Bucking The Trend: MoMA's Fundraising Triumph As New York's Museum of Modern Art settles into its spectacular new Manhattan home, it's worth noting that the process MoMA underwent to reach this point was a triumph of modern non-profit fundraising. In the middle of a recession, in a period during which New York suffered a horrific terrorist attack, and at a time in which many non-profits all but threw in the towel as far as fundraising, MoMA managed to raise $858 million to design and construct its new building. The New York Times 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 10:16 am
Baltimore Museum To Unveil Big Expansion Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum gets a major upgrade this month with the unveiling of the "Jim Rouse Visionary Center, a sweeping, $9.3 million expansion of AVAM that will open to the public in a week and a half. Set in a 28,000-square-foot historic building that was originally a whiskey warehouse, the three-story center will double [AVAM's] footprint." Baltimore Sun 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:56 am
Tracing The Political Line There may be no more powerful editorial tool than the cartoonist's pen, and a sharp-eyed reader can trace the political fortunes of those in the public eye by observing the way in which they are depicted by those merciless caricaturists. A new exhibit in London examines just such a progression by displaying British cartoonists' visions of Prime Minister Tony Blair over the course of his career at the top of the Labour Party. "A decade ago, cartoonists emphasized Blair's broad smile, intense gaze and large ears. But over the years they have become crueler -- and funnier -- as Blair himself has changed." Chicago Tribune 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 8:51 am
Munch Museum To Stay Closed 'Til Summer Oslo's Munch Museum will need $7.8 million and an additional eight months to implement new security procedures recommended in a report the museum commissioned following the theft at gunpoint of Edvard Munch's masterpiece, The Scream. The museum will likely not reopen until June 2005 as staffers work to improve security with metal detectors, cameras, and new mounting systems for paintings. Baltimore Sun 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 8:35 am
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Talk About Your Last-Minute Replacements Baritone Ian Vayne thought he was headed to his local opera house to spend a relaxing evening watching a new production of Bizet's Carmen. Instead, Vayne wound up on stage in the role of Escamillo after the scheduled singer was felled by a heart attack. He knew the part, but had only fifteen minutes to learn the staging and choreography for the show. He received a standing ovation for his trouble, as well as the undying gratitude of the company. The Guardian (UK) 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 10:42 am
Chicago Symphony Has A Deal The musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract which will raise their base salary to $114,000 by 2007, keeping them among the ranks of the highest paid orchestras in the world. The deal also provides retirement incentives for older members of the ensemble, and allows the CSO to reduce the full complement of musicians from 111 to 106 through such attrition. There will be no reduction in the number of musicians on stage for any given concert. The musicians also agreed to pay a higher share of health insurance costs. The agreement comes a week after the musicians had cleaned out their lockers in anticipation of a possible strike. Chicago Tribune 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:41 am
Philly Mayor Brokers "Framework" For Orchestra Deal The musicians and management of the Philadelphia Orchestra have agreed on what Mayor John Street is calling a "framework" for a new collective bargaining agreement, following a week of intensive negotiations mediated by the mayor himself. The details have yet to be filled in, but Street says he expects a deal to be done within the next 7 to 10 days. Philadelphia Inquirer 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:23 am
Expanding Opera's Reach Back in 1996, the Houston Grand Opera decided that it was high time for it to acknowledge the demographic shift underway in the U.S., and premiered a new opera, Florencia, written in Spanish and focused on Latin American sensibilities. "Drenched in the seductive atmosphere of Magic Realism, it became a surprise hit which has not only been revived in Houston but staged as well in Los Angeles, Seattle, Mexico City and even Manaos," the Brazilian opera house where Florencia was set. Now, the company has commissioned a second opera from the same composer, leading to talk of a new place for Hispanic culture in the operatic literature. Toronto Star 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:20 am
A Hoosier Surplus The Indianapolis Symphony ended the 2003-04 season with a balanced budget after two consecutive years of red ink. The orchestra eked out a $5,466 surplus on a budget of $24 million, following a year in which the ensemble's musicians agreed to contract concessions and the annual fund increased by $400,000. Indianapolis Star 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:08 am
