Ideas

Assassination As A Cultural Flashpoint "Had the assassination of John F. Kennedy not happened 40 years ago today, it's hard to imagine the writing of Six Degrees of Separation, the making of Bonnie and Clyde, the career of novelist Don DeLillo, the apocalyptic music of the Doors or the popularity of 'Grand Theft Auto' and other violent interactive games... After Kennedy's death, the world became bleaker, stranger somehow. The culture -- the arts it produced and the audiences that absorbed them -- turned suspicious, became less respectful of government, more prone to what some would call 'paranoiac flights of fancy,' flights that were alternately sinister and playful." The Globe & Mail 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:16 am

Visual Arts

Giant Pickles & Bicycle Helmets: This Is London? As a rule, London does not do skyscrapers. Or it didn't, until recently. But with a new wave of British culture is coming a new look to the London skyline, and one of the centerpieces is a building which is best described as a 40-story pickle. "The architect is Norman Foster, a man famous for his audaciousness. He designed London's city hall, an eye-catching if utterly weird structure that looks like a bicycle helmet attacked by a madman wielding a large, dull ax." The New York Times 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:52 am

Hey, Wait, I Own That Painting! "Art auctioneers are only human or so it's said, and they and their staff are as prone to making mistakes as the rest of us. But how did the international saleroom Christie's manage to list a painting by Ray Crooke for its art auction tomorrow night that it sold in August to Australia's biggest-spending dealer, Denis Savill?" The new catalog lists the painting with a different title than the one it had when Savill purchased it, but all sides agree that it is the same work. This isn't the first time that Savill has had a problem with Christie's: the auction house "previously 'mislaid' three paintings he had bought at various auctions, and... recovering them took nine months in one instance and two years in another." The Age (Melbourne) 11/24/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:33 am

Bringing Culture To Big D Dallas may be better known than Fort Worth, but until recently, if you wanted to see great art in the Texas Metroplex, you had to head west, to Fort Worth's impressive museum district. But that was before Raymond Nasher decided to keep his extensive sculpture collection at home, and put it to good use in downtown Dallas. "As I strolled through the Nasher's light-filled galleries, this new urban shrine to modern sculpture seemed remarkably understated, unusual in image-conscious Dallas... Finally, Dallas can claim, without the braggadocio the city is famous for, that it too is an art destination." The New York Times 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:22 am

Armchair Quarterbacking the WTC Finalists As the process of selecting the architect who will design and build the memorial to the victims of 9/11 progresses, other architects are weighing in on the finalists. Some say all the designs are too complex, while others complain that minimalism is too dominant across the board. "Many of the architects had practical questions: What happens to all those water features in case of drought? Can such vast spaces underground be free of columns? How many people can cross a narrow bridge at one time?" The New York Times 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:38 am

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SPONSOR
From One Generation To The Next Some of the world's most distinguished artists gathered at Lincoln Center on November 10 to celebrate the completion of the inaugural year of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. www.rolexmentorprotege.com

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Music

The Paradox Of Emotive Performance You would think that a performer who is truly moved by the music s/he is playing would be exactly the kind of performer an audience would want most to hear. But in reality, emotional connections can be both a blessing and a curse for performers, who must battle "trembling limbs, nerves, [and] memory problems. All these can intrude between the musician and the music, and between the music and the listener. Some of the most outwardly emotional music requires enormous control." The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:28 am

Life As An Orchestral Cog Few regular concertgoers would likely be able to recognize more than a few members of their home orchestra. After all, there are nearly 100 musicians on stage for most orchestral works, and apart from the concertmaster and a few select wind and brass principals, most of the musicians seem fairly anonymous. But being a section musician in a major orchestra is hardly a low-pressure job. "Section players such as violinists or cellists play the same music everyone else in their section plays. Regardless of their individual approaches to their instrument, they are required to perform as an ensemble, not as 10 or 20 individuals. They are essentially willing cogs in a big music machine." Chicago Tribune 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:58 am

