The Chinese Are Coming Chinese tourists haven't been much of a factor worldwide. But that is changing. Quickly. "Nationwide, more than 500 million tourists poured into airports, highways and train stations last year. Outbound travel by Chinese tourists reached 16.6 million people in 2002 and is expected to double this year to 32 million. The World Tourism Organization predicts 100 million Chinese will be travelling the world by 2020. The Pacific Asia Travel Association believes that figure will be reached within six years, based on current trends." Toronto Star 10/22/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:28 am
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Iraq Explosions Causing Damage To Ancient Site Contractors exploding ordinance at an ammo dump in Iraq are causing damage to an important ancient site that is on Unesco’s World Heritage list. "Since May, controlled explosions of recovered munitions and mines are conducted at a nearby US military base. These are believed to take place twice daily. This constant seismic activity is damaging the stone arches of the main temple and the outer wall of the ancient city, which could lead to collapses." The Art Newspaper 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:08 am
Artists Give To Tate The Tate Museum is huge. But it's struggling with a collections budget that is undersized. So, some 20 artists have agreed to give pieces of their work to the Tate Britain gallery. "There are huge gaps in the Tate's collections, which in many ways inform all of us, working artists and the growing public. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, said: 'We have to take this initiative to sustain our public collections in the face of declining public resources'." BBC 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:01 am
80 Percent Fake, 20 Percent Return... Welcome To The Russian Art Market The value of artwork in Russia appreciates at 15-20 percent per year, making it a good investment. BUT. By some estimates, 80 percent of the artwork for sale in Russia is forged, and until now it has not been possible to get insurance. But that may be changing... Novosti (Russia) 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 8:47 am
Degas's 40-Year Painting X-rays show that Degas worked and reworked a painting over the course of 40 years as his ideas changed. "The x-ray shows flurries of reworking, as figures become more and less distinct, the teenagers turn towards one another and then look away, the detailed background landscape is softened into a blur. At one point, Degas scrubbed out their classically handsome faces, and replaced them with Parisian urchins." The Guardian (UK) 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 8:15 am
The Mozart Of Painting (Or Is It Just Hype?) Meet the art world's hottest young artist: "Within a week of her most recent exhibition, she had been filmed by more than 10 TV crews, received calls from David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah, and been labelled a 'world-famous Abstract Expressionist'. But the artist herself is said to be oblivious to it all. She is, according to those closest to her, 'kind of reclusive', 'very sensitive', 'temperamental' at times, and extremely loath to talk about her work." And she is... four years old! The Observer (UK) 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 6:08 pm
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Page: One Of The "Worst Opera Productions" I've Ever Seen Tim Page has been to a lot of operas. So when he writes about the Washington National Opera's production of Il Trovatore that: "the production is a thoroughgoing horror, and Saturday night in particular provided one of the worst performances of any opera I've ever seen. Graves aside, the singers strove mightily to pull themselves up onto the lowest rungs of mediocrity (were we really at the Kennedy Center?)" you might want to pay attention... Washington Post 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:37 am
Fischer-Dieskau, Gil Win Music's Richest Prize "Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Brazilian singer, guitarist, and composer Gilberto Gil are the winners of the 2005 Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music announced today in Stockholm. The 14-year-old annual prize, which is usually awarded to a classical musician and a pop or jazz musician, is the world's biggest music prize, at one million Swedish Kroners, or approximately $135,000." PlaybillArts.com 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:20 am
Springer To Close In Debt? Jerry Springer - The Opera is a hit right? Well, it could close in London as early as today. "The award-winning musical has fallen prey to one of the worst years for ticket sales in West End history which, combined with the financial impact of a legal action against the Daily Mail, its producers say, has pushed the show into crisis." The Independent (UK) 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:14 am
When The Bad Stuff Endures "Pop music has often been described as a disposable commodity, yet the music industry's relentless repackaging of the past tends to ensure that pop songs are for life and not just for three minutes. But what happens when the artists themselves cannot but cringe at the enduring success of their more pathetic efforts?" The Telegraph (UK) 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 8:11 am
