Should America Get To Control The Internet? Many Americans probably aren't aware that their country controls the global Internet, and the vast majority of information technologies which make it up. But the rest of the world is well aware of it, and many other countries aren't happy about it. "Some developing countries, including China, South Africa, India and Brazil, want control out of the hands of a private organization selected by the United States and instead with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations." Wired 12/09/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 5:45 am
Who Really Invented The Telephone? Did Alexander Graham Bell really invent the telephone? "Documents marked 'confidential' that recently were found buried in the archives of the Science Museum in London suggest British telephone executives covered up the fact that a German science teacher invented a working telephone 13 years before Alexander Graham Bell created a somewhat similar device." Discovery 12/09/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:24 pm
US, France Compete For Afghan Gold Competing groups from France and the US are proposing to tour Afghanistan's greatest treasure - the Bactrian gold. "The finds from Tillya Tepe, in northern Afghanistan, date from a 2,000-year-old tomb which was discovered in 1978, but they have never been on display for security reasons. The gold alone numbers 20,000 items. Afghanistan still has nowhere with sufficient security to exhibit the material, since the bombed and looted Kabul Museum on the outskirts of town is an extremely damaged building. A touring exhibition would raise money, at least part of which would go to rebuild the museum or establish a new purpose-built museum in the city centre." The Art Newspaper 12/05/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:29 pm
Australia's $39 Million To The Visual Arts Australia's various levels of government have united to pump an additional $39 million in funding to the visual arts. The money is the direct result of a Federal Government-initiated inquiry. In a joint announcement the governments said they would allocate the funds to support infrastructure, including giving more money to 40 arts and crafts organisations, expand the market through more art fairs and touring, give more grants to individual artists and provide more support for indigenous art." The Age (Melbourne) 12/10/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:05 pm
Pew's Barnes Connection... John Anderson wonders if the Pew Charitable Trust's recent change in legal foundation status is a positive thing for the Barnes Collection. "If indeed under its new identity the Pew can control the Barnes's purse strings, it will put a whole new complexion on the proposed plan should it be approved by the court. It makes it look less like the 'rescue' it has been portrayed as and more like the "takeover" critics (such as myself) have called it. For in controlling the money, the Pew would have de facto control over the Barnes Foundation itself, with a powerful role in determining the future character and direction of the Barnes." OpinionJournal.com 12/09/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 10:45 am
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
Pittsburgh Opera Cutting Back The Pittsburgh Opera, which has been looking for ways to trim its budget, is announcing that it will cut back the number of productions it mounts next season from five to four, and will replace the fifth opera with something called a "special production." The company says that the cutback will give it much-needed financial breathing room, and stresses that it isn't in anything approaching dire fiscal straits. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 6:49 am
Is A Revolution Coming In Detroit? With the Detroit Symphony having just announced a nearly $2 million deficit, the orchestra's president and its new chairman seem to be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the city's philanthropic community, as well as at the feet of their own musicians. President Emil Kang suggests that the current model for American orchestras may simply no longer be viable, and that solutions will not come easily. To the musicians of the DSO, who have already been asked to reopen their contract early, these may be fighting words. To the city's corporate leaders, it will either be seen as a call to action or a desperate attempt to shame them into giving to an organization in trouble. Detroit News 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 6:29 am
Iraqi National Photo-Op Comes To D.C. Tim Page was looking forward to the Washington debut of the Iraqi National Symphony. He's still looking forward to it. According to Page, last night's performance, which was callously manipulated by politicians and press alike, and in which the INS was mixed in with members of the D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra, wasn't a concert so much as a cynical photo-op for the Bush administration. "The State Department flew 60 musicians the 6,200 miles from Baghdad to Washington to play for less than an hour in tandem with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many traveled so far to do so little." Washington Post 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 6:07 am
- More Than Propaganda Tim Smith admits that there was "a certain air of propaganda" about the Iraqi National Symphony's Washington debut, but he says that the music-making won out in the end. "The considerable variance in technical ability among the Iraqi players, who range in age from 23 to 72, was unmistakable, but so was the commitment and energy behind the notes... As the music gently unfolded, it was impossible not to think of all those, Iraqi and American, who have died - and will continue to die - in this conflict. But the evening was most about the future, the promise of what a reinvigorated cultural life could bring to a country that has seen so much pain." Baltimore Sun 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 6:05 am
Even San Francisco's In The Red During the various orchestral crises of the last few years, the San Francisco Symphony has been a shining example of fiscal and artistic balance, having planned for an economic downturn which few others saw coming, and having posted surpluses as other orchestras ran deficits in the millions. But even the SFS isn't immune to a 4-year economic slump, and this week, it announced a small deficit of $135,945 on a budget of more than $50 million. Most American orchestras would be overjoyed to run so slightly in the red (or to have a budget that even approaches $50 million,) and San Francisco executives say they aren't overly concerned about it. San Francisco Chronicle 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 5:52 am
