Outdated Classism, Or Individualized Education? A new British reality TV show is taking its contestants on a sociological journey to the past, and possibly the future, of public education. The participants, all mediocre-to-abysmal students, are plucked from their regular classes, and placed in specific vocational training programs, as many UK students were in the 1960s. "At the end of the series, the results of the pupils' exams in woodwork, metalwork and domestic science will be compared with their GCSE results. But the most interesting aspect of the programme will be whether they thrive on learning practical skills in a disciplined environment." The Telegraph (UK) 08/05/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:36 pm
Grotesque Beauty This year's Site Santa Fe Biennial is notable for its focus on art that is, well, decidedly ugly or disturbing. "The intent is to make a case that what is grotesque can also be beautiful, if viewed from the proper perspective. There's nothing really new or even strange about that concept. The grotesque is just a fuzzy catchall for what might also be called anticlassicism. It encompasses distortions of the body, hopped-up colors, cartooning, horror, the gothic, camp, burlesque — all forms of envelope-pushing, convention-busting expressionism, with its implicit strain of dark comedy. It has been around forever." The New York Times 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:53 pm
Alpine Bliss Vs. Southern Pride "In terms of museums, the only thing better than an outstanding exhibition is an outstanding exhibition with a worthy opponent, a second show that energetically counters and contradicts its position. Such is the fruitful overlap, in time if not in space, achieved by 'Austria West: New Alpine Architecture,' at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Manhattan, and 'Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio: Community Architecture,' at the National Building Museum in Washington. These shows reflect very different worlds, literally and philosophically, and are also housed in buildings that enrich their individual focus while accenting their differences."
The New York Times 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:48 pm
Carnegie Hall Plucks A New Leader From London The managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra has been appointed as the next chief executive of New York's Carnegie Hall. Clive Gillinson "has run the LSO for 20 years. Before that, he played as a cellist with the orchestra for 14 years." He will not start his new job until July 2005, which will allow him to preside over the LSO's centenery next season. The Guardian (UK) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:55 am
- A Sound Artistic Choice Carnegie Hall's decision to hire Clive Gillinson as its next executive director is a clear sign that the venue wanted a leader whose focus would be on the artistic side of the operation. Not that Gillinson doesn't have fundraising ability (he does), but he has been most celebrated for his collaborations with conductors and soloists, and his willingness to work with difficult personalities to develop engaging and original programming ideas. Still, Carnegie had to be impressed with Mr. Gillinson's budget-balancing skills as well: when he took over the London Symphony, the orchestra was nearly bankrupt. Today, it is the UK's most financially stable ensemble. The New York Times 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:51 am
Opera As Compelling Theater? What A Concept! Natalie Dessay isn't your average opera star. Ask her about the challenges of the profession and she won't speak of the difficulties of melisma, or the necessity of being fluent in multiple languages. Rather, Dessay believes that an opera singer's primary job is to communicate the emotions of a character to the audience: in other words, to act. It's a quality that is sorely lacking in most opera singers, and grossly undervalued by directors. "Dessay even says with diva-worthy bravado that she refuses to return to the Metropolitan Opera unless it agrees to mount a new production for her - a desire born not of vanity but her unrelenting desire to deliver compelling theater." Denver Post 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:38 am
Beware The Concert Fool It doesn't matter whether you're a fan of classical music, pop, rock, hip-hop, or whatever. If you attend live performances, you are in ever greater danger of having your evening out ruined by... The Concert Fool. "There is no escaping the Concert Fool. He (and every once in a while, she) is the chronic carbuncle on the rear of rock. The Concert Fool is either unglued by music, or drunk, or unaware of the invisible line that separates civilization from anarchy. Or aware of the line but past caring about it." Tallahassee (FL) Democrat 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:11 am
