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Tuesday, September 16




IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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Why We Got Rhythm "Music is still a mystery, a tangle of culture and built-in skills that researchers are trying to tease apart. No one really knows why music is found in all cultures, why most known systems of music are based on the octave, why some people have absolute pitch and whether the brain handles music with special neural circuits or with ones developed for other purposes. Recent research, however, has produced a number of theories about the brain and music." The New York Times 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20030916-29438.html


ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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70 Cultural Groups Propose Homes At Ground Zero More than 70 cultural groups have proposed setting up homes in the World Trade Center project. "The development corporation has not set a date by which a decision would be made. Site plans include a museum, a performing arts center and smaller cultural spaces. The proposals will be evaluated by the corporation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts." The New York Times 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030916-29437.html

Iraqi Artists Get Back To Work Iraq's artists are feeling energized. "In the theaters, at least, young actors have embraced a measure of new freedom. The dozens of young actors and directors at the National Theater scrambling to ready plays for a festival next month have seized with enthusiasm an artistic freedom unknown for 25 years in Iraq. Their palpable energy is echoed elsewhere in the fine arts, where a cadre of younger Iraqi painters and sculptors have emerged from the shadows of a generation of state-funded artists who lived comfortably under the old regime - so long as they hewed to a narrow and apolitical path. For the artists discovering a new space in post-Hussein Iraq, liberation from a totalitarian government has wrought a cultural revolution." Boston Globe 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030915-29361.html


DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
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The Royal Ballet's Other Star: "In the dance world, Danish-born Johan Kobborg has quietly amassed a major international following. Technically, he is a dancer of great elegance and finish, but what draws audiences to his performances is their intense dramatic colour. Like Nureyev, he turned to ballet late (at 16). He had already toured Europe as a schoolboy singer and proved himself a highly promising violinist when he was accepted for ballet training at the RDB school. By 21 he was a principal dancer in the company." The Guardian (UK) 09/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20030915-29385.html


MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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Inside Job - Movie Pirates A new study says that most movie pirating is done by movie industry insiders. "Seventy-seven percent of films uploaded during this period were apparently created during production or distribution. Some simply appeared online before their cinema release - meaning they must have been leaked. Others were posted after their cinema release but displayed text indicating they were made from a pre-release review DVD. Some even showed evidence that they had yet to be edited, for example, they might contain a stray microphone at the top of the frame." New Scientist 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030915-29431.html

India's Bollywood Ban Sepaaratist groups in northeast India are calling for a ban on Bollywood movies. "They say the Hindi-language films undermine local culture and values, and that erotic song and dance sequences are a bad influence on young people. A ban is already in effect in Manipur state, forcing many cinemas to shut down or find other sources of income. The cinema owners and distributors say the move to ban the films would only lead to greater piracy." BBC 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030915-29411.html


MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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The Bugler's Digital Assist It looks like a bugle. Sounds like a bugle. But "it is a bugle discreetly fitted with a battery-operated conical insert that plays the 24 notes of taps at the flick of a switch. It is all digital, with no human talent or breath required. All you do is hold it up, turn it on and try to look like a bugler." The New York Times 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030916-29440.html

Honor At The Press Of A Switch "The $500 electronic bugle is a necessity, the Pentagon insists. There are about 500 active-duty buglers, but more than 1,500 veterans die every day. Even the countless buglers at VFW and American Legion halls across the country can't make up the difference." OpinionJournal.com 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030916-29442.html

Sound Of The Universe What do the heavens sound like? Music, report scientists - specifically a B flat — "a B flat 57 octaves lower than middle C. The 'notes' appear as pressure waves roiling and spreading as a result of outbursts from a supermassive black hole through a hot thin gas that fills the Perseus cluster of galaxies, 250 million light-years distant. They are 30,000 light-years across and have a period of oscillation of 10 million years. By comparison, the deepest, lowest notes that humans can hear have a period of about one-twentieth of a second." The New York Times 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030916-29439.html

Philly Orchestra Raises $76 Million The Philadelphia Orchestra confirms a $50 million gift and another $26 million raised towards an endowmwnt. "Leonore Annenberg, the widow of philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg, has pledged $50 million to the ensemble, orchestra leaders acknowledged. The gift, first reported in The Inquirer two weeks ago, is believed by orchestra administrators to be the second largest ever made to an American orchestra. Also yesterday, the orchestra announced that it had gathered an additional $26 million in pledges to its endowment campaign, whose goal is $125 million. Orchestra officials said the new money would give the ensemble the resources to make its ambitions, often hobbled by financial ills, into reality." Philadelphia Inquirer 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030916-29436.html

