All Ears (Each One Different) Think you hear things differently from other people? Well, you may. "All ears are not created equal, a new report suggests, even two on the same head. Results published in the current issue of the journal Science indicate that infants process sounds differently through their left ears than they do through their right ones." Scientific American 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:40 pm
A Closer Look At Denver's Still Deal Denver is trying to raise money to build a museum to house 2000 works from the estate of Clyfford Still. But the terms of the deal are very restrictive. "None of that art can be sold, and some question whether Still’s name will attract a wide audience. Few would question the viability of a Pollock, de Kooning, or Rothko museum, but those artists are much better known. If marketing abstraction to the masses weren’t challenge enough, the artist’s will forbids the display of work by other artists in the museum, so the institution cannot create a varied schedule of temporary exhibitions to lure return visitors." The Art Newspaper 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 8:13 am
A Whitney Audit "The Whitney Museum’s new chief financial officer is conducting “a vigorous review of all financial controls to ensure that the highest standards of accountability are met”. Bridget Elias was appointed in June, and her audit follows the arrest of two Whitney employees in late July, charged with embezzling nearly $1 million since January 2002." The Art Newspaper 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 8:10 am
Natural Watercolors "A study of the vibrant red, pink, orange, purple and yellow bands in the rocks of the Valley of Fire State Park in southern Nevada has revealed that the hues in the rocks were probably put there by a complex ebb and flow of groundwaters, faulting and raising of mountains and even the presence of now absent hydrocarbons over the last 150 to 200 million years." Discovery 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 8:08 am
The New Humor Is humor the New Thing in art? "A lingering tendency among critics to dismiss artists who employ humor as mere jokers hasn’t prevented such artists from turning to satire with renewed vigor. Cartoon images now seem to be everywhere—in painting and sculpture as well as video and digital animation, tacked to walls or drawn directly on them. The funniest-looking figures, however, are less Popeye than R. Crumb’s bearded Mr. Natural, fraught with anxiety, swearing, sweating, and questioning every feeling and thought." ARTnews 09/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 8:05 am
Cleveland Museum's Questionable Statue Is a statue that the Cleveland Museum recently bought stolen? "The museum proudly announced the purchase in June, saying the statue might be the only one among about 20 large bronzes in the world that can be linked to the ancient Greek masters. Now some prominent archaeologists and other critics say the museum should not have bought the work because of the questionable history." Ohio News Network (AP) 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 8:07 pm
Sample Ruling - The Big Chill Last week's court ruling requiring artists to get licenses for clips they sample could have a big chilling effect on creativity. "In the long run, this will lead to mediocrity in the music. People may say, `Well, why is [Sean "P. Diddy" Combs] just sampling Rick James, that's not very creative.' But if you sit down and talk to him, he'll break it down that he could have done more creative stuff -- a Rick James riff, a James Brown beat -- but it would have cost him an arm and a leg." Boston Globe 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 8:01 am
The Classical Decline Tom Strini enumerates the decline of the classical music business and wonders if classical music will "regain the standing it had in society in the first half of the 20th century?" He concludes: "No. Classical music and new music rising from that tradition will remain marginal. We can take comfort in the fact that almost every cultural commodity is marginal these days - marginality is a matter of degree." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 09/11/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 7:21 am
In Pittsburgh - The 95 Percent Solution The Pittsburgh Symphony finished this past season with its budget balanced. But its ability to do that in the future will depend in part on new contracts negotiated this year at Big Five orchestras. As of next season, Pittsburgh musicians are guaranteed a contract tied to 95 percent of the average wage paid at Big Five orchestras. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:27 pm
Curtis Institute Expands Search For New Leader The prestigious Curtis Institute is widening its search for a new director to include orchestra managers, arts presenters, and a wider swath of school administrators. "Previously, the elite music conservatory had been looking for a leader who was both a strong administrator and a musician with a major performing career - someone in the mold of current Curtis director-president Gary Graffman." Philadelphia Inquirer 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:22 pm