Robertson To St. Louis David Robertson, a 45-year-old American who has been among the rising stars of the conducting world in recent years, has been appointed the new music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, beginning in fall 2005. The SLSO has been without a chief conductor since last April, when Hans Vonk was forced to step down because of severe health problems. The appointment is something of a public relations coup for the orchestra: the SLSO came close to bankruptcy last year before making a good recovery, and Robertson had been on the reported shortlist of nearly every major orchestra searching for a music director over the last few years. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/09/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 5:30 am
NY Phil Musicians Rallying Behind Maazel When Loren Maazel was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2001, the press groaned openly that the 70-year-old conductor was too boring, didn't fit the Phil's sound well, and would surely be only a stopgap director, given his advanced age. But at a board meeting this week, several Philharmonic musicians were invited to make a presentation, during which they rallied behind Maazel, calling him "brilliant," and asking that the board not rush to replace him when his contract expires in 2006. The musicians clearly enjoy working with Maazel, but their support also appears to have much to do with the dearth of potential candidates to replace him at the moment. The New York Times 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 5:13 am
Maryinsky Theatre Warehouse Damage More Extensive Than Reported A September fire at the Maryinsky Theatre's warehouse in St. Petersburg, Russia was said to have caused only $225,000 damage. But the cost is evidently much higher. Some 30 productions were affected by the fire, and it will take about $15 million to replace what was damaged. The company's 2003-04 season are imperiled as well as tours to Germany, Japan and the United States. International Herald-Tribune 12/09/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:17 pm
Iraq Symphony In DC The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra arrives in Washington DC to perform at the Kennedy Center. "Our objective is not (just) to come here and play music, but to play music through our point of view and the way we understand it." CNN.com 12/09/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:07 pm
David Lynch: $1 Billion For World Peace Center Filmmaker David Lynch has "lent his famous name and idiosyncratic hairstyle to a project to raise $1 billion on behalf of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Indian guru of transcendental meditation who once entranced the Beatles, and who has for the past few decades been striving to build an earthly paradise. The $1 billion is for a meditation centre big enough to hold 8,000 skilled practitioners. Lynch explains that such a critical mass of positive thinking 'broadcast' from one spot will be enough to pacify the world." The Guardian (UK) 12/09/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:35 pm
An Authentic Shakespeare Audience, in Manhattan This week, Lincoln Center Theater's production of Shakespeare's Henry IV played to a packed house - of public high school students. Student audiences are rarely a performer's dream, but this one was apparently quite different. "Certainly they were not the usual Wednesday matinee crowd. They hooted, cheered, hissed and roared with laughter. They were probably closer to an Elizabethan audience at the Globe than anything the actors at the Vivian Beaumont Theater had ever faced. It was, in the language of the theater, a great house." The New York Times 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 5:25 am
The Shaw Festival's Disastrous Season At The Box Office Ontario's Shaw Festival saw revenues and attendance plunge this season. "Total attendance at the Niagara-on-the-Lake theatre festival in 2003 was 269,407, compared with 315,477 in 2002 and 331,001 in 2001. Revenues from theatre operations slumped to $13.2 million, compared with $16.9 million in 2002. No one was available last night to comment on how deeply the festival will be in the red. One previous estimate in the Star put the total at about $2 million." Toronto Star 12/09/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 7:07 pm
Maclean's Staffers To Vote On Going Union "About 20 part-time employees in the editorial division of Maclean's magazine vote tomorrow on joining Canada's largest media union in what is yet another sign of the troubled circumstances of Canada's weekly newsmagazine. It's anticipated the part-timers will vote overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, which already represents the magazine's estimated 27 full-time editorial employees." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/10/03
Posted: 12/10/2003 6:38 am
Books On Sale In London London book stores are slashing prices as Christmas approaches. "The stores usually try to restrict discounting to slower-selling books, keeping chart-toppers at the full price, particularly in the peak month of December. But this year they have been forced by competition from supermarkets to slash prices of their most popular titles." London Evening Standard 12/08/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 7:21 pm
In Defence Of BBC4 Culture BBC4 is where most of the BBC's cultural program now ends up. It is a popular target of critics from all sides. "It does not like to describe itself as highbrow - 'We always try and avoid that word,' says a BBC press officer - but it is pitched squarely at the class Keynes referred to as 'the educated bourgeoisie'." The Guardian (UK) 12/10/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 6:45 pm
Nutcracker Nation Jennifer Fisher's new history of the Nutcracker demonstrates that the piece is no "monolithic artifact. Since its first production, which was choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov in 1892 for the Mariinsky Theater (now home to the Kirov Ballet and Opera), it has become a theme to be riffed upon as much as a masterpiece to be preserved. Fisher believes that when it " immigrated " to this side of the Atlantic in the 20th century, it began a versatile career as a conduit for psychological, artistic, ethnic, and community aspirations as diverse as North America itself." Boston Phoenix 12/04/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 7:13 pm
Page: Remaking The Scottish Ballet When Ashley Page was asked to take over the Scottish Ballet, his demands were uncompromising: "His bottom line was that he had no interest in running a cut-price Kirov or Royal Ballet. He envisioned Scottish Ballet as a small, flexible ensemble capable of performing modern dance and contemporary classical works. He wanted to be able to stage the neoclassical masterworks of Balanchine at one extreme and the austerely postmodernist choreo-graphy of Trisha Brown at the other. To drive this vision, however, Page insisted he would need a larger budget and "a major clearout of the existing dancers". The Guardian (UK) 12/10/03
Posted: 12/09/2003 7:02 pm