• The World's Toughest Job Interview So what's it like to audition for a job with one of the world's great symphony orchestras? In a word, terrifying. The process involves multiple rounds of competition, with candidates performing the most difficult excerpts of the orchestral repertoire one after another, before a committee hidden behind a screen. One slip-up, one wrong note, one skipping bowstroke, and the months of preparation and hundreds of dollars in travel expenses can all be for nought. Chicago Tribune 11/23/03
  Posted: 11/23/2003 8:57 am

When Personal Taste Trumps Objectivity Richard Dyer is intrigued by John Rockwell's recent analysis of two prominent pianists with distinctive styles, one of whom Rockwell adores, and the other of whom drives him up the wall. "Many of the greatest artists overturn convention and provoke controversy; most of us would rather hear a risk-taker than someone who's playing it safe." Still, the unique qualities that make a performer worth hearing are the same ones that will cause many members of a given audience to turn up their noses at a performance that sounds substantially different from what they're used to hearing. Dyer: "All of us have artists whose work we enjoy; all of us have encountered performers who fail to leave us begging for more. But every listener has to be open to surprise." Boston Globe 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:51 am

Progress In Edmonton Eighteen months ago, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was in serious trouble, running deficits it couldn't afford, and facing a revolt from its own musicians after the board dismissed music director Grzegorz Nowak. Since then, the ESO has brought its finances under control, added several orchestra players to its board, and this week, the musicians ratified an extension of their current contract, which will keep the orchestra on a slow but steady path to recovery. Edmonton Journal 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:15 am

San Antonio: Turnover at the Top "After two years at the helm of the financially troubled San Antonio Symphony, Executive Director Steven Brosvik is stepping down. Brosvik, 38, pledged to enhance the symphony's image and boost fund raising when he took the job in March 2001 and began work that summer. But many potential donors didn't open their pocketbooks during Brosvik's tenure. This year, the orchestra cut its season short and declared bankruptcy." There is speculation that Brosvik's resignation may have been part of a quid pro quo for the SAS's musicians, who recently signed a contract which officially cancelled the 2003-04 season and gutted their future salaries and benefits. San Antonio Express-News 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:08 am

Making A Place For French Opera French operas are not like other operas. Where German and Italian operas feature endless melodrama and tragic heros who die unspeakable deaths, French composers have traditionally preferred lighter plots and happier endings. (Ambroise Thomas even composed an operatic Hamlet in which the title character survives to become King of Denmark.) So it's no surprise that North American companies, steeped in the Italian and Germanic traditions, have traditionally avoided French opera. But in Quebec, where the two leading opera companies in the province are led by the same man, French conductor Bernard Labadie, a distinctly French flavor is beginning to take hold. Toronto Star 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:55 am

The Commissioning Club As writers, musicians, and pundits around the world bemoan the lack of public appreciation for new music, five couples in Minnesota are doing something about it. For 13 years, each couple has contributed $2000 per year to a pool of money which is eventually used to commission a carefully selected composer to write a specific piece of music. The rights to the piece revert to the composer immediately following the first performance, but the club members continue to seek new performance opportunities for "their" composers. Needless to say, composers are thrilled with the club. Minnesota Public Radio 11/21/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:14 am

Arts Issues

Dammit, People, Put Some Clothes On! David Hinckley is getting sick of the whole nudity thing. Don't pretend you don't know what he's talking about, either: at some point in the last few years, it seems as if the entire pop culture universe just decided to get naked, or damn near naked, and strut around for all the world to admire. It's getting old, and Hinckley would like everyone to put their clothes back on, please. Now. New York Daily News 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:43 am

People

A Congressman's Dream Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) began talking to his colleagues in 1986 about the need for a national museum of African-American culture. Most of the time, his exhortations were met with condescending smiles, stony silence, or even outright hostility from such famous Congressional bigots as Jesse Helms. But Lewis persevered, and last week, his dream was finally realized, as both houses of Congress approved the creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Washington Post 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:00 am

