You Can't Win Without Words Times are tough for Republicans, no doubt about it, but somehow, the current public dissatisfaction with the Bush Administration has yet to translate into anything approaching widespread support for the opposition Democrats. Why are the Dems so totally incapable of seizing the moment? One linguist suggests that while the GOP may be on the outs politically, they're still the reigning champions when it comes to effective use of language. "The right has been incredibly successful in capturing the English political vocabulary. In a way, it's a tribute to their ability to spin compelling narratives." Boston Globe 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 10:02 am
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Guggenheim Coming To The Mideast Frank Gehry will design a new Guggenheim outpost in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Gehry, who also designed the Guggenheim's much-vaunted museum in Bilbao, Spain, expects ground to be broken shortly in the city's new cultural district, with completion slated for 2011. BBC 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 12:16 pm
- Will Islamic Law Trump Artistic Quality? The UAE Guggenheim "could present a headache for curators - how to balance artistic expression and Islamic cultural sensitivities?" For instance, nudes would likely be forbidden, as would any other depictions that might offend ultra-conservative Islamic sensibilities. And with that kind of self-censorship a necessity, the new Guggenheim might be dooming itself to irrelevance before it even opens. Australian Broadcasting Corporation 07/09/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 12:10 pm
Museum's Ready - Who's Bringing The Art? The tiny country of Luxembourg opened its spectacular new I.M. Pei-designed modern art museum this month, an enterprise nearly twenty years in the making. "Still, this striking symbol of modernity is not quite what its name implies. Because Luxembourg owned virtually no Modern art, and the museum could hardly afford to start building a collection of works by, say, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Dalí, Miró and the like, this is really a museum of contemporary art... The size and sober grandeur of Mr. Pei's building still suggests a museum awaiting a collection. But at least the museum exists, something that at times seemed less than certain." The New York Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:19 am
The Met's $45m Duccio May Be A Fake "A Columbia University professor known for challenging the art historical establishment asserts that a painting purchased in 2004 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an estimated $45 million is not the work of the early-Renaissance master Duccio di Buoninsegna, to whom it has long been attributed. The Met's scholars have dismissed his argument, citing detailed scientific testing and scholarly study of the work." The New York Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:16 am
Dali Museum To Get New Home "Salvador Dali never set foot in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the dominant art form is the watercolor beachscape. But in a strange twist worthy of one of the Spanish Surrealist master's paintings, St. Petersburg will soon be home to a $30-million museum to house the world's most comprehensive collection of Dali's work... Groundbreaking is set for early next year. The new facility will open in 2010." Los Angeles Times (AP) 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 10:59 am
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Music Downloads Continue To Soar Music downloading hit new highs in the first half of 2006, with more than 14 million full albums downloaded (legally) by consumers, a 77% increase over the same period last year. Sales of traditional albums fell by 4.2%. "Although digital sales are growing, music fans are eschewing the more profitable full-album downloads in favour of cherry-picking a few songs." BBC 07/09/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 12:13 pm
The Detroit Solution The Detroit Symphony may still be looking for a music director to replace the departed Neeme Järvi, but the ensemble is enjoying rising attendance and a stability that most other American orchestras would kill for. How did they accomplish such a thing in a city famed for its crippling poverty? Rather than simply making an appeal to the business community for help, the DSO has become a major investor in the urban revitalization of its hometown, and is endeavoring to show the community the same long-term commitment it requests from others. All Things Considered (audio file) 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 12:00 pm
Hitting All The High Notes It was a good year for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, a small but important company that each summer draws opera aficionados from across the country to the Midwest for a month-long festival. A $400,000 challenge grant, "for which the company had to raise $7.5 million and attract 1,000 new donors by June 30, was not only met but surpassed in both dollars and donors... The company made a major push to bring in young people to its performances," and continued its efforts to assist talented young singers in making the transition to the professional world. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 9:40 am
Littler: Great Orchestras Don't Take The Summer Off The Toronto Symphony has come a long way since nearly succumbing to bankruptcy a few years back. But William Littler says that the TSO still lacks one of the crucial amenities of a major North American orchestra: "Unlike most orchestras of its class, Toronto's still lacks the summer season that would keep its profile before the public and its players more extensively employed." Toronto Star 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 9:33 am
Backing Away From The Abyss Cooler heads may be prevailing at the Seattle Symphony, where news recently leaked out of an internal survey conducted by the musicians to express their dissatisfaction with the leadership of longtime music director Gerard Schwarz. The musicians now insist (contrary to some earlier reports) that the survey results were never intended to become public, and that they intend to settle their differences with the symphony's board and management in-house. For his part, Schwarz is taking the high road, barely acknowledging the controversy and declaring that his relationship with the orchestra is "all about the music." Seattle Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 9:25 am
- Previously: The Conductor Who Stayed Too Long? The Seattle Symphony is in turmoil after the orchestra renewed music director Gerard Schwarz's contract. "The larger question -- how long before a music director overstays his welcome? -- is pressingly relevant to any orchestra. And as the turbulence up north suggests, the answer is that the cutoff date comes sooner than some people are willing to believe." San Francisco Chronicle 07/03/06