Toronto Opera House To Be "Tops In The World?" Plans for Toronto's long-awaited opera house are unveiled. It's a $150 million 2000-seat theatre. "Our ambition is to position this opera house among the top two or three in the world. If you look at what has worked for 400 years, you have a reasonable chance of success. Once you go over 2,000 seats (Roy Thomson Hall originally sat more than 2,800 people), you have made an unacceptable compromise." Toronto Star 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030916-29434.html

Plans For A Music Museum Organizers are trying to raise money for a $220 million museum of music. The National Music Center and Museum Foundation would be built in Washington DC. "At the convention center site, the planners are envisioning a facility on two acres with three theaters and a museum. The 3,200-seat performance hall could accommodate Broadway roadshows and musical acts. A second theater would have 750 seats, more than any of the Smithsonian's current theaters and lecture halls. The third would be a 250-seat black-box venue for dance and experimental theater. The museum would have 50,000 square feet of space for both temporary and permanent exhibitions." Washington Post 09/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030916-29433.html

RIAA's Failed Strategy The recording industry is doing itself n o favors with its war on music file traders. "In its current action, the RIAA, which is claiming damages of thousands of dollars per download, may have the law on its side, but that will matter little in the end. Indeed, it's far from clear whether the group's legal threats will even have any, let alone much, impact on unauthorized file sharing. There's no mass exodus [from file-sharing services], that's safe to say. Ironically, usage this week and this month is up... More important, even if the RIAA is somehow successful in actually stamping out file sharing (which it won't be), that doesn't mean that CD sales will necessarily pick up. "Many of these individuals [who use file-sharing services] have gotten out of the habit of buying CDs. They think CDs are too expensive." Reason 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030915-29432.html

Suing Kids -Maybe Not The Most Sympathetic Strategy The recording industry could have made itself sympathetic - all those people downloading and stealing music. But suing music lovers... and a 12-year-old girl no less... "Suddenly, the trade association - in its effort to squelch illegal music sharing over peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and Grokster - looked more like a schoolyard bully." San Jose Mercury-News 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030915-29430.html

Music That Describes Our World "Tone-painting differs from musical expression in that it seeks tangibly to conjure physical things in tone. This idea has been around as long as music has. An ancient Greek story tells of a master of the aulos, the classical double-pipe instrument, who improvised a description of a battle so hair-raising that people were talking about it for the next 200 years." Bach was the ultimate master of it, but Beethoven, Liszt, Wagner and Brahms were expert at painting scenes with music. The Guardian (UK) 09/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030915-29386.html

Music & Politics - Not An Obvious Connection Music and politics don't mix, do they? So why have music and politics found themselves so frequently intertwined? Jay Nordlinger enumerates political influences, then decrees that there's nothing inherently political about music: "Music dwells in its own realm, unless it is freighted with words that constitute political baggage." National Review 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030915-29384.html

Royal Conservatory Branches Out Beyond Classical Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music has long set the standards for music instruction, helping educate generatations of young classical musicians. Now the RCM is widening its focus, offering world music as part of its curriculum. "The Conservatory is supposed to be the institution of Canadian national music, and we've caught up to the reality that there are huge numbers of people living in this country who were not raised in the Western classical-music tradition. We have to reflect the diversity." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030915-29365.html

Where Is All The New Choral Music? "Why is there so little new choral music? The choral tradition is more traditional, even more popularly oriented than orchestral, chamber music, solo and operatic traditions. Plenty of vernacular, indigenous, folk, and gospel music has become standard fare. In a piano or chamber music recital, the performance of homely vernacular music would not be accepted or even tolerated, yet it has become a common practice in choral performances." NewMusicBox 09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030915-29364.html


PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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Lloyd-Webber To Leave Art To UK Theatre producer Andrew Lloyd-Webber says he'll leave his art collection to the British people when he dies. "Lord Lloyd-Webber's collection is described as one of the finest in private hands and includes works by Picasso, Canaletto and Rossetti." BBC 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030915-29408.html


PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Up The Amazon - Digitizing Non-Fiction Amazon is digitizing nonfiction books to create an online database that can be searched by keywords. Publishers are wary but going along so far. "The plan, first reported about in the New York Times in July, is seen as a way to draw more traffic to the Amazon site as it competes with search engines such as Google and Yahoo." Publishers Weekly 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030915-29429.html

Madonna Launches Book (Without The Book) Madonna's new children's book launched over the weekend - a product of hype already makes it a best-seller. "The English Roses has already found its way into publishing history as the widest, simultaneous multi-language release, with a target of more than 100 countries in 30 languages. The US print run alone is 400,000. The massive hype of Madonna's simple fable perplexed the publishing world yesterday as she hosted an elaborate Kensington tea-party launch without a single copy of the book." The Guardian (UK) 09/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030915-29375.html


THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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Lisbon's Theatre Problem "On the surface, Lisbon seems to support a healthy plethora of venues - from the huge neoclassical Teatro Nacional on the commercial Rossio square to funky, hilltop cafe theatres such as Teatro Taborda - and companies, from established names such as Teatro Cornucopia, co-founded by Melo, to bands of kids performing experimental works in the grounds of mental hospitals. However, theatre here is afflicted by one overwhelming, trenchant problem: a lack of audiences. At the country's National Theatre - a sumptuous auditorium seating 500, where I witnessed Titus Andronicus playing to a crowd of 120 - a paltry 25% house is regarded as a resounding, sell-out smash hit. Shows in the city are regularly cancelled when theatregoers fail to materialise." The Guardian (UK) 09/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030916-29443.html


VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Florida County Wants Artist To "Fix" Rust On Sculpture Florida artist Bradley Arthur was hired to make sculpture out of melted guns. He did. But shortly after the sculpture was installed, it began to rust. "The county now contends Arthur has delivered a defective product. He must have done something wrong in making the sculpture. Officials with the county's public art program want him to 'fix' it.
Arthur, 50, of Land O'Lakes, says there's nothing broken. Of course the pieces are rusting, he said, because they're made largely of gunmetal. He fully expected his artwork to rust in parts, and took that into account in his design."
St. Petersburg Times 09/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030916-29444.html

Havana Biennial Imperiled "Troubles are mounting for the eighth Havana Biennial as Dutch sponsors pull the plug on funding, while visual artists in Miami and Costa Rica turn down invitations to participate in the international showcase opening Nov. 1. The Cuban government's crackdowns earlier this year on dissidents and artists' charges of censorship fueled the decisions." Miami Herald 09/16/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030916-29441.html

Cleaning Of David To Resume Anxious to clean Michelangelo's David by next year's 500th anniversary of its sculpting, officials in Florence have resumed cleaning of the statue. "At a news conference yesterday in front of Michelangelo's marble vision of naked male beauty, experts defended their decision to resume the project, which was interrupted when an internationally respected restorer quit rather than follow orders to use a cleaning method she feared could harm the sculpture." Toronto Star (AP) 09/16/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030916-29435.html

Colonial Willimaburg Lays Off Staff, Cuts Programs Colonial Williamsburg, the "museum" that tries to recreate American colonial times, is suffering. "With declining attendance and a $35 million budget deficit, the nation's largest living history museum is laying off nearly 400 of its 3,500 employees and cutting programs. Officials at the private, nonprofit foundation that operates Colonial Williamsburg blame the weak economy, lingering fears of terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, less focus on Colonial history in schools and rainy weather this year. And they note that other such 'heritage' sites also have falling or flat attendance." Marietta Daily Journal (Georgia) (AP) 09/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030915-29363.html

Berlin's Louvre Plan "Germany now is in the process of transforming the five neoclassical museums that are clustered on an island in the Spree River in Berlin into a cultural center to rival Paris' Louvre and London's British Museum. The complex eventually will unite collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, Egyptian artifacts, 19th century paintings, Byzantine art and Near Eastern antiquities long scattered by last century's wars and political divisions. While construction has been underway for five years, Berlin's financial woes have discouraged anyone from predicting completion." Los Angeles Times (AP) 09/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030915-29362.html

Tracking Down Iraq Art About 3,400 artifacts stolen from the Iraq National Museum have been recovered. But about 10,000 are still missing. "The majority of the work remaining, that of tracking down the missing pieces, will likely take years. It will require the cooperative efforts of all nations. Already 750 stolen objects have been recovered in Great Britain, Italy, Jordan and the United States." Washington Post 09/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030915-29353.html


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