Ideas Can 50 Million Music Downloaders Be Wrong? A recording company executive says his industry must change its attitudes about consumers trading music files or else their business will die. As Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it." Salon 02/01/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 5:58 pm Visual Arts Cleveland Museum To Get Big Upgrade The Cleveland Museum of Art will unveil a major expansion plan this week, as designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, whose proposal "calls for demolishing nearly half of the museum's existing complex before rebuilding and expanding the museum's "footprint" and gallery space." The renovation will cost $225 million and is scheduled to be completed in 2008. But the museum will have to delay the project if it cannot raise at least half of the money by the end of next year. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:51 am And Then There Were Two Two finalists have been named in the competition to determine what will be done with the space known as Ground Zero. Architect Daniel Libeskind, whose proposal includes much use of concrete and preservation of the Ground Zero site as a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, is one finalist. The other final slot goes to the THINK Team, headed by Rafael Viñoly, which proposes to construct an elaborate complex of glass and steel, dominated by two transparent latticework towers where the original Twin Towers once stood. The winning design will be announced by the end of the month. The New York Times 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 5:23 am Time To Move On - Is London Stuck On Its Past Glories? "Emerging from London art schools, the BritArtists brought glamour, hype and excitement to the capital and revitalised its arts scene in the 1990s. But now London has become a victim of its own success. In cities that have witnessed less global attention for their artists, such as Los Angeles or Berlin, there are thriving scenes, and new movements emerge every couple of years. London, however, has remained stagnant, while commercial galleries trawl through the dregs of Goldsmiths' Class of 1990 for the one-that-got-away and focus is diverted from what's really new." London Evening Standard 02/04/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 7:39 pm Waiter/Art Thief Faces Prison For Art Theft Spree A waiter who stole paintings worth tens of millions of dollars over a six-year period, faces a ten-year prison term. "Stéphane Breitwieser targeted mostly small museums in France and Switzerland, but he has admitted to dipping into collections in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Austria.Among the vandalised canvasses were works by Antoine Watteau and Peter Bruegel. About 110 objects, valued at more than £6m, have been recovered including glassware, china, and musical instruments. But up to 60 paintings have not been found, and investigators fear they were destroyed" by the man's mother. The Guardian (UK) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 7:31 pm Getty Passes On Masterpiece For years the J Paul Getty Museum in LA has been able to buy whatever art it wanted - and has. But at the recent Old Master auctions in December the Getty failed to even bid on an important work that would have been a natural for its collection. "The decision of the world’s richest museum not to even bid on one of the last great narrative pictures of the Renaissance (one arguably of even greater rarity and importance than the $50 million Northumberland Raphael) is incomprehensible." The Art Newspaper 02/1/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 11:22 am UN Covers Up "Guernica" Reproduction The United Nations has covered up a reproduction of Picasso's "Guernica" that has hung outside the UN Security Council since 1985. "U.N. officials said last week that it is more appropriate for dignitaries to be photographed in front of the blue backdrop and some flags than the impressionist image of shattered villagers and livestock. 'It's only temporary. We're only doing this until the cameras leave'." Washington Times 02/04/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 11:07 am Music Now What? In Montreal, where the media had Kent Nagano all but appointed as the new music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, shock and dismay have greeted news of Nagano's appointment to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The MSO itself never even acknowledged that Nagano was its top choice, but this may be a case where perception is more important than reality. "While other conductors, such as Eliahu Inbal, Yakov Kreizberg and Emmanuel Villaume, have been mentioned as possible successors to Charles Dutoit, none has created interest to compare with the public frenzy that greeted Nagano." Montreal Gazette 02/04/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:44 am How Do You Beat Piracy? Go Analog. Record companies have been known to become apoplectic when advance copies of new releases given to critics wind up in the hands (and computers and MP3 players) of the