tag into instruments. The company "will send out an alert if a musical instrument has been reported stolen. Part of this business will involve implanting RFID tags in stringed instruments - from violins to cellos and from cheap student instruments to million-dollar antiques that are still being played. The implanted RFID tags will make the tricky business of identifying instruments foolproof." Business 2.0 06/26/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 7:00 pm
King Of The Air-Guitar (No Kidding) Okay, so these guys don't make a sound, but they do have attitude. "The U.S. Air Guitar Championships were held Saturday at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip, and by the end of the night, a national air god emerged. Finally, the United States will be sending a representative to the (eighth annual) World Air Guitar Championships, held in Finland..." Los Angeles Times 07/02/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:19 pm
The New Collectible: CD's Vinyl records have been collectors' items for years. But CDs? "Although a few die-hard vinyl specialists will complain bitterly about the fact, the silver disc has now established a significant place within the collectors’ arena. A large number of collectable CD albums and singles are included in the listings, and while their values cannot compete in general with those of the most collectable vinyl items, the fact they are there at all is a demonstration of the way which the market for collectable recorded music is continuing to develop." The Scotsman 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:29 pm
File-Traders Fight Back So the recording industry is going to track down music downloaders and sue them? Not for long. Software developers have been working away to make users of the file-sharing services anonymous... "Any technology that allows people to communicate is a step in the right direction," Soto said. "This isn't just about exchanging music, this is about the right to create technology and enjoy the right to privacy." Wired 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:22 pm
New York Restores Some Arts Cuts New York has restored some of its planne arts budget cuts. "While the arts budget will be cut by more than $11 million, another $16.2 million in planned cuts was restored, leaving cultural institutions surprised and relieved. 'It's a significant restoration. It will prevent us from having to do things like charging New York City school groups, closing galleries and closing days'." The New York Times 07/02/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 8:07 pm
Arts Advocates To Sue Missouri For Funding? Arts advocates are considering suing the state of Missouri for more funding for the arts. "The state budget for the fiscal year that started Tuesday includes no money for Missouri arts, so the Missouri Arts Council had to dip into a separate trust fund to keep local arts programs going." KWMU (St. Louis) 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 7:52 pm
France: Closed For Culture? A strike by arts workers threatens France's cultural summer. "Theatres, films and television have been hit by moves to bring the show business industry to a halt in a dispute over the reduction of unemployment pay for 'resting' performing artists and technicians. This weekend, the Montpellier dance festival and the Tours jazz festival were among cancelled events while the opening of the summer's biggest opera gathering, at Aix-en-Provence, was postponed. Paris's top theatres called off plays and ballets at the last minute while trade unions prepared for 'a fight to the finish' over a decision to make it harder for freelance performers and temporary backstage staff to claim benefits." The Guardian (UK) 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:02 pm
Explaining Stanley Crouch Stanley Crouch was famously fired from his critic's job at JazzTimes. "Crouch's position has less to do with color than it does with sound. He defines jazz within famously narrow limits—a music that doesn't stray far from the blues or the techniques that have traditionally produced it, musicians who never, ever forget where and how the sound was born. One doesn't have to be black to find a groove (though some critics have taken him to mean this), but one must be willing to bow to the "Negro aesthetic." He is convinced that the white establishment resents a musical history from which it can't help but feel alienated, and so champions jazz that sounds "white" instead of jazz that looks backward. In this view, the desire to innovate past swing is tantamount to fearing its origins and the people who created it. The lines between the advancement of a music and the rejection of its history become entangled in the vast mire of racial politics." Reason 06/27/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:58 pm
Minister Of Culture Takes Time Off To Play Concerts Brazil's minister of Culture is Gilberto Gil - a big music star. But he's taking a month off from his ministry job to go on tour in Europe boost his income. "The 60-year-old recording artist earns $2,900 (£1,700) a month in his government post but says this is not enough to maintain his standard of living." BBC 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:16 pm
Minnesota Fringe On The Edge The Minnesota Fringe Festival is the biggest in the country. But its future is in dancer. "The festival is confronting a triple whammy of a continued slumping economy, uncertainty from corporate sponsors and the loss of $20,000 in funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board. 'The problem is not that people are saying no to us, it's that they're not saying either yes or no. We're literally going to print with the program tomorrow night and we still don't have the final word from some of our sponsors. As you can imagine, that makes forecasting difficult'." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 06/29/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 8:19 pm
NY Theatre's Future - Off Broadway? Broadway theatre is a license to lose money. "Off Broadway meanwhile teemed with invention. Partly this has to do with economic reality; it simply costs less to put on a show Off Broadway, so the risks are smaller and the fund-raising is less onerous. But partly it's also about sheer creative energy..."
