Can't Keep A Tune? You Were Born That Way! At least that's what current research shows. "Researchers suspect that as much as 4 percent of the world's population have a congenital brain abnormality that renders them tone deaf. Others can acquire amusia following head trauma or stroke. They have narrowed the hunt to the right auditory cortex, an area of the brain that processes pitch perception." Newsday 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:29 am
Cleveland Museum Looks For $36 Million In Government Help For Building The Cleveland Museum is asking local and federal governments to contribute $36 million towards a $225 million expansion project. "The expansion and renovation would enlarge the 389,000-square-foot museum complex by nearly 200,000 square feet, and add 31,000 square feet of new gallery space. The museum hopes to complete its design by January and to break ground in March or April. Construction would take four years." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 9:42 am
Revisiting Seattle's New Library Rem Koolhaas's new Seattle Public Library has been praised to the skies. But David Dillon takes a second look: "As the rhetorical fog begins to lift, it's clear that some of the praise was justified and some not. This is a dynamic civic building that bumps and grinds its way onto the downtown Seattle skyline with real panache. It reinvents and reinterprets many basic library functions, yet for all its adventurousness still manages to celebrate the book and reading. But it is not as coolly efficient as its boosters claim, and at street level it is a disaster, thumbing its nose at traditional urbanism in favor of gratuitous form making." Dallas Morning News 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:39 am
The Artrageous Maurizio Cattelan Maurizio Cattelan is "recovering from an attack of 'art rage': a Milanese man was so incensed by his 'installation' of three children hanging by their necks, eyes open, from a tree that he cut them down. It is not clear whether this was a triumph for Cattelan or a tragedy. He is not suing the attacker but Milan authorities are busy determining whether the installation was really a work of art, in which case the saboteur would face charges." The Guardian (UK) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 6:54 am
Hacked Off At Holograms "Before they became ubiquitous on credit cards and packets of toothpaste, holograms were the buzz of the avant-garde art world. But as a new holographic portrait of the Queen (right) is unveiled, 3D pictures are sneered at by the art elite." BBC 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 6:49 am
Going National (And Political?) "The New York Historical Society, with a newly hired president and a conservative financier emerging as a board power, is shifting its focus from the city to more national concerns, stirring the objections of some historians and staff members... This shift in emphasis appears to signal the ascendance on the society's board of Richard Gilder, a stockbroker and a leading fund-raiser for Republican and conservative causes, who became a trustee a year ago. It also seems to close off all possibility of the society's merger with the Museum of the City of New York." The New York Times 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 9:44 pm
The Bigger They Are, The Faster They're Canceled The Lollapalooza concert tour, long one of the big events of the summer mega-concert season in the U.S., has been canceled due to poor ticket sales. It's only the latest blow for promoters in a summer which has seen slow sales for many large touring shows, and comes only days after pop's reigning mega-princess, Britney Spears, had to pull out of her nationwide tour following a knee injury. The New York Times 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 9:37 pm
Bad Time To Be A Politician Scottish composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has blasted the Scottish Executive for its treatment of Scottish Opera, calling the politicians responsible "a disgrace," and accusing them of deliberately "wrecking the country's artistic heritage... Scotland is not philistine, but it is being rendered philistine through the lack of vision of those in charge." The Herald (Glasgow) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 9:13 pm
Would Playing Faster Increase Productivity? Australia's Adelaide Symphony Orchestra isn't exactly a luxurious place to work. Its highest-paid musician is paid less than the lowest-paid member of the Sydney Symphony, and an organizational restructuring this year has cut costs and staff to the bone. And yet despite significant gains in ticket sales and private contributions, the ASO is still struggling with the deficits that have plagued Australia's orchestras since they were privatized in 1997. Part of the problem may be that government assumptions concerning orchestras consistently expect that productivity can increase. But as one union leader points out, "it takes the same number of musicians the same amount of time to rehearse and perform as it did 200 years ago." Adelaide Advertiser 06/21/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 8:46 pm
County Grills Miami PAC Mangers For Cost Overruns Unhappy Miami-Dade County officials are grilling project managers for the county's new performing arts center, currently under construction and $67 million over budget and 20 months behind schedule. "It's a money pit. The report says total costs still aren't capped. I guarantee they're going to be back for more money. It's a 900-pound gorilla, and we've got to rein it in." Miami Herald 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 9:24 am
Senate Investigates Non-Profits The US Senate holds a hearing on the behavior of non-profits. "The U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing focused on abuses that may occur at up to 10 percent of the nation's 1.6 million charities. The abuses -- ranging from inept oversight by volunteer boards of trustees to the willingness to become partners in tax shelter schemes -- cost the nation billions of dollars each year, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson said." Newark Star-Ledger 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:27 am
