Ideas Should Art Serve A Medical Purpose? The increasingly popular art-as-medicine movement is a revelation to some, and a deep concern to others. "Healing is... a serious business, perhaps more so, driven by moral and ethical imperatives. Enlisting the arts in its service raises concerns about efficacy, appropriateness, false hopes and accountability. Who's to say, finally, whether the arts figure substantially in healing or whether healing is pertinent to art?" San Francisco Chronicle 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 7:01 am Visual Arts David To Get A Controversial Shower Despite international protests from art experts and preservationists, Italian authorities have announced that the cleaning of Michelangelo's David will go ahead using distilled water. Critics are concerned that water could remove some of the statue's distinctive coloration, and one restorer has already resigned from the project over the controversy. BBC 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 5:21 am Getting Their Money's Worth? So now, the UK's National Gallery is free to pursue the purchase of the Duke of Northumberland's Raphael canvas. But was one painting really worth all the fuss, not to mention the £11.5 million the government doled out? The Guardian's arts editor says yes, calling the painting "a spellbinding masterpiece with all the concentrated beauty of a miniature, coupled with the grandeur of a major Renaissance painting." But the head of the National Art Collections Fund thinks it absurd to be spending such a wad of cash on "a piece of flagship culture," especially one which has no specific relevance to Great Britain, and particularly when the National Gallery already owns eight other canvases by the same artist. The Guardian (UK) 07/24/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 8:19 pm Savvy Art Deal Or Aristocratic Blackmail? There's little doubt as to the identity of the storybook villain in the battle to keep Raphael's 9-inch square painting in the UK. The Duke of Northumberland, one of the richest landowners in Britain, has positively cleaned up on the deal, and, by playing the Getty Museum against the UK's Heritage Lottery, he assured himself of a fat payday regardless of who won the ownership battle. For his part, the Duke has "denied that the cash will be used to pay for a £9 million Italianate garden his wife is designing at Alnwick as a part of what he calls a 'public regeneration project'. Nor he insists, did he renege on a family agreement to give the gallery the first option to buy the Raphael." The Guardian (UK) 07/24/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 8:00 pm How To Keep A Painting In Your Country It is now all but certain that Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks will be saved from the horrific fate of being exported out of Great Britain. But before the bidding war began, what options did UK officials have when the Duke of Northumberland first started talking about selling the Raphael to the Getty Museum? The answer is more complicated than you might think. BBC 07/23/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 7:31 pm Music Are Orchestras Really Committed To Their Cities? Last month, the Philadelphia Orchestra nearly had to call off a series of free "neighborhood concerts" for lack of sponsors. A last-minute sponsor stepped in, and all was well, but Peter Dobrin has a question. Shouldn't we be able to expect that an orchestra, which spends a good amount of time asking for financial and moral support from the community, be committed enough to its home city to put on a few free concerts every year, regardless of sponsorship? "Maybe it's too easy to interpret this situation as one of those rich-sticking-it-to-the-poor episodes, but what the orchestra has done with this year's cancellation interlude, intentionally or not, is to reinforce the old cliche that classical music is something only for the wealthy." Philadelphia Inquirer 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:50 am Not Going Down Without A Fight Orchestras and their music directors part on less-than-perfect terms more often than not, but generally, industry tradition insists that all sides keep up a show of mutual respect, no matter how bitter the split. But in Fairbanks, Alaska, the former music director of the local orchestra has filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages for her dismissal in 2001. Madeline Schatz claims that members of the Fairbanks Symphony Association deliberately undercut her authority and defamed her to the dean of the college which sponsors the orchestra. Schatz had been accused of throwing chairs and music stands during a youth orchestra rehearsal, and a petition of the musicians had called for her removal. Fairbanks News-Miner (Alaska) 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:39 am Those Catty, Catty Violinists "A member of a German orchestra has been fined more than £300 for fighting with a colleague who failed to hit the right note. The Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn was holding a rehearsal in front of members of the public at the Beethoven Hall in the city when one of the first violinists played the wrong note. A fellow musician pointed out his colleague's mistake but when the violinist failed to hit the right note for a second time a fight broke out." Ananova.com 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:37 am Stratford's Other Festival These days, when you think of Stratford, Ontario, you probably think of the town's famed Shakespeare festival. But the Stratford Festival was originally supposed to be a multi-disciplinary gathering, and John Miller, the creator of the three-year-old Stratford Summer Music Festival, is convinced that the town has room for more than just plays. Rather than compete with the theater crowd, Miller schedules his concerts around the Shakespeare, and treats the unusual showtimes and locations he must use as selling points rather than detriments. In return the Stratford Festival has been quite supportive of its new "little brother," with organizers of the theater fest donating money and equipment to the cause. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:26 am The Trouble With Music As Competitive Sport The Kapell Piano Competition gets underway in Baltimore this month. Competitions are a time-honored tradition of the classical music landscape, and it is almost unthinkable for a promising young soloist to skip the competition circuit. But do the juries at such high-pressure events actually award the top prizes to the best musicians? Some think not, pointing out that "the process of judging with numbers can result in a neutral person getting the best score. If a pianist does something extreme, chances are someone on the jury will disagree with it, and you end up with a very low score. Solid and straight playing then wins instead because it doesn't offend anyone." Baltimore Sun 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 5:39 am Met Opera Sued Over Misused Contribution The estate of a Texas philanthropist is suing the Metropolitan Opera, claiming that the Met misappropriated and misused part of a major contribution. Sybil Harrington donated at least $27 million to the Met in her lifetime, and her estate gave an additional $6 million after her death. The suit "alleges Met representatives have made false claims concerning the status of funds Harrington donated to the Met and disposition of other contributions after Harrington's death in 1998... The suit also seeks an accounting of all funds donated by Harrington and a special trust created for further contributions after her death." Amarillo Globe-News 07/23/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 5:28 am Teachers Strike Met Opera "About 30 teaching artists employed by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' Metropolitan Opera Guild went on strike Tuesday, demanding pension and health benefits." The teaching artists train classroom teachers in opera education, and also teach children about the genre. They are seeking to have their status at the Met upgraded from independent contractors to full employees, an issue they say that Met Opera officials have refused even to discuss. They also wish to be represented by the American Federation of Musicians union local, a right granted to many other Lincoln Center employees. Newsday (AP) 07/22/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 7:55 pm Arts Issues Pew Trust To Separate From Parent Company "The Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the nation's largest foundations, is taking steps to separate itself from Glenmede Trust Co., the money-management firm created in 1956 to administer the Pew family's fortune and its charities." The move is largely a financial decision, allowing the Pew to become a full-fledged non-profit corporation, creating a significant tax savings. Glenmede would continue to administer the Pew's multiple trusts, but would no longer employ the Pew's staff. Philadelphia Inquirer 07/23/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 8:00 pm Booking Space At Ground Zero "More than 10 well-known New York arts and cultural institutions are working on plans to be part of the new center that will be built at Ground Zero. The proposals, from institutions ranging from off-Broadway theaters to museums, are in response to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.'s recent request for formal expressions of interest from cultural groups that wish to be part of the site." Among the groups which have already declared their wishes to relocate to the site are the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York City Opera, and the Joyce Theater. Crain's New York Business 07/21/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 7:44 pm People The Woman Who Danced Away Her Cancer It may be a bit new-ageish for some, but more and more people are becoming convinced that art has some profound healing powers. One of the leaders of the art-as-medicine movement is California choreographer Anna Halprin. "For more than 30 years, Halprin has been working out the dynamic of art's multidimensional power to heal mind and body, which many believe in but few have experienced in such a visceral, immediate way." Halprin claims to have beaten cancer with an intensive program of painting and dance, and while the medical community isn't about to give a lot of credence to that particular claim, doctors admit that art does appear to have some sort of as-yet-unexplained benefits to human health. San Francisco Chronicle 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:57 am Previously: Art: The New (Old) Alternative Medicine "Art opens people up and delves deep. Anyone who's ever poured out his passion on a dance floor, sung John Mayer in the shower or felt rapture at Swan Lake knows it. But can that delving heal people, in both body and mind, as a veritable army of art therapists, drama therapists, dance therapists, cinema and photo therapists, expressive arts