Classical Merger - What Does Recording Merger Mean? What is to become of the classical operations of Bertelsman and Sony, which have announced they're merging. "The vaults of each company hold a priceless trove of master tapes that document the work of many of the greatest musicians of the last century. More broadly, these recordings offer an overview of American musical life through the late 1970's, when both companies began to lose interest in recording the top American orchestras, and European labels like Decca and Deutsche Grammophon moved in to take up the cause." The New York Times 09/14/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:10 pm
Helping Musicians, The Uchida Way Pianist Mitsuko Uchida doesn't believe in competitions. But she has a foundation to help musicians. "I don't teach because I hated being a student myself." So how does she get involved in a practical way? "Well, I make music with them, of course! Isn't that the only way to learn? When I really like a young player, I invite him or her to rehearse with me, and then maybe if things go well, we give a little concert somewhere not too important." The Telegraph (UK) 09/14/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 8:49 pm
Hip-hop Goes To Church Music has always played a role in church. But hip-hop hasn't penetrated much. Still, "from the church side, a growing number of ministries are adopting both the rhythms and the bluntness of hip-hop culture." In the New York area alone, at least 150 churches or ministries use hip-hop in some form. These include many storefront churches or campus ministries." The New York Times 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:51 pm
Pittsburgh Symphony: On Our Own The Pittsburgh Symphony is without a music director this season. "Most significant will be how the orchestra fares as it steps out on its own for the first time since Mariss Jansons arrived seven years ago. This is not the first time the PSO has been without an active music director. It happened from 1948 to 1952, when Fritz Reiner left for the Chicago Symphony, from 1984 to 1987 after Andre Previn departed and in the 1996-97 season before Jansons arrived. In each of these cases, the PSO survived, and even benefited from the exposure to new conductors." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 09/12/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:32 pm
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Gets A Home For the first time in its history, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has a home of its own. "The center is a symbol of transformation for an orchestra that, in a labor agreement last year, handed more power to its musicians and replaced the position of artistic director with a diverse field of artistic partners." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 09/12/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:26 pm
Rattle Attacks Berlin Arts Funding Cuts The city of Berlin has a huge budget deficit and proposes to slash arts funding. Berlin Philharmonic music director Simon Rattle protests, describing the situation as "catastrophic" and "cultural dismantling" in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel magazine. Sir Simon, who took over the orchestra two years ago, told the magazine: "I can see the hopeless situation of the city, but on the other hand, this cultural dismantling is an incredible shame for Berlin." BBC 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 7:49 pm
A New Model For New Plays? The National New Play Network aims to make it easier for playwrights to get new work produced. "The economics are very challenging, and looking for national attention is part of everyone's goal. We're trying to find the best way to share and maximize resources. We're using the model of the new Europe instead of a feudal system where companies build walls around themselves." Miami Herald 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 7:32 am
Fans Pack Times Square For Free Broadway Preview Fifty thousand fans pack Times Square for a free preview of the new theatre season. "The 13th annual "Broadway on Broadway" concert featured musical performances from 16 shows, including "Mamma Mia!," "Avenue Q" and the new musical "Little Women." The outdoor show prompted some to line up as early as 8 a.m. for the chance to catch a glimpse of their favorite performers." New York Daily News 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:17 pm
Shakespeare - The Man Behind The Myth "How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare? Apart from the poems and plays themselves, the surviving traces of Shakespeare's life are abundant but thin. The known facts have been rehearsed again and again for several centuries." But the issue has never been settled. Will it ever be? New York Times Magazine 09/12/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:37 pm
