Chinese Cultural Official Sentenced To Death "A Chinese official responsible for looking after cultural relics has been sentenced to death for stealing them. Li Haitao was found guilty of the theft of more than 250 antiques over a period of 10 years, state media said. The case is said to be the largest theft of antiquities since the start of communist rule in 1949." BBC 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:21 am
Filling The American Indian Museum Native Americans have had a big role in deciding what will go in the new National Museum of the American Indian, due to open in Washington DC next month. "What they did not want, museum officials found, was the static display of 10,000 years of tribal life and culture. Their ideal museum would celebrate the glories of the past, to be sure, but they also wanted their artifacts and their contemporary culture to be accessible. 'This is an important opportunity to show tribal people as participants in a living culture, not something in museums or in history books."
The New York Times 08/19/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 10:52 pm
A Bilbao Effect For Churches? In Italy, big-time architects are being hired to design churches (like in the old days, remember?). "It is premature to say that Renzo Piano's spidery dome or Richard Meier's three sweeping concrete sails and glass facade will push Roman Catholic architecture into a period comparable to the glory days when churches were stylistic showcases for masters like Francesco Borromini and Lorenzo Bernini. But some church officials are hoping that a return to architectural splendor will help put people in the pews." The New York Times 08/19/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 10:48 pm
Fighting To Keep Stone Henge From The Cars Preservationists are opposing a plan to put a car tunnel under Stone Henge. "For them, the proposals prove the government cares more about motorists than preserving the integrity of a centuries old landmark. 'Stonehenge has been there 5,000 years and the car was only invented 100 years ago. To cater to something that's been there for such a short time is patently absurd'." CNN 08/18/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 6:35 pm
MAN: Taking Issue With A Collectors Group AJBlogger Tyler Green agrees with Blake Gopnik that Washington DC needs a contemporary art center. But he takes issue with an idea floated by Gopnik for a local collectors' collective. "Here are a couple problems with Gopnik's idea: The art world is global, moreso now than ever, and his idea is based on a narrow, artificial, regionalist construct. Furthermore, Gopnik's idea has nothing to do with art and everything to do with the mere geography of amalgamation. When the art world is becoming more interconnected, when group shows at even medium-sized institutions are filled with loans from two or three continents, why would we want something that is so internal, narrow and exclusionary?" Modern Art Notes (AJBlogs) 08/16/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 6:06 pm
- Previously: Collectors, Please Share With The Masses Critic Blake Gopnik outlines his plan for Washington, D.C., private collectors to exhibit the city's hidden plenty, serious contemporary art, in what he's calling the Washington Collectors' Project. "As the first project of its kind, the WCP would also help to put the city on the art-world map, and would likely lead to copycatting elsewhere." The Washington Post 08/15/04
John Adams' Nuclear Opera Composer John Adams is at work on a new opera - "Doctor Atomic" - about scientist Robert Oppenheimer and the race to create the first atomic bomb. "I really thought I would never write a grand opera again: it's so much damn hard work. But it just seemed, as in Nixon and Klinghoffer, such a potent theme with an incredible story that I could really sink my teeth into." The Independent (UK) 08/18/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:12 am
All Beethoven Sonatas (Performance And Scores) On One Disk? The story is told that the CD was designed to have the capacity to hold Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Here's something light years beyond: "all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas plus scores compressed into a single CD-ROM selling for $29.98, newly released by Newport Classic. Watch your DVD player or computer swallow it up, and you're good for 10 hours of music. Buying the recordings on compact disc (on which they're also available) and the scores as hard copies would cost around $150." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:02 am
SF Symphony Chorus Leader Stepping Aside "Vance George, whose sensitive but painstaking leadership has forged the San Francisco Symphony Chorus into one of the nation's leading ensembles, will step down as chorus director at the end of the 2005-06 season." San Francisco Chronicle 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 8:16 am
Online MIA: Classical Downloads Why is there so little classical music available on commercial download services? "This is a missed opportunity and it shows the difficulty the downloading revolution has in coping with classical music's enormous back catalogue and the stream of new releases." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 7:45 am
High Sax (130 Times) Salvatore Sciarrino is premiering a piece for 130 saxophones in Edinburgh. Sciarrino, 57, is "Italy's most prominent contemporary composer, a man obsessed with the limits of sound, with creating pieces in a mysterious region where music, silence, and noise meet. He's written works that transform instrumental ensembles into gigantic aviaries by making flutes and violins sound like nightingales and swans, and piano pieces that are so quiet they would be drowned out by the merest foot-shuffle in the audience. It sounds like a world of avant-garde extremism, but there's a sensuality to Sciarrino's music that makes it uniquely seductive." The Guardian (UK) 08/19/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 10:24 pm
Edinburgh Jazz - Europe's Best? "A record-breaking 25,000 tickets were bought for performances by top musicians, firmly cementing the event’s reputation as one of Europe’s leading jazz music festivals. The increase in ticket sales marked a rise of almost 2,000 over those snapped up in 2003. This translated to a record-breaking turnover of a half a million pounds for the event, now Britain’s largest and most prestigious jazz festival." The Scotsman 08/17/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 8:31 pm
Brendel Gives Last Broadcast Concert Pianist Alfred Brendel has given his last live-broadcast performance. It was at a Proms concert in London. The 73-year-old pianist played Beethoven's Emperor Concerto - which he first played at the 1973 Proms. BBC 08/18/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 6:30 pm