public. Many companies have resorted to handing out self-destructing CDs and threatening critics with legal action if they distribute the music early. But the V2 label has come up with a unique way to prevent advance copies of the highly anticipated new White Stripes album from being converted to tradable computer files: they put it on vinyl. Detroit News 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:26 am The Promoter Who Couldn't Pay "For 75 years, Community Concerts has brought the arts and such luminaries as Beverly Sills and Isaac Stern to small-town America... But now the whole enterprise is in jeopardy, with Community Concerts dismissing employees and leaving a trail of bounced checks, unpaid performers and dissatisfied presenters in its wake." Fingers are pointing, and most of them are aiming squarely at the company's owner and chief executive, Brenda Trawick. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 02/02/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:04 am Calgary Phil To Get City Money, After All The Calgary city council has overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to force the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra to repay a $250,000 bailout once the orchestra emerges from bankruptcy. The proposal was brought to the floor by two aldermen who have consistently sought ways to scuttle the bailout, and who conceived of the plan to attach conditions to the money after it was learned that the Alberta provincial government's matching contribution to the CPO was more of a loan than a gift. Calgary Herald 02/04/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 5:57 am Previously: Kickin' 'Em When They're Down Calgary's city council is not doing much to dispel the popular notion that the city is an uncultured cowboy town. Less than a week after trying to renege on a $250,000 contribution to the bankrupt Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra because of a technicality, aldermen opposed to the bailout are pushing a plan that would force the CPO to repay the entire amount to the city if the ensemble eventually makes it back out of bankruptcy. One alderman called the proposal "a win-win-win situation." Orchestra officials presumably call it something else. Calgary Herald 01/29/03 The Woman Who Was Already There A flurry of media interest greeted the news in January that the notoriously exclusive Vienna Philharmonic had finally hired its first female musician, a violist named Ursula Plaichinger. The strange thing is, Plaichinger has actually been a member of the orchestra for nearly two years, a fact which no English-language publication known to ArtsJournal bothered to mention. The media blitz came after the worldwide broadcast of the Vienna Phil's famous New Year's concert showed a brief glimpse of Plaichinger as she played with her section, the first time the orchestra had ever allowed a woman to be shown on its television broadcasts. Andante 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 5:41 am Previously: Vienna Philharmonic Hires Its First Woman Player The Vienna Philharmonic has hired its first-ever female member, after decades of refusing. "Ursula Plaichinger, a 27-year-old viola player, has caused a sensation in artistic circles by appearing unannounced at the 158-year-old Philharmonic's traditional new year's concert in Vienna. The performance was seen by millions around the world and a recording has already sold out in Austria." The Guardian (UK) 01/10/03 Another Executive Departure The president of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra has announced that he is stepping down from his position and leaving the organization, effective the end of this month. The quick timetable makes the unknown reason behind Steven Ovitsky's departure of interest, but the board insists he was not forced out. However, it may be significant that Ovitsky was a very popular executive with the MSO's musicians: "He brought musicians into the governing and planning structures of the orchestra, and his palpable love of music impressed them." Such cozy relations with the unionized employees, whose contract is up for renegotiation this spring, may have been cause for concern among other management and board figures. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 02/04/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 5:14 am Clinton & Gorbachev And Peter & The Wolf Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev are narrating a new recording of "Peter and the Wolf." "The last leader of the Soviet Union will join the former US president in a special performance of Prokofiev's work by the Russian National Orchestra under the command of the Grammy-winning conductor Kent Nagano. The recording will be Mr Gorbachev's English language debut." The Guardian (UK) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 7:35 pm Berlin To Keep Staatsoper Independent? For two years cash-strapped Berlin has been trying to decide what to do ith its three opera houses. Proposals were made to merge operations, but that plan was vigorously opposed by Staatsoper director