NYT's Muschamp - They're Glad To See Him Go New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp's retirement from the architecture beat is "a relief to a new crop of editors unwilling to defend, as their predecessors did, the critic’s iconoclasm and obscurantism, his unapologetic dilettantism and his unabashed socializing within the highest social circles of the creative world he judges in print. It’s a fall from grace that represents the kind of Times-writer morality tale alumni of the paper know all too well. At the height of his career, Mr. Muschamp’s writing was the talk of the New York cultural scene; today, his professional conflicts of interest and very public breakdowns have pushed him to the margins of architectural society." New York Observer 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:50 am
But He's A Young 70 It's been a busy year for Peter Maxwell Davies, the septuagenarian Scottish composer named earlier this year as Master of the Queen's Music. At an age when many composers are content to bask in their legacy, Maxwell Davies is composing ten string quartets, keeping up his lifelong interest in left-wing politics, and writing children's music for a festival he helped to found. "Davies himself sees no problems in fecundity. He has always been that sort of composer, and age has not slowed him. Indeed, like Mozart before him, he could almost be described as accelerating towards oblivion." The Herald (Glasgow) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 10:16 pm
Denver's Longest-Running Show To Close The longest-running production in Colorado history - I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change - is closing. "The musical relationship comedy, which celebrates its fourth anniversary June 29, will have played 1,731 performances at the Galleria Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex." Denver Post 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:47 am
Goodspeed To Middletown Connecticut's Goodspeed Theatre has been talking about relocation. Now it looks like a decision has been made. Goodspeed will build a new theatre complex in Middletown. "The final version of a plan that has been in the works since November and was approved Saturday by Goodspeed's board of directors has the city taking the lead in pursuing financing for the new satellite theater with 700 or 800 seats and a Broadway-sized stage. Goodspeed would retain ownership of the theater and raise funds for support services, such as actors' housing." Hartford Courant 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:33 am
- Previously: Luring Musicals To Town Connecticut's Goodspeed Musicals has a $45 million theatre it wants to build. Now the theatre is being enticed to Middletown with a package of incentives. "If accepted, the Goodspeed offer would be the cultural crown jewel Middletown is seeking for its downtown development, which includes a newly built hotel, restaurants and cinemas and a tourist-friendly link to its proposed South Cove riverfront development." Hartford Courant 11/25/03
A Theatrical Cry For American Morality The Bush Administration's war on terror may not have uncovered any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or succeeded in wiping out Al Qaeda, but it does seem to have galvanized the British theater scene. From companies which already skewed political to national theaters which are more familiar with King Lear than Kushner, American foreign policy is now the topic of choice. "Theatre has put the war on terror on stage not only because it can but because it must. It is the closest we have to a moral medium." The Telegraph (UK) 06/22/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 9:24 pm
BC: Getting Magazined-Up The magazine business is booming in British Columbia, and several new magazines have international aspirations. "In the past two years, more than a dozen new titles have emerged, with a particularly strong showing from a new generation of edgy arts-and-culture magazines." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:55 am
US Senate Repeaks FCC Rules On Media Ownership "The Senate voted on Tuesday to repeal rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission that make it easier for the nation's largest media conglomerates to expand and enter new markets. The rules, approved last June by a divided F.C.C., largely removed previous ownership restrictions on media companies." The New York Times 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 9:20 am
Favorite 100 Movie Songs The American Film Institute announces its list of the best movie songs of all time. "The earliest song to make the list was "Isn't It Romantic" (No. 73), which was sung by Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in 1932's "Love Me Tonight." The newest came from 2002, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger's rendition of "All That Jazz" (No. 98) from "Chicago," and Eminem's "Lose Yourself" (No. 93) from "8 Mile." Boston Globe 06/23/04
Posted: 06/23/2004 7:02 am
Wasn't Digital Downloading Ruining The Recording Industry? "OD2, the [UK-based] music download service co-founded by Peter Gabriel, was sold to a US rival yesterday as competition intensifies in the online music market. Digital media firm Loudeye will pay $38.2m (£20.9m) in cash and stock for OD2... The deal follows a surge in activity in the European online music market, with the European launch of Apple's iTunes last week following the rebirth of Napster, the former enfant terrible of the digital music industry." The Guardian (UK) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 9:04 pm
Moore Loses Appeal Filmmaker Michael Moore has lost his appeal to have the 'R' rating slapped on his Fahrenheit 9/11 changed to a PG-13. The film is slated for release this week, and one industry expert predicts that "the R rating could reduce the film's theatrical revenues by 10 to 20 per cent." Moore is urging teens under 17 to try to see the film anyway. The Age (Melbourne) 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 8:39 pm
- Takes One To Know One? Michael Moore certainly seems to enjoy making enemies, and Bruce Kluger is sick of hearing about how the self-important filmmaker plays too rough, or is too wrapped up in his own image as a rabble-rouser. "The truth is, Moore may be as much a propagandist as the spinmeisters at the White House and Pentagon. If he is, he'll surely be held accountable for his truth-twisting, just the way the president should be for his." USA Today 06/23/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 8:37 pm
Jumping In With Both Feet The new director-general of the BBC isn't wasting any time in putting his mark on the organization. In his first day on the job, Mark Thompson announced a sweeping overhaul of the way the UK's leading broadcaster conducts its business. A new board will oversee the BBC's news division, chaired by Thompson's deputy. In fact, oversight boards seem to be the way of the (foreseeable) future at the corporation... BBC 06/22/04
Posted: 06/22/2004 8:27 pm
