Who Can Own A Fact? As the US Congress struggles to find a reasonable way to update copyright law for the digital age, an alarming possibility has emerged. A draft bill known as the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act is designed to allow companies which collect and disseminate data (online search engines like Google, say) to protect their product from being copied. "But critics say the bill would give the companies ownership of facts - stock quotes, historical health data, sports scores and voter lists. [If that's true, t]he bill would restrict the kinds of free exchange and shared resources that are essential to an informed citizenry." Wired 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:01 am
The Wrong Way To Go About Teaching Music Is the way we teach kids music in America wrong? Libby Larsen thinks so. It's a system that hasn't evolved much since colonial times. "We have a musical education system that was developed out of a displaced European sensibility that was brilliant, but we have a culture now in which the music is ever so much more complicated and diverse in the world. The music education system has a crisis in relevancy." Washington Post 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:16 pm
You Remember (Well, You Could If You Practiced) "The three-day international event pits mnemonic experts from around the globe in competitions that include memorizing a previously unpublished and non-rhyming lengthy poem in 15 minutes, and writing it down complete with proper spelling and punctuation; memorizing a list of 400 random words and reciting them back in order; and the dreaded "binary competition," in which competitors have a half hour to memorize a random string of thousands of 1s and 0s." Wired 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:10 pm
Preserving The (Recent) Past The future of the preservationist movement may be evident in a new trend which has seen several relatively "young" and unspectacular buildings saved from the wrecking ball by activists looking to preserve a piece of America's architectural heritage. "Good contemporary architecture, always a precious resource, is often a victim of the rush to replace. Too new to benefit from the power of nostalgia but already old enough to look dated and shabby, buildings become especially vulnerable when they reach their mid-20s." The trick, of course, is determining which examples of recent architecture are truly worth fighting for, but that anyone is fighting for them at all is an important step. Newsday 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 6:12 am
Australia's Blockbuster Sale "One of Australia's most prominent art collectors, John Schaeffer, has been forced to put his $30 million mansion and his entire collection of paintings and sculpture up for sale. Christie's claims next month's Sydney auction of hundreds of art works will be the biggest sale in Australia in decades." The Age (Melbourne) 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:47 pm
Barenboim in Chicago: Not Quite Dead Yet? The musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are considering a vote of confidence in the leadership of music director Daniel Barenboim, who announced last month that he would step down from his Chicago post in 2006. If passed, the resolution would be a symbolic but powerful statement from the musicians that they disagree with members of the CSO's management and board who have long been frustrated with Barenboim's leadership and personal style. The idea for a musicians' vote appears to have been born out of a conversation in which several musicians asked Barenboim to reconsider his decision to step aside, and Barenboim's reply that he would reconsider only if a majority of the orchestra wished him to. Chicago Sun-Times 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:29 am
- Previously: At The Chicago Symphony - What Next After Barenboim? There is ambivalence about the Chicago Symphony's Daniel Barenboim stepping down as music director. "Unsettling questions remain to be answered. By allowing Barenboim to walk out the door - a musician with a unique combination of intellectual curiosity, profoundly creative engagement with the process of making music and wide involvement with the world beyond the podium - the CSO has redefined, for better or worse, the role of music director." Chicago Sun-Times 02/29/04
Waiting For The Conductor So Kent Nagano is officially taking over the reins in Montreal. But his contract with the orchestra doesn't begin until the fall of 2006, and he'll conduct only two weeks of the 2004-05 season, due to Nagano's prior commitment to Berlin's Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. Furthermore, Nagano is already speaking out on the necessity of a new concert hall for the MSO, a project which has consistently gone nowhere with the provincial government of Quebec. And how much does a top-flight conductor make these days, anyway? No one at the MSO is saying, but it's a good bet that the orchestra's annual budget (currently CAN$18-$19 million) will have to rise to meet Nagano's salary. Montreal Gazette 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:16 am
- Why Nagano Chose Montreal "For clues to what Nagano brings the Montreal music community - beyond his world reputation as a nervy tightrope walker in stimulating musical climates - you have to examine his [25-year] relationship with the ragtag [Berkeley Symphony Orchestra.] For the youthful orchestra, comprising mainly part-timers, epitomizes his belief in total engagement with the music. Community means everything to him, specifically his beloved Bay Area, but also branching out into strong personal connections to 'adopted' cities where he tackles high-stakes environments with implacable cool." Montreal Gazette 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:15 am
Swapping Files, Selling Music In Austin, the home of the South By Southwest(SXSW) music festival, anyone with a wireless internet connection suddenly has 600 new songs in his/her online iTunes database, absolutely free of charge. SXSW organizers are providing the songs to the shared database as a promotional tool for this year's festival, which runs March 17-21 and features some 1,200 acts. SXSW has been allowing listeners free access to its music for several years, and many see the wireless project as final proof that file-sharing is, in fact, useful beyond simply allowing consumers to steal music. Wired 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:08 am
Warner Music To Lay Off 1000 The recording company Warner says it will cut 20 percent of its 5000 worldwide workforce. "These significant steps to streamline Warner Music Group's operations are essential to the future success of the company and to the expanding, ongoing opportunities for its people." BBC 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:24 pm