Daniel Barenboim. Now it looks like the companies may be saved. "Under proposals announced by the city's arts chief, the Staatsoper and its renowned orchestra, the Staatskapelle, would retain their independence. But the three opera houses would pool a wide range of technical and administrative facilities and their ballet companies." The Guardian (UK) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 6:22 pm Beethoven Is Best - But Why? "Beethoven’s audience is so all-encompassing as to include those whose familiarity with his work is limited at best. Indeed, he is the only classical composer whose name is generally known to people who do not listen to classical music. It is as revealing that the cartoonist Charles Schulz chose Beethoven as the favorite composer of one of the characters in Peanuts as it is that Lorin Maazel chose the Ninth Symphony to perform last fall at his inaugural concerts as music director of the New York Philharmonic. What is striking about this mass popularity, though, is that it has not diminished in the slightest the respect in which Beethoven is held by musicians." Commentary 02/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 5:53 pm Something About Puccini In America the business of opera is built on Puccini, and on a mere handful of his works, at that. "Puccini, of course, isn't responsible for the lack of artistic diversity in American opera houses, but a mere trio of his works are so fundamental to the financial stability of American opera that they have had a stultifying effect." Yet in the history of music, Puccini has not been accorded the respect that his popularity suggests. New books re-evaluate... Chronicle of Higher Education 01/24/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 5:45 pm Arts Issues Thinking Big In Toronto "The Toronto Arts Council yesterday unveiled an ambitious, 10-year program designed to raise the level of awareness of the arts in Toronto and, more important, to put the city's struggling arts organizations on a more financially stable keel." A recent study revealed that there is a gap of almost CAN$45 million between what arts groups in the city have, and what they need to function. The new program will create an ambitious and large-scale fundraising structure which will hopefully close that gap by 2012, if all goes according to plan. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:32 am That's Why They're Called "Non-Profit," Isn't It? Everyone knows that the American economy is in the tank, and that such times call for belt-tightening all around, particularly at non-profits. But John van Rhein is frustrated by the recent slew of defeatist cost-cutting measures at arts institutions across the country. "Arts groups get into trouble once they allow their marketing departments to shape their artistic programs. To pull back and stop taking calculated risks can only be counterproductive in the long run." Chicago Tribune 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:20 am Another "Cultural Strategy"...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... This week, London's mayor Ken Livingston delivered a proposal for the city's "cultural strategy." And.... "I spent a dreary weekend ploughing through 'London: Cultural Capital's' 170-odd pages, all of them replete with the cliches of the current culturespeak. Meaningless pleas for excellence, creativity and access abound. Innocent trees have been felled to provide the paper on which Ken laboriously explains how he wants London to be green and prosperous, and its cultural diversity to be respected. The art of stating the bleeding obvious lives on in strategies and this one is jumping with it. Beyond the waffle, what is proposed?" The Telegraph (UK) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 7:43 pm The Right Celebrity To Impress (Even At Covent Garden) Frank Johnson goes to the ballet at Covent Garden and is amused at the buzz generated by a pair of celebrities in the audience. "It is not easy for people from popular culture to impress, amuse or interest people gathered for purposes of high culture. They must make us pleased that they share our pleasures or are taking the trouble to try them. Celebrity is not the same as fame. Posh and Becks are celebrities. So is — to choose just another example from popular culture — Sir Elton John. Miss Hurley, say, is just famous. Her presence at Covent Garden would interest, but not fascinate or delight, us." The Spectator 01/18/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 6:06 pm People Mayhew To Run Covent Garden "[London's] Royal Opera House has appointed a woman to its top post for the first time, announcing Tuesday that Dame Judith Mayhew will succeed Sir Colin Southgate when he retires as chairman in August. New Zealand-born Mayhew, currently chairwoman of the University of London's Birkbeck College, will join the Opera House board next month." The Opera House is coming off a financially successful run of the Nicholas Maw's much-discussed operatic adaption of Sophie's Choice. Andante (AP) 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 5:52 am Theatre