The New York Times 07/02/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 8:15 pm
Hogwarts Students Not Welcome Here The Harry Potter series has been banned again, this time in Australia, where a Christian college is concerned that "the books promoted wizardry as normal - not a message to which students should be exposed." Since Harry's wizardry is not only not normal, but, in fact, fictional, one might be tempted to dismiss the Maranatha Christian College as a bunch of fundamentalist yahoos, but the school is only the latest in a long string of institutions worldwide which have discerned some grave threat to followers of Jesus in the works of J.K. Rowling. BBC 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:00 am
US Threatens To Close Iraqi Publications Right after Saddam Hussein was toppled, a flurry of new newspapers and magazines began publication in Iraq. But last week the US threatened to "fine or close down any newspapers that incite violence or endanger the security of coalition troops or any ethnic or religious group. The Americans defend their decision and consider it necessary for keeping Iraq safe and free of violence. They say the new papers lack responsibility and professionalism, and that they fabricate information. For example, one paper accused a coalition soldier of raping a woman and wrote that troops can see women naked through their night vision goggles." Village Voice 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:48 pm
Bookforum's Makeover Bookforum magazine has relaunched with a new high-minded editor. Eric Banks is "an extremely smart and informed editor who we thought would re-emphasize Bookforum's coverage of scholarly and art books." And Bookforum? "Bookforum is one of those high-minded enterprises whose bills are paid by a wealthy benefactor—in this case, the profitable Artforum. Total circulation for Bookforum is about 40,000, with about 10,000 copies sold on the newsstand and about 30,000 subscriptions. (Bookforum is sent free to all Artforum subscribers.)" Village Voice 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:43 pm
The First English Book To Top The French Best-Seller List For the first time ever, an English book has topped the French best-seller lists. Yes, it's Harry Potter, and the French version doesn't come out until December. But "this did not stop more than 16,000 copies in English flying off the shelves in France, where it topped sales for all categories, not just children's listings." BBC 07/01/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 5:13 pm
SAG/AFTRA Merger Fails By Slimmest of Margins The proposed merger of the Screen Actor's Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists has crumbled, after proponents of the plan failed to reach the 60% approval threshold necessary from the membership of both unions. AFTRA approved the merger by a wide margin, but only 58% of SAG members voted yes, scuttling the deal. The merger has been the source of much controversy among actors and TV/radio personalities, with several high-profile individuals all but staking their careers as union activists on its success. Dallas Morning News (AP) 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:49 am
The Marketing Machine That Ate The Universe "We live at that moment in history when someone who has made a lot of money in the ad biz refers to fortune cookies as 'a new marketing medium' and 'one of the last branding frontiers.' And he is completely serious. His name is Mark Hughes. He is the CEO of Buzz Marketing, a firm specializing in that most desirable and elusive form of publicity – word-of-mouth, people talking to one another about your product. In a word, buzz." Dallas Morning News 07/02/03
Posted: 07/02/2003 6:47 am
Big Media, Bad Business Tv media giants may be dominating the airwaves, but they sure haven't figured out how to find a winning formula for programming. "While it's taken for granted that TV's oligopoly wants to further consolidate its power, it's equally clear that networks aren't any more adept at tapping into the public zeitgeist when production stays all in the family. In fact, the ratio of shows that stick around at least four seasons — generally the cutoff to be deemed a hit, ensuring there will be enough episodes to run in perpetuity — has consistently stayed around one in six since the early 1990s. Although a hit can pay for a lot of flops, that percentage wouldn't exactly qualify for the hall of fame, or even the Dodgers' batting order." Los Angeles Times 07/02/03
Posted: 07/01/2003 6:22 pm
Muggles And The Missing Wages A Scottish school whose students were hired as extras for the next Harry Potter movie have been forced to turn over their wages to the school. "Warner Brothers hired 14 children from Lochaber high school, in Fort William in the Scottish Highlands, to appear in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, due for release next year. They earned STG35 ($A86) a day for a four day shoot, but under school rules their earnings had to go straight into a fund used to pay for school activities." The Age (AFP) 07/01/03