Begone Doom-Meisters! Gavin Borchert is tired of the deafening roar of doom and gloom about the state of classical music. "The audience is graying. Soon they'll be dead, taking classical music with them unless they're replaced, runs the conventional wisdom. But is this anything new? Why the panic? Was there some distant golden age when America's concert halls were filled with teenagers? Isn't classical music--or any art--something one grows into? Art rewards an attention span--it's a game for adults. But the classical establishment would rather buckle under to our society's market-driven credo: If white males aged 15 to 29 don't want it, nobody gets it." Seattle Weekly 08/18/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 6:22 pm
A Kilkenny To Rival Edinburgh? Edinburgh, Shmedinburgh... There's a serious new festival rival to the Scottish behemoth. It's Kilkenny, where "what used to be a local arts week has transformed into an international festival that is becoming a viable alternative to its bigger, brasher Scottish counterpart. Last year, Kilkenny acquired a dynamic new director in the shape of Claudia Woolgar, who has tilted the festival towards eastern Europe." The Guardian (UK) 08/18/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 10:42 pm
Lapham: Dissent Wanted Harper's editor Lewis Lapham is full of dissent these days, and seems energized by it. "It's in our character to want to be nice. We get uneasy with sharp disagreement. We have nothing like the prime minister's question period" in the British Parliament. Add nationalist fervor to fundamental niceness, he says, and you get something close to the view that America can do no wrong. 'People want to feel that their presidents know what they're doing, that our artists are capable of masterpieces, that our weapons are invincible. That we're No. 1 in everything.' To think otherwise, in this context, is to be perceived as somehow un-American." Newsday 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 8:56 am
"Beatles" Suitcase A Fake A suitcase bought in Australia and thought to be a long-lost trove of Beatles music, is definitely full of fakes. "Many of the items in the suitcase appeared to be fakes, including ticket stubs for the band's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and the premiere of A Hard Day's Night which were reproduced from images that appeared in a book." BBC 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 6:21 am
Elmer Bernstein, 82 Film score composer Elmer Bernstein has died after a long illness. "Although he only won one Oscar during his 50-year career, for Thoroughly Modern Millie, he was nominated 14 times, most recently in 2002. As an accomplished pianist, Bernstein moved to Hollywood from New York in 1950 as his movie career took off. Among more than 200 film and TV credits were the scores for To Kill a Mockingbird, Birdman of Alcatraz, The Ten Commandments and The Age of Innocence." BBC 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 6:13 am
Libeskind, Post-Cool It wasn't long ago that architect Daniel Libeskind was cool. "But a string of large projects - and wide popular acclaim - have dampened the enthusiasm with which some architects view him. Is there a tinge of jealousy? Or after the high-mindedness of his conceptual projects and the buzz of the Jewish Museum, is there disappointment about discovering that Libeskind is an ordinary architect after all? Could it be, some murmur, that he is just a form maker? A showman? Is there something just a little bit kitsch about his work?" The Telegraph (UK) 08/19/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 10:57 pm
Hendra V Hendra - Court Of Public Opinion In an article in The New York Times last month Jessica Hendra accused her father Tony, author of the best-selling spiritual memoir Father Joe, of molesting her when she was a young girl. "Since July 1, when The Times first published Ms. Hendra’s claims in a carefully reported 2,400-word story by veteran reporter N. R. Kleinfield that ran on the front page of the Arts section, a strange radio silence has set in." But the book continues to sell. New York Observer 08/17/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 6:26 pm
Has Cell Phone Ban Had Impact On NY Theatres? More than a year ago, New York City passed a law banning cell phone use in theatres. Many thought the ban was unenforceable. "Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway house managers asking audience members to turn off their cell phones before a performance begins is now a completely common practice. But has there been 100% compliance? (Anyone who attends the theatre today might suspect otherwise.) Has anyone paid the fine? Has anyone been physically removed for defying the law?" Back Stage 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:17 am
In Sydney - Just Put On A Show "Sydney's independent theatre scene is thriving. Whether or not it's a by-product of the lack of work available, it's a sign that certain practitioners aren't content to leave their unemployed fate in the hands of others. Actors, directors, writers and designers are joining forces to produce their own stories, show their work and hone their craft." Sydney Morning Herald 08/19/04
Posted: 08/18/2004 8:23 pm
Minnesota Pub Radio Buys Up Small Classical Station Public radio powerhouse Minnesota Public Radio buys small independendent community station KCAL, St. Olaf College's tiny, freewheeling classical music station. "Within 48 hours, WCAL was inundated with hundreds of e-mails and calls. 'There's sadness. And people are expressing their personal relationship with this station and with the announcers. They felt like the announcers were friends." City Pages (Mpls/St. Paul) 08/18/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 8:23 am
- Previously: MPR Swallows WCAL What will the sale of the small classical music station WCAL to Minnesota Public Radio mean? "WCAL is no ordinary radio station, even among its classical genre peers. With WCAL in the house you can wake up to the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet one day and duo harpists the next. Hosts explain and present bassoon concertos and string quartets, early music and contemporary, lute solos and choral works (whole pieces, not just snippets!) -- and feature performers as varied as the Estonian National Male Choir and Yo-Yo Ma. This freshness comes from a commitment to taking programming risks, and they have the talent to pull it off." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 08/13/04
CNB Star Departs Company After 20 years, last spring Rex Harrington closed out a stellar career as a principal dance with the National Ballet of Canada. But it was still a surprise this week when the company reported he wouldn't be sticking around in some other capacity. "I just realized there are certain things I'd like to try if I'm not going to dance." Toronto Star 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 8:04 am