Cambridge School Gets An Unexpected Windfall A doctor from East Essex, England, has donated a box containing 88 works by prominent composers including Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg to Caius College in Cambridge. The contents of the box, which sat undiscovered until Dr. Philip Marriott inherited it recently, could be worth millions of dollars. The college is expected to sell the manuscripts to raise money. BBC 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 5:49 am
Getting Classical Back On The Cultural Radar Screen John van Rhein writes that a unifying idea in classical music just isn't as important as a unifying commitment to bring the form back to prominence: "Rather than worry about Big Ideas and where they're coming from, let's create the societal conditions that allow many schools of composition to flourish and composers to do their best work... Being reasonably conversant with classical music, its traditions and history used to be considered one of the marks of an educated person. No longer... No wonder our symphony orchestras are going in for spoon-feeding [audiences.] Daniel Barenboim said it best: 'Music has lost a large part of its place in society.' Full stop." Critical Conversation (AJBlogs) 08/05/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 9:11 pm
Because What Angry Drivers Really Want Is A Soundtrack London has never been able to alleviate the terrible traffic bottleneck at Vauxhall Cross on the Thames embankment. But a choir group believes that music might be the next best thing to free-flowing traffic. All day today, groups of eight singers will be serenading frustrated drivers trapped at the intersection with an 18th-century work supposedly once performed on the spot. "The performance is being recorded, complete with squealing brakes, horns and swearing motorists, and will be played tonight in the tranquillity of Tate Britain." The Guardian (UK) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:11 pm
A Gesture Worth All The Marbles? (Probably Not.) "It's not quite the Parthenon marbles, but Oxford University is sending back to Greece a small cultural treasure with roots almost as ancient, in honour of the Olympic games. At the closing Olympic ceremony in Athens on August 29, a British former Olympic fencer, Dame Mary Glen-Haig, will recite lines in a poetic form first heard there 2,500 years ago... The treasure is a Pindaric ode - a strict verse form which is regarded as one of the most perfect and most imitated in poetry." The Guardian (UK) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:18 pm
A Photographer's Legacy "Henri Cartier-Bresson invented the grammar for photographing life in the 20th century," says Robert McFarlane. "From his earliest photographs, Cartier-Bresson captured life in flight, sometimes literally. In perhaps his most famous picture, 'Behind the Gare St Lazare, Paris 1932' a man leaps to the right, taking off from a wooden ladder lying in a shallow puddle near curved metallic debris. Cartier-Bresson's reflexes are so precise his Leica's shutter records the leap at the exact moment before the man's right heel descends to the mirror-like surface of the water. It is a moment pregnant with possibilities and as if to add visual value, Cartier-Bresson's camera records a poster in the background showing a dancer leaping in the opposing direction." Sydney Morning Herald 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 9:01 pm
- Previously: Photographer Cartier-Bresson Dies Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the 20th century's most important photographers, has died in the south of France, at age 96. He was a pioneer of photojournalism as well as co-founder of the influential Magnum picture agency. The Guardian (UK) 08/04/04
Ken Sprague, 77 Ken Sprague, who has died of cancer aged 77, once said that his aim was "to build a picture road to socialism, to the Golden City or, as Blake called it, Jerusalem". A painter, sculptor, muralist, banner-maker and sometime television presenter, he was, for half a century, a regular, if dissenting, cartoonist for the Daily Worker, its successor, the Morning Star, and for papers like Tribune and Peace News. The Guardian (UK) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:20 pm
Hey, It's Not Quite As Geeky As Chess Camp So your teenager wants to be a Broadway star, but you're going nuts listening to him belting out Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes up in his room? Pack him off to Camp Broadway! The teen-oriented summer program began as an informal seminar created by a theater vet to entertain her nieces, and "has grown into a national organization, working year-round in cities across the country, including Tempe, Ariz.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Detroit. For the price of admission... the campers get classes in singing, dancing and acting; workshops with Broadway professionals... a ticket to a Broadway show and a private discussion after the show with its stars." The New York Times 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 7:00 am