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Oregon Arts In Dire Straits "A torrent of red ink is flowing through some of Oregon's best-known arts and cultural organizations. The Oregon Historical Society and the Oregon Symphony each posted a six- or seven-figure deficit in its two most recent fiscal years. Oregon Ballet Theatre, Portland Opera and the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene also booked large losses last year. Arts officials checked off a laundry list of problems causing the disappointing financial results: high costs, executive changes, miserly state support and fierce competition for audiences and donor dollars." The Oregonian (Portland) 07/09/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:40 am
Whose PAC Is It, Anyway? St. Paul's Ordway Center for the Performing Arts is hunting for a new chief executive, and Dominic Papatola says that the center would do well to spend some time reexamining its mission before it settles on a new leader. "The Ordway is the crown jewel of St. Paul's cultural destinations, but it is a flawed gem. Economically and organizationally, the place was built broken... No one has ever been able to successfully juggle the building's multiple roles as landlord, presenter and producer." St. Paul Pioneer Press 07/09/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:33 am
It Must Be Nice To Have Your Very Own Senator Politicians are known for using their influence to do favors for friends in trouble. But when is the last time you heard of a conservative Republican senator pulling strings to get a pal released from an Arab prison after a drug conviction? Senator Orrin Hatch, the floor is yours... The New York Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:12 am
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Pavarotti Surgery Successful Luciano Pavarotti is resting comfortably following successful cancer surgery in New York. "The 70-year-old singer was preparing to leave New York last week to resume his farewell world concert tour in Britain when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass." Doctors were reportedly able to remove the entire mass during the procedure, but pancreatic cancer has one of the highest eventual fatality rates among cancers. Pavarotti plans to resume touring in 2007. Chicago Sun-Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 10:53 am
Less Levine, But No Less Committed "James Levine does look thinner, healthier, and the best part of all, there’s no change in his magical right baton-waving hand. And so he proved it last night at Tanglewood, conducting a little eerily for this listener the same program that he was leading when he took a header and crashed into rotator cuff surgery on March 1. That would be the Schoenberg first chamber symphony, and the glorious Beethoven ninth. He’s certainly lost a bunch of pounds, but James Levine has lost none of his humane gravitas." Boston Herald 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 9:54 am
- It's Not Really About The Arms, Anyway There was never really any risk that James Levine's rotator cuff injury would affect his conducting skill, of course, but it may be a sign of how important Levine's presence has been to the revival of the BSO that his return to the podium has inspired such breathless anticipation. "Conducting is a mysterious occupation, one in which the exchange of information seems to occur almost by osmosis. Everyone should be heartened by what happened at Tanglewood on Friday night. No one should worry about Mr. Levine's arm-waving capacities, nor should they ever have. It is not like losing one's fastball." The New York Times 07/09/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 9:45 am
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A History of Violence Often lost in our continued marveling at the words of William Shakespeare is the fact that the Bard's plays are often shockingly violent. A handful of new British productions embrace the bloody brutality, and Ben Brantley says that it's impossible to miss the wider significance of the interpretation. "Besides demonstrating that there's more than one way to skin a corpse, these contrasting takes on Titus anatomize the impact of a world where slaughter and torture are everyday occurrences, and especially on those whose job is to kill... The current investigations into the alleged rape and murder of civilians by American soldiers in Iraq have made such presentations tremble with inescapable timeliness." The New York Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:01 am
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Joyce Heirs Fight Hard For Copyright Retention "A lawsuit filed on June 16 by an American scholar alleges that Stephen Joyce, grandson of the writer James Joyce, along with estate trustee Sean Sweeney, improperly withheld access to materials and attempted to intimidate academics... In the struggle to define copyright as it applies to literary rights, web rights and the extent of time a work is withheld from public domain, the Joyce estate's fearsome vigilance stands out." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 12:36 pm
Free eBook Downloads Are A Hit The publishing industry appears to be the latest corner of the arts world to discover that consumers will flock to almost anything given away for free. "That seems to be the lesson of the first few days of the World eBook Fair, a one-month experiment in free downloadable books produced by Illinois-based Project Gutenberg. The fair began Tuesday, and already more than 1.5 million books have been downloaded." Boston Globe 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 9:57 am
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Judge: Cleaning Up Movies Not Legal A federal appeals court has ruled that companies which market "sanitized" versions of Hollywood films to consumers who wish to skip the sex, violence, and profanity are violating U.S. copyright law. The companies have been ordered to stop selling the edited titles, and to turn over their entire inventory to the original production studios immediately. The Globe & Mail (AP) 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 12:31 pm
Vox Populi.com "In the age of widespread broadband access, iTunes video and video sites like Youtube.com, television viewers are migrating en masse to the Internet, looking not only to watch their favorite shows online but also for ways to discuss and engage with those shows. As a result, the blogs, communities like livejournal.com and message boards devoted to television shows are becoming more popular — and mainstream — forums for viewer discussion and feedback. And the people behind the shows have taken note." The New York Times 07/08/06
Posted: 07/09/2006 11:10 am
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