Laban Center Favored For Stirling Prize Herzog and de Meuron's new Laban dance center is the favorite to win this year's Stirling Prize - British architecture's top award. "The multicoloured building, as exotic as a hummingbird in the post-industrial wasteland of Deptford Creek, south-east London, was immediately made 2-1 favourite by William Hill bookmakers to take the £20,000 prize." The Guardian (UK) 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 11:02 pm
Emin/Critic Feud Winding Down Earlier this summer critic Philip Hensher charged in print that artist Tracey Emin was harrassing him."The controversy began after Hensher claimed in the Independent that Emin was too stupid to be a good conceptual artist. Emin then complained in an Observer interview that she was being 'completely slagged off by people whose mortgage I'm paying' and made particular reference to a writer for the Independent." Now Hensher has conceded that Emin had "not been sending china Peter Rabbit figurines" to him as he claimed. Huh? The Guardian (UK) 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 10:27 pm
Musicians Have Bigger Brains "Mozart increases mental mass. Scientists revealed yesterday that members of a British symphony orchestra had more little grey cells than ordinary people in a part of the brain known as Broca's area... [A researcher] examined the brains of musicians under the age of 50 and found that they had added to their grey matter. Then she looked at non-musicians under the 50, and found an age-related decline. Where musicians still played fortissimo, non-musicians were beginning a diminuendo." The Guardian (UK) 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 5:57 am
No Breakthroughs In Charlotte Strike A federal mediator has stepped in, and talks are going on around the clock, but there is still no end in sight for the Charlotte Symphony musicians' strike. This weekend's season-opening concerts have been cancelled, and no one involved in the talks seems to think a breakthrough is near. At issue is the orchestra's desire to cut back the number of paid weeks per year for which it contracts its musicians, in order to make up a $645,000 deficit. The musicians claim that the deficit, the orchestra's first in seven years, is an aberration, and that no salary cuts should be necessary. Musicians in the Charlotte Symphony currently make $31,200 per year. The proposed cut would knock them back to $28,860. Charlotte Observer 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 5:48 am
Montreal Symphony Lacking Leadership? The Montreal Symphony Orchestra opened its season this week without a music director (Charles Dutoit, who departed the post in a huff just shy of his 25th anniversary last year, has yet to be replaced,) and Arthur Kaptainis says that the lack of leadership and direction at the MSO is beginning to be alarming. The concert had the orchestra pushed to the very back of the stage to accomodate one short work in which a pair of dancers were featured, and the entire program had the effect of implying that the musicians were the least important part of the show. "The directors of the MSO (many present for an opening-night bash) should remember that it is possible to accumulate an artistic deficit." Montreal Gazette 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 5:38 am
Lawsuits No Deterrent To File-Swapping The recording industry was hoping that the 261 lawsuits it filed against file-swapping music fans last month might have a chilling effect on the whole online piracy problem. But in fact, the opposite seems to be true: according to one independent research firm, "the number of people using these file sharing services in the first 10 days of September is up more than 20 percent from the August average." Of course, the industry will be going ahead with the lawsuits, regardless... BBC 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 5:30 am
Recordings And Porn - A Reason To Object? The recording industry seems to be hitching its objections to file-trading to the porn industry. "It said that peer-to-peer file-sharing - the technology used by Internet sites like Kazaa and Morpheus - was bad not only because citizens could share music without paying for it, but also because it was used to swap pornographic images. One odd thing here: If you tweak that sentiment just a little bit, it becomes: We join our friends the child pornographers in deploring file-sharing of protected works of art." San Francisco Chronicle 09/11/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 12:04 am
The New Carnegie - Expanding Musical Tastes Carnegie Hall's new hall allows it to expand its musical tastes. "The first thing is that when we present a series curated by musicians like Caetano Veloso or Emmylou Harris, you are not seeing those artists replacing the traditional recital or orchestral series that we do. We're not sacrificing one for the other, we're adding something new. But also, as audiences develop and change, I think you find people who love Emmylou Harris and also go to hear the Berlin Philharmonic." The New York Times 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 11:53 pm
- More On Carnegie's New Hall "Described by the architects as a mining operation as well as a design project, Carnegie Hall's new performance space sits within a cavity carved out of Manhattan schist. Parts of the bedrock are exposed, actually, in backstage areas and in a public stairwell." The New York Times 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 11:30 pm
Sorabji The Recluse Composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was a difficult artist. "Cut off from the world and supported by a private income, he composed dauntingly huge pieces which were regarded as all but unplayable. He forbade the performance of his music lest inferior musicians ruin it. He remained alone, despising the trivial productions of others, in his artistic castle of ideal, Platonic complexity, a lone voice in the wilderness until his death." The Guardian (UK) 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 11:09 pm
How To Give Away A Strad In Canada The Canada Council's recent competition to loan rare string instruments to young musicians is a quintessential Canadian exercise. "All of these musicians had international careers by the time they were in their teens. They are already playing with great symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles, and already recording classical CDs. These lovely instruments are, for the three years of their tenure, going to further their careers, giving them richer sounds and greater delicacy of tone and enabling them to impress even more audiences and producers." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/11/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 10:11 pm
Boston's New Arts Neighborhood Any native Bostonian can tell you that the South End is not exactly the glamorous section of town. But a newly revitalized neighborhood in Southie, long populated by local artists and recently discovered by gallery owners, is proving once again that art can change the image and culture of even the most run-down areas. "The gallery boomlet has occurred despite the sputtering economy of the last two years, thanks to the housing market, which has been white hot in the neighborhood, drawing artists and people who want to put art on their new walls." Boston Globe 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 6:14 am