A Cheaper (Better?) Piano? The piano is 300-year-old technology. So can it be improved? Made more cheaply? An engineering professor is looking in to it. "Is there some material other than wood that will produce the dulcet sound of a Steinway without costing a mint? Can we figure out a way of constructing the keyboard-action mechanism (the keys striking the strings) so that it doesn't take an army of craftsman to put it into place? Can you change the shape of the piano and still allow it to resist the 20 tonnes of pressure the wires exert? Can piano wire be made differently?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 7:26 pm
A Jazz Beachhead Will Lincoln Center's new jazz temple revive interest in the art form? "No one will doubt the scope and ambition of the venture, which marks the first time a cultural center has been conceived from the ground up to honor jazz, a music now virtually ignored by the country that invented it. Whether future generations will look upon the grand edifice as a turning point for indigenous American music or a glorious last stand for an art form that's slowly slipping from public consciousness (at least in the U.S.), Jazz at Lincoln Center clearly showed no hesitation in making its plans." Chicago Tribune 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 6:39 pm
Classically Speaking - Today's Classical Music Critic There are plenty of things wrong with the way classical music is covered in today's newspapers. A symposium in New York last weekend focused on what it's like to be a classical music criic... Akron Beacon-Journal 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 5:41 pm
Florida: An Inhospitable Climate For Classical Radio? South Florida classical station WKAT went out of business in August. Was it because the region couldn't support a classical station? "The fact is WKAT's failures were largely self-inflicted, a result of disastrous managerial decisions and the inherent problems faced in presenting symphonic music on AM." South Florida Sun-Sentinel 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 5:05 pm
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Better Times For Fund-raising? Giving to America's 400 most successful fund-raising organizations was up 2.3 percent last year. So does that mean we're out of the fund-raising hell that has dried up contributions in the past several years? Not necessarily... Chronicle of Philanthropy 10/28/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 5:09 pm
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One Night Wonder: "Wilde" Flops With some of the worst reviews ever received in London, a musical about Oscar Wilde opened and closed on the same night last week. "Oscar Wilde" opened Tuesday at the 500-seat Shaw Theatre. It closed the next day after receiving excoriating reviews and selling just five tickets for its second performance." CNN (AP) 10/22/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:17 am
A Suffi Shakespeare? Was Shakespeare a member of a mystic Muslim sect? "While it has been suggested that Shakespeare dabbled with espionage and Catholic political activism, the new theory will attempt to persuade Shakespeare scholars that the playwright was a member of a religious or spiritual order which can best be compared to the philosophy of Sufism." The Observer (UK) 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 6:22 pm
It's All Politics...But Is It Good Theatre? This is the year of political theatre; it's everywhere. But is it effective as theatre? "Much recent political theatre is informed by the desire to be either a report or an essay. Getting the facts out there is good - putting them on stage gives them electricity they would otherwise lack - but it is not the same as a play." The Guardian (UK) 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 5:59 pm
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Amazon - Remember When Just Having A Profit Was Good Enough? Amazon's profits triple in the third quarter, but on that news, the stock dives to its lowest price in a year. Why? It's that old analyst expectations game... Yahoo! (AP) 10/25/04
Posted: 10/25/2004 9:34 am
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Looking For Canada's New Film Czar Who's in line to run Canada's Telefilm? Someone a little more Toronto-friendly? "Telefilm also needs someone who can make peace with key English-language producers in Toronto. They have become increasingly critical in public of Telefilm's recent emphasis on movies it deems commercial rather than artistic (though many of these have tanked at the box office)." Toronto Star 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 7:02 pm
Pod People And The PodCast What is a podcast? It's the latest in shared music. "A sort of TiVo for amateur online audio, podcasts are radio-style audio files posted inside blogs as MP3s that can be downloaded to an iPod or other portable player. And they represent the next wave of peer-to-peer content sharing - unlimited by available FM/AM spectrum, untouched by FCC regulation, portable and full of possibility." Baltimore Sun 10/24/04
Posted: 10/24/2004 6:44 pm