Readying For Battle On Broadway "In what is shaping up to be one of the most bitter showdowns in Broadway history, theater producers and musicians have begun negotiations on a new contract that will hinge on the size of orchestras. Producers say union rules on the minimum number of musicians squeeze the producers at a time when Broadway rents, salaries and production costs have made mounting a musical almost prohibitively expensive. Union leaders say they are fighting for musicians' jobs and the tradition of live music in the Broadway theater. Both sides are making preparations for a strike." The New York Times 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 5:32 am Previously: How Live Is Broadway Live Theatre Music? The battle looming on Broadway between the musicians' union and producers is being cast as a fight over whether there will be live music in orchestra pits. On the other hand - union rules requiring a minimum number of musicians to be employed at theatres even when not all the musicians are required for a show, are unreasonable almost by any standard. Meanwhile - today's theatre orchestras are so highly miked that it's often difficult to tell whether the music is live or not. Where's the artistic value in any of this? Newsday 02/02/03 American Butts Too Big For West End Seats? Are Americans discouraged from going to London's West End theatres because the seats are too small? "The seats were built for backsides of a Victorian era, not of a modern era - or indeed an American size - and many of the bars are dingy and overpriced and haven't seen a lick of paint since Oscar Wilde was last there." Backstage 02/04/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 7:57 pm Publishing Poetry In Times Square A young poet goes to Times Square to read poetry on the street. And people stop to listen. "The American public's relationship to poetry is complicated. At best, poetry seems to be perceived as a rare salve to be applied in the wake of national tragedy; at worst it's an elite parlor game. Much of the blame for such perceptions can be placed squarely on American poetry itself, which has privileged difficulty over clarity—in the process taking itself right out of public view. I don't exactly fault modern American poetry for being difficult. The sensory experience of Times Square is as difficult as any poem and still we live within it. The power of great modern poetry is that it takes the monstrosity of Times Square and locates the human being at its heart." Poets & Writers 02/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 7:53 pm Protesting The Protesting Poets Roger Kimball was looking forward to going to the White House next week for lunch with Laura Bush and a symposium on "Poetry and the American Voice." Then he heard the event had been cancelled after Copper Canyon Press founder Sam Hamill had organized an anti-war protest around the event. "What about the many distinguished poets who believe Sam Hamill is a publicity-craving nonentity who spoiled their chance to celebrate American poetry at the White House? They, of course, have not been mentioned much. 'Poets for Responsible U.S. Foreign Policy' is not news." OpinionJournal.com 02/05/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 5:28 pm Previously: Those Pesky Poets Get Into More Trouble The White House "postponement" of a planned poetry event in February because of a planned protest by some of the invited poets is rousing lots of speculation. Some poets wanted to protest the war and resented the possible appearance of their support for war policies by their attendance. Plans to speak out againt a war with Iraq worried the White House and so the event was put off. Says one poet: "It tells you how little they understand poetry and poets, including the poets under discussion. It's a way to co-opt people, makes them look like they are interested in the arts without bothering to understand the arts." Boston Globe 01/31/03 Vatican Gives Blessing On Potter The Vatican has given its blessing to Harry Potter. Why should the Vatican even care? Some evangelical groups have protested the books for "glamorizing magic and the occult." But a spokeman for the Vatican says: "If I have understood well the intentions of Harry Potter's author, they help children to see the difference between good and evil. And she is very clear on this." Yahoo! (AP) 02/04/03 Posted: 02/04/2003 11:03 am Media More Than $2 Trillion, But Nothing For PBS? The budget that President Bush sent to Congress this week tops $2 trillion, and is already being criticized for being overly generous to to many constituencies, given the current state of the national economy. But public television stations nationwide are wondering where they can sign up for some of the president's fiscal generosity, after discovering that the budget calls for the elimination of funds designed to ease the transition of such stations to digital broadcasting, as mandated by the FCC. Without the funding, many public stations in rural areas have claimed that they will be forced off the air. Los Angeles Times 02/05/03 Posted: 02/05/2003 6:36 am