Cleveland Arts Tax Fails An ambitious initiative which would have established a dedicated fund for the arts in Northeast Ohio failed at the ballot box in Cleveland on Tuesday. The tax levy was designed to make up for a critical lack of arts and cultural funding in the region, but organizers had a difficult time selling the notion of any new tax to the public, and many felt that the complexity of the funding structure made the initiative difficult to explain. The final vote tally was 54% to 46% against the ballot measure. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 6:26 am
Newsome Changes Roles "Steven C. Newsome, the director of the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, resigned yesterday but will remain with the Smithsonian Institution to help plan a national black museum. In his 12 years at the helm of the Anacostia Museum, Newsome directed a successful campaign to raise $8.5 million for a renovation of the museum's Southeast Washington building, which was completed in 2002." Washington Post 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 6:35 am
The Overhyping of Lang Lang This much we know to be true: Lang Lang is an unusually gifted young pianist. Also undeniably true is that Lang Lang was considerably overhyped by a classical marketing machine desperate to find the next Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma to make up for the considerable losses the industry has been taking. But the backlash against the Lang Lang hype seemed to crystallize remarkably quickly last fall, in the wake of the pianist's Carnegie Hall recital, and David Patrick Stearns is a bit suspicious of the motives of his detractors. Could Lang Lang's race have been a factor? Or is it simply that he doesn't fit into any of the pre-fab pigeonholes that music writers have set aside for hot young soloists? Philadelphia Inquirer 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 6:17 am
A Black Season Looms "Conrad Black will loom large in the publishing industry this fall -- not in his usual role as newspaper baron or even FDR biographer, but as the subject of two books examining the beleaguered lord's recent trials with Hollinger International Inc., and his alleged millions of dollars in unauthorized personal payments." The media baron, who is struggling to maintain his grip on what remains of his personal empire, is a classic example of the type of outsized personality which fascinates other media types, and the fact that Black has a history of being litigious only seems to be encouraging the reporters and authors eager to kick him on his way down. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:59 am
Neil Simon Gets A New Kidney From His Publicist "Playwright Neil Simon, who has been increasingly debilitated by kidney problems in recent years, received a kidney yesterday from his longtime friend and publicist, Bill Evans, in transplant surgery at a New York hospital." The New York Times 03/03/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:56 pm
Robin Wood, 79 Wood was one of Canada's most prominent music teachers. He helped build the Victoria Conservatory of Music. When he and his wife arrived in Victoria in the 1960s, "the tiny school had only 40 students and 12 faculty. Nearly four decades later, the renamed Victoria Conservatory counts more than 2,000 students, 25 staff members and 130 faculty." CBC 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:51 pm
Pittsburgh Cancels Children's Fest The Pittsburgh Children's Festival has been scrapped for this year, after the city's parks department said that it couldn't afford to provide $60,000 worth of services to allow the event to proceed. The festival, which is put on by the Pittsburgh International Children's Theater, costs $300,000 to stage, and the company has been unable to raise the money necessary to pick up the city's portion of the budget. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 6:23 am
Teachers Fighting Online Plagiarism The internet has revolutionized education. But it's not all positive. "Since the Internet became readily accessible to students in the 1990s, it has become in some ways the educator's worst enemy. In secondary schools and universities alike, students are taking advantage of the fact that ready-made papers are only a few clicks away. An entire industry has sprung up to provide free homework or - at a price - papers purported to be custom-made. But now teachers are fighting back." Christian Science Monitor 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:27 pm
Christ's Passion Tops Hobbit Love "Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has broken the US five-day box office record held by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Gibson's controversial religious movie made $125.2m in its first five days, updated figures have confirmed. That pushed it past the Oscar-winning Rings film's earlier record of $124.1m." BBC 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 4:58 am
CBC For Sale? Is the Canadian government thinking about selling off the CBC to the private sector? "It's a billion dollars we have put towards CBC television and we witness direct competition between a public broadcaster and the private sector." Toronto Star 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:08 pm
Suing The Fake Movie Critic "A California appeals court has ruled a proposed class action filed by filmgoers against Sony Pictures Entertainment can go to trial over the studio's admission it had created a fake critic to plug its movies. A dissenting Justice Reuben Ortega called the lawsuit "a farce" and "the most frivolous case with which I have ever had to deal." Toronto Star 03/02/04
Posted: 03/02/2004 6:05 pm
SPAC: City Ballet Just Isn't Cost-Effective The recent decision by the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) to end its long association with New York City Ballet sparked much controversy in upstate New York, with everyone from SPAC subscribers to politicians questioning the direction the current board is taking the center. But board members insist that their decision to end City Ballet's 3-week annual residency was based on long-term problems of cost and attendance which appeared to have no other solution. Even an infusion of cash from the state would likely not be enough to solve the cash-flow problem, and while SPAC's board is reconsidering its decision, there seems to be a case to be made for the center's dance needs to be filled by smaller, less expensive companies. Albany Times-Union 03/03/04
Posted: 03/03/2004 5:36 am