Tupac, Dead or Alive? It's been 7 years since hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas, but legions of fans and hip-hop scholars still refuse to believe that he ever actually died. After all, since the shooting, "seven posthumous albums have been released - more than when he was alive... His funeral, if there was one, didn't make the news. We never saw a casket. There was no public memorial." All the doubt has only solidified Shakur's place as one of American music's most influential figures. "If LL Cool J is hip-hop's balladeer and Public Enemy its enduring conscience, Shakur maintains his status as a supreme urban griot whose gritty, observant rhymes illuminate the plight of disenfranchised black males." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:47 am

J.M. Coetzee & the Fictional Lecture Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee does not like giving lectures. In fact, for the most part, he declines all such invitations. But when he was asked to present the prestigious Robert B. Silvers lecture in New York, he relented, and agreed to participate in order to honor Silver, the founder of the New York Review of Books. Still, a conventional lecture would simply have been too much to expect from Coetzee, and the South African author did not disappoint, eschewing observations on craft and style in favor of the creation of a new work of fiction to read to his audience. The New York Times 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:42 am

Joyce's Real Muse? James Joyce's troubled but brilliant daughter, Lucia, has always been seen as something of a peripheral figure in her father's life, and Joyce scholars have traditionally assigned more literary importance to Joyce's wife. But a new biography of Lucia suggests that she, not her mother, was Joyce's primary muse. The book is important not only because of its controversial thesis, but because it exists at all. In recent years, Joyce's grandson, who oversees the author's literary estate, has become increasingly aggressive in protecting his grandfather's legacy, to the point of forbidding scholars from quoting from Joyce's letters. The New York Times 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:28 am

Theatre

Timelessness vs. Timeliness Some theatergoers can only roll their eyes at the lengths to which some contemporary directors will go to "update" classics like Shakespeare for the modern era. But, says director Michael Bogdanov, such modernizations are absolutely necessary for the classics to remain relevant to today's audiences. "By removing the barriers that exist between the language and the audience, by allowing them to identify with the characters clearly, by associating the events with contemporary politics, I allowed the plays to breathe." The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:32 am

Is Canada Ready For Its Theatrical Close-Up? Canadian fiction has long since come of age on the world stage, but what about Canadian drama? "If its meta-narrative is to be taken at face value, the defining wave of English Canadian theatre in the late 1960s and early seventies has morphed from telling local stories into building a national identity, with international recognition viewed as an added bonus, if it happens." But now, a series of international partnerships and a wave of productions in Europe suggest that Canadian playwrights are finally being elevated to global status. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:19 am

Budget Woes For Boston's Wang When Boston's Wang Center announced last month that it was severing ties with the perpetually strapped Boston Ballet, and that it would replace the company's Nutcracker performances with a touring Rockettes show next season, it was seen as a severe blow to the ballet company. But upon closer inspection, it may be the Wang Center which is in the more serious fiscal hole: "It has steadily been beaten out for marquee productions by for-profit Broadway in Boston, a division of Clear Channel Entertainment... And the Wang's attempts to invest in productions such as last month's Thoroughly Modern Millie have so far resulted in losses." Boston Globe 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:47 am

• How Much Should Competence Cost? "Josiah Spaulding Jr., the president of the Wang Center for the Performing Arts, isn't just well paid. He's among the highest-paid leaders of a nonprofit performing arts center in the country, earning more than the directors of a range of institutions that, budgetwise, dwarf the Wang Center. Spaulding's compensation package for the fiscal year ending in May 2002, the most recent available, was $536,159 a year. This figure was the first thing a group of nonprofit experts noticed when they were asked to review the Wang Center's Internal Revenue Service filings." Boston Globe 11/23/03
  Posted: 11/23/2003 8:45 am

Media

The Explosion of Online Radio With traditional over-the-air radio fast becoming just another tool of the global corporate music industry, music fans are looking to new technologies to replace the predictable playlists of their local radio stations. The phenomenon of Internet radio, in particular, is becoming increasibly popular, thanks to its easy accessibility and diversity of content. In addition, a savvy webcaster can personalize the content of his stream for listeners in specific regions, which can result in a global webcast that sounds more local than your local radio station. Denver Post 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:11 am