practitioners, patients, their families, hospice workers and holistic musicians believe?" San Francisco Chronicle 07/23/03 The Man Who Painted San Quentin It's the last place you would expect to find serious art. But inside the dining hall at San Quentin State Prison in California sit "four epic murals... depicting California history from the building of the railroads to the post-World War II industrial boom... The astonishing sophistication of the work -- imbued with leftist political imagery extolling working-class virtues at a time when McCarthyism was rampant -- has for years been a source of intrigue to the few art historians and others familiar with the murals." This month, the single ex-convict responsible for the murals will be welcomed back to San Quentin as an invited guest. His name is Alfredo Santos. He hasn't seen his work in nearly fifty years. San Francisco Weekly 07/23/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 9:18 pm Theatre Is It A Musical If No One Can Hear It? New York's Roundabout Theater Company is mounting a production of the Huck Finn-based musical Big River this summer, with a groundbreaking twist. The show is aimed at deaf and hearing-impaired audiences, with the actors using a mix of singing and signing to tell the story. "The deaf learned to feel the music they couldn't hear; hearing actors spent months learning American Sign Language." The show's director says it isn't a gimmick, but a concerted effort to bring American theater to an audience that is ordinarily ignored by the industry. Detroit News (AP) 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:19 am Publishing Navel-Gazing: Not Just For American Writers Anymore If every generation has a hallmark literary style, Generation X has certainly laid claim to the autobiographical essay. But the all-about-me style is not just an American phenomenon. A new generation of German writers are making a name for themselves with a similar style. "World War II and the Holocaust are no longer the dominant themes in these existential tales by the young writers. Instead, they are writing about the role of the artist after the fall of the wall, the life of the immigrant and, obsessively it seems, about the elusive nature of happiness. Some wonder if fiction should not have a longer memory." The New York Times 07/24/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 8:51 pm Media House Votes To Block FCC Deregulation "The House voted yesterday to block the Federal Communications Commission from imposing rules that would allow the nation's biggest broadcasting companies to buy more television stations, setting up a potential showdown with the White House... The legislation would prohibit the FCC from spending any money to carry out its decision last month to allow individual companies to own television stations that reach as much as 45 percent of the national audience. The House measure would keep the limit at 35 percent." The FCC's vote in favor of deregulation had sparked an unexpected wave of consumer outrage when it was announced this spring. Washington Post 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 7:04 am Serious Colon Disease Sweeps Hollywood Remember when movies just had one title? These days, it seems as if no summer blockbuster could be complete without a title of ridiculous length, with a colon in the middle. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. It's not as if the colon is a new thing in film titles, but with the new popularity of franchise films, studios are embracing the chance to squeeze in one more repetition of the franchise title. Dallas Morning News 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 6:10 am American Pop Rules the BBC Last week, the head of BBC Radio One boasted that fully 30% of the music played on his station is by UK artists. Neil McCormick doesn't understand what is supposed to be impressive about that. After all, should not the flagship network of Britain have a bit more of a commitment to homegrown music than 3 of every 10 songs? As to Radio One's claim that it is merely reflecting British preferences for "global music," McCormick is unmoved. "A quick glance at their playlists will establish that most of the other 70 per cent is accounted for by American releases," which is not exactly what most listeners would call world music. The Telegraph (UK) 07/24/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 8:43 pm Iran's Precocious Filmmaker America may have more child stars than we know what to do with, but the film capital of the world has never produced what Iran has: a 14-year-old director whose first feature film is entered in the Venice Film Festival. "Hana Makhmalbaf comes from Iran's most successful film family... Her first full-length film, Joy of Madness, will compete for the 100,000 euro [$115,000] prize for best debut. It is a documentary about her sister, Samira Makhmalbaf, making her latest film in Afghanistan, and has been chosen for the festival's critics' week." Samira is no stranger to publicity, either, having competed for the top prize at Cannes at the age of 20. BBC 07/23/03 Posted: 07/23/2003 7:36 pm Dance Your Very Own Nutcracker "They've cut the budget, sliced the staff, and bid farewell to a group of longtime dancers. Now Boston Ballet is offering private time with the Sugar Plum Fairy. Yes, for $150,000, you and a few thousand of your closest friends can have your own personal performance of the company's most popular production, 'The Nutcracker.'" Boston Globe 07/24/03 Posted: 07/24/2003 5:50 am