Man In Black Dead at 71 Country music legend Johnny Cash has died at a Nashville hospital from complications from diabetes. Cash's career spanned six decades, and earned him eight Grammy awards. His music did not follow the mainstream commercial path of so many other country artists, and he embraced both humor and social conscience in his songs. From the ridiculous poignance of "A Boy Named Sue" to the bitter lament of the "Folsom Prison Blues," Cash made his mark on multiple generations of listeners. "As much an American icon as Mark Twain or Woody Guthrie or John Wayne, Cash created a persona that often seemed to overshadow his genius as a writer and performer. A country music archetype who helped invent rock and roll, he always returned for solace to the gospel music of his youth." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 5:13 am
Ned Rorem At 80 "I love it when people talk about my music and I hate it when they don't, but I never know quite what they're talking about. When people analyze my music in a formal way - not by what it means in a Wallace Stevens-ish way but by what it is made of in a technical way - I say to myself, 'Oh gee, did I do that? I guess I did'." San Francisco Chronicle 09/10/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 12:14 am
The Cult Of Adorno Theodor Adorno was born 100 years ago. He's "recognized as one of the leading critical minds of the 20th century, a man with an intellectual range that seemingly knew no bounds. He was a musicologist who studied in Vienna with Alban Berg and a composer in his own right, a social theorist steeped in the tradition of western Marxism, and a highly regarded commentator on literature and poetry. Yet Adorno polarized many with his dialectical style and his uncompromising assault on the enlightenment, Hegelian idealism and existentialism." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 9:45 pm
And Now For Something Completely The Same A stage version of the classic British comedy film, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, is set to open on Broadway in the spring of 2005. Tentatively titled Spamalot, the musical will feature several new songs in addition to the classic Python ditties sung in the movie. No word yet on whether the quadruple amputee Black Knight will be granted a solo on the subject of biting kneecaps. BBC 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 5:23 am
National Theatre For Scotland Scotland is finally getting a national theatre. "The Scottish finance minister, Andy Kerr, announced in a budget speech that there was finally funding available to establish the theatre, proposals for which have been around since at least 1949. It will be based in Glasgow and will have an initial funding package of £7.5m, with its first production due at the beginning of 2005." The Guardian (UK) 09/12/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 10:50 pm
- Scotland's National Achievement A decision to build Scotland's new national theatre is a major cultural accomplishment. "It is by far the boldest thing they have achieved in the cultural arena. They have consulted with the theatrical community and they have listened. It isn’t fanciful to say that this is the first major cultural decision which has been arrived at in Scotland through a full democratic discussion." The Scotsman 09/11/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 10:20 am
Remnick's New Yorker: As Ever, Standing Apart The New Yorker may be the most storied magazine in American history. More than two dozen books have been written about its history, and "over the years, no magazine has succeeded as consistently in maintaining a sense of originality. True, other publications can boast a higher circulation than the New Yorker's 958,000. And many have greater reach on Main Street and Wall Street, not to mention at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. But how many have a mystique for publishing memorable writing?" Under new editor David Remnick, the magazine seems to be once again reinventing itself, with Remnick insisting that he didn't sign on to be a "museum steward." But with so much protective fervor surrounding New Yorker's past, Remnick may have a difficult route to the future. CBS Marketwatch 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 7:03 am
A Low-Key Kind Of Publishing House Patricia Johnston runs the Afton Historical Society Press, a tiny publishing house in a little town outside St. Paul, Minnesota. You've probably never heard of the company. After all, Johnston puts out an average of four to six titles per year, and isn't really all that interested in advertising, or making sales calls, or actually marketing her product much at all. Nonetheless, the business has flourished, with word of mouth being apparently enough to sell the consistently high-quality books that Afton puts out, and many see the company as a textbook example of how an independent publisher can survive in the world of increasingly corporate bookselling. City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 09/10/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 6:53 am
Reason To Review "It stands to reason that book reviewers enjoy reading. After all, as was noted in the first two installments of this series, they must choose (often with the help of assigning editors), from the immense heap of books that accumulates each year, the titles to read and write about—in fewer and fewer words, under deadline, and for not much pay. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call book reviewing a labor of love, except for the fact that it is so often a vilified profession. Reviewers are accused of having agendas and of cronyism, are called show-offs and career-killers. It’s a lot of heat to take for some free books, a few bucks, and a byline. So what’s the draw?" Poets & Writers 09/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 12:50 am
How We Act As Reflected In Book Sales Amazon sales rankings might be must-checks for mostg authors, but they also give researchers a fascinating window on how sales are affected by prices. The New York Times 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 12:34 am
A Good, Solid TIFF This year's Toronto International Film Festival seems to have hit on all cylinders, a welcome change from the last couple of years, when TIFF was necessarily overshadowed by world events. Several Toronto critics were duly impressed by the mood of this year's fest, in addition to praising the high quality of this year's entries. Joanna Schneller may have summed up TIFF's year: "It was a good, solid year for the festival. There hasn't been that one great breakout film, but there are also fewer stinkers." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/12/03
Posted: 09/12/2003 6:32 am
Joffrey Goes Live The Joffrey Ballet, which has performed frequently with recorded music, has made a commitment to perform with live music for the next season and beyond. The company has also hired a new music director, Leslie Dunner, who made headlines last year when he was publicly dismissed by the Annapolis Symphony for reasons which were never disclosed. Chicago Sun-Times 09/11/03
Posted: 09/11/2003 9:20 pm