Cleveland Theatre Turning Point This fall marks a turning point for Cleveland theatre. "One of the most important such dramatic dialogues in Cleveland this fall isn't at one particular theater, it's at all our theaters. It's about the theater. What kind of theater are we willing to support? To what degree do we value our theatrical institutions and artists? Enough to keep them around and performing at the same level?" The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 09/12/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:29 pm
Teeny Tiny Movies For Your Phone Are you ready to watch movies on your cell phone? "We're not talking 90-minute thrillers starring the likes of Kim Basinger and William H. Macy. A mobile movie is a smaller, two-minute affair meant for audiences on the move, not captive cinephiles. Like a TV ad in the age of TiVo, cell phone cinema has to hold your attention before your mind jets off to do something else with your phone, such as surf the Web, check your e-mail or, gasp, make a phone call." Chicago Tribune 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 7:54 am
Next-Level fX Think you can't be thrilled by special effects at the movies anymore? This fall promises some new innovations that take fX to the next level... New York Daily News 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 7:25 am
Anti-Induce Protest A big protest is planned against the so-called "Induce" act under consideration in the US Congress. "Critics believe the Induce Act conflicts with the landmark 1984 Betamax Supreme Court decision, which ruled that home videotape recorders were legal because they have "substantial non-infringing uses," even though some people might use the machines to infringe copyrights. Though the entertainment industry opposed the machine at the time, the ruling paved the way for the development of the enormous home video and DVD market, and other technological innovations of the past 20 years." Wired 09/14/04
Posted: 09/14/2004 6:58 am
Where Is The Right Hollywood? A TV documentary goes in search of political bias in Hollywood. "There is no studio ban on Republicans, of course, but certain conservatives have been dining out for decades on what they describe as a Hollywood witch hunt." The New York Times 09/14/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:13 pm
Italian Protest Over Venice FF Awards Italy's press is complaining that Italian films were shut out of the awards at this year's Venice Film Festival. "Mike Leigh's film Vera Drake took the Golden Lion for best film and Briton Imelda Staunton won best actress. But Italy's newspapers voiced their disappointment that Le Chiavi di Casa (The House Keys) by Gianni Amelio was missing from the award winners." BBC 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 7:47 pm
The Impossibility That is The Toronto Film Festival "By the time this year's Toronto International Film Festival ends on Saturday, 328 films will have been screened. Spread over the 10 days of the festival, which began on Thursday, that comes to more than 30 movies a day, which means, according to my bleary-eyed calculations, that to see one movie is to miss about seven others, and that the statistical accuracy of any single critic's impressions of the festival as a whole will be roughly 12.5 percent. What this suggests is that the Toronto festival, which has become, during the last decade or so, the most important such event in North America, is really 8 or 12 or 35 festivals gathered under one roof." The New York Times 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:49 pm
Urban Guerilla Artists Claim Ownership Of Underground Paris Cinema A clandestine group of "urban explorers" calling themselves La Mexicaine de la Perforation and which claims its mission is to "reclaim and transform disused city spaces for the creation of zones of expression for free and independent art" has claimed ownership of a cinema located in a cave under Paris. The place was discovered by puzzled police last week. "They (the police) freaked out completely. They called in the bomb squad, the sniffer dogs, army security, the anti-terrorist squad, the serious crimes unit. They said it was skinheads or subversives. They got it on to national TV news. They hadn't a clue." The Guardian (UK) 09/12/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 6:41 pm
- Previously: Old Underground Movie Theatre Discovered In Paris "Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement. Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris's most intriguing recent discoveries." The Guardian (UK) 09/09/04
Ballet Company Takes A Big Step Up Two years ago, Cleveland's tiny Verb Ballet was on the rocks - broke and artistically adrift. Today, the company has "changed its name, achieved national recognition and expanded its personnel to 15 dancers who perform mainstream modern-dance classics, original choreography and chamber ballets for growing audiences of enthusiastic patrons. The company continues its education and outreach activities, but also takes its concert programs on tour. The budget has mushroomed to $340,000. The deficit has diminished to $5,000. How did it happen?" The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 09/13/04
Posted: 09/13/2004 9:32 pm