Republicans Are Apparently Bad For Ticket Sales "Citing poor ticket sales during the week of the Republican National Convention, two more Broadway shows have announced that they will close to avoid a dismal week of business. 'Caroline, or Change,' the new musical by Tony Kushner, which was nominated for six Tony Awards this year, will close on Aug. 29, the day before the start of the convention, and 'Frozen,' a play by Bryony Lavery that was nominated for four Tonys, will end its run on Aug. 22, the shows' producers said yesterday." The New York Times 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:58 am
Minnesota Fringe Continues Explosive Growth "As it begins its second decade, the Minnesota Fringe Festival finds itself in fine financial fettle, bigger than ever, a popular launching pad for new shows and an institutional fixture in the Twin Cities theater scene. It might be difficult to recall that in 1994, 4,630 tickets were sold to 315 performances. That meant an average show was attended by barely 15 people. The 10-day event was put on for $35,000. Last year, the Fringe sold 40,500 seats to 783 performances, an average of about 52 people per show. Debt-free, the organization operates on an annual budget of $550,000, including an anticipated box office this year of $250,000." Minneapolis Star Tribune 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:44 am
Flapping Desperately Over The Cuckoo's Nest The hottest ticket at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a new stage adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The show is already set to move to London's West End once the Fringe run is over. But the production has been in trouble from the start: director Guy Masterson quit three weeks into rehearsals, headliner Christian Slater came down with a nasty case of chicken pox, and opening night has already been delayed. The Telegraph (UK) 08/05/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:30 pm
The Great Pink Way A stage version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" may be headed for Broadway. Roger Waters is currently working on the book, and will arrange and orchestrate the music for the show, which will be produced by Harvey and Bob Weinstein of Miramax. The Guardian (UK) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:08 pm
Cultivating A Bigger, Better Onion The Onion, America's satirical newspaper known for pushing the comedy envelope and treading the knife edge of good taste, is expanding. The paper, which is based in Manhattan these days after years in Wisconsin, recently introduced a local edition for the Minneapolis/St. Paul market, (it already publishes local editions fro Chicago, Madison, Boulder, Denver, and New York) and plans other offshoots in large cities around the country. The Onion currently has print circulation of around 320,000 and its web site gets a whopping 3.6 million unique visitors every month. Baltimore Sun (Tribune) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:18 am
At Least Someone's Finally Making Money From A Blog "Fark.com, one of the most popular blogs on the Net, has been accused of selling out -- joining a growing list of new-media outfits willing to bend old-media rules. According to a veteran new-media publisher, Fark has been selling preferential placement of story links without informing its readers... There is a growing trend in publishing, online and off, in which the walls between advertising and editorial are breaking down. Last year, Ford paid British novelist Carole Matthews to feature the Ford Fiesta prominently in her next two novels. And Forbes.com recently began including paid-for keyword links in news and feature stories." Wired 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 5:56 am
FCC Bans a Bit of Spam, Allows a Bit of Copying The FCC is delicately stepping into the fray over two touchy issues: spam and "fair use" of copyrighted material. The regulatory agency issued a ruling banning some spam messages from wireless devices (phones, PDAs, and the like), but has left a large loophole through which spam can travel directly to individual phone numbers. "In another order, the FCC approved 13 different technologies that digital TV equipment makers can put into devices designed to work with new copy controls, known as the 'broadcast flag,' for digital broadcast signals." Wired 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 6:02 am
It's Still A Long Way From "Hollywood Squares" The long-running BBC game show "Mastermind" has been catching a great deal of flak lately for abandoning its traditional focus on intellectual topics for a lighter mix of pop culture and current events. In fact, one Conservative politician has even leaped into the fray, accusing the show of dumbing down in a blatant ratings grab, saying "It used to be about Jane Austen novels and Beethoven symphonies." The Telegraph (UK) 08/06/04
Posted: 08/05/2004 8:25 pm
PBT Names Ballet Master "Steven Annegarn, a former principal dancer with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, has been named ballet master for the company. He replaces Roberto Munoz, who was promoted to director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School this spring." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 08/06/04
Posted: 08/06/2004 7:07 am