Just So Long As They Don't Play That Awful "We Deliver" Jingle A band called Postal Service (so named because the members lived in different cities and mailed each other snippets of music as part of their songwriting process) recently received a cease-and-desist letter from, you guessed it, the U.S. Postal Service. It could have been just one more story of overaggressive copyright enforcement in a situation in which no one was losing money or getting hurt, but instead, the band and the mail carriers worked out a deal. As a result, the band gets to keep its name and its stock of albums, and the U.S. Postal Service has a brand new way to promote itself. The New York Times 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:04 am
More Backlash Against Homophobic Reggae Stars The furor over anti-gay lyrics in reggae music is continuing to mount in the UK, where the Urban Music Awards have dropped two nominated artists from contention after vociferous protests from the gay community. The Observer (UK) 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 8:38 am
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Culture's Impact On Politics: Zilch, Apparently John Kerry had a lot of star power behind him in his losing bid to become President of the United States, with major stars in the world of music, film, and literature lining up to support the Democrat. But though "the 2004 election turned mainly on cultural issues, as distinct from matters of economics or public policy... the vast majority of those who think of themselves as cultural professionals found themselves firmly on the losing side. In an election that many arts people saw as being of cataclysmic importance, that clear disconnect spawned a lot of soul-searching in studios, offices, screening-rooms and theaters over the latter half of the week." Chicago Tribune 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 11:04 am
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The Met's New Man Worries The Fan Base For all the fearful talk about what Peter Gelb will do when he takes the reins of the Metropolitan Opera in 2006, Gelb seems to have a remarkably upbeat philosophy about high culture: as he puts it, "art can be both commercially successful and artistically successful." Of course, it's the "commercial" aspect that worries some observers, and Gelb's tenure at Sony Classical is an example of what many purists believe is blatant commercialism at the expense of true artistic success. The New York Times 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 10:25 am
- Joe Volpe: The Exit Interview Okay, he's not leaving for another two years. But with his successor already named, Metropolitan Opera chief Joseph Volpe is now officially a lame duck, a position to which he is anything but accustomed. Regarding fears that Peter Gelb is planning to dumb down the company with the crossover material that made him famous at Sony Classical, Volpe takes a skeptical tone: "Peter is very smart. And I believe Peter will do what's in good taste and proper for the Met. I don't think he would attempt to popularize a standard work, because, first of all, it won't work. In the record business you can do certain things that you cannot do in an opera house." The New York Times 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 10:22 am
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West End Bars Critics From Opening Night "West End theatre producers are to make radical attempts to fireproof new shows against the critics as they survey the smouldering wreckage of productions closed following bad reviews." Specifically, the idea is to change the tradition whereby every critic in the city shows up for opening night, and reviews that one performance. "Producers believe the opening night combination of nervous relatives and anxious financial backers can destabilise performances. The experimental move, which has been cautiously welcomed by several critics as well as by theatre owners, is a response to the growing power of the London critics." The Observer (UK) 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 10:48 am
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Politics & Profit Political polarization may make for a country full of angry people, but for publishers of politically themed books, the currently inflamed passions of the U.S. voting population are nothing short of a financial windfall, as readers snatch up blatantly partisan tomes by the dozens. Of course, the predominence of such aggressively one-sided books is coming at the cost of more serious and even-handed political analysis, but as one publsher puts it, "To publish for the middle of the road right now would be suicide." The New York Times 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:10 am
A Quarter-Century of Granta Literary magazines come and go like the seasons, but this year, the London-based journal Granta is celebrating its 25th anniversary, a stunning display of longevity for a magazine that has systematically refused to run with the crowd. "Throughout its quarter-century of existence, Granta has thrived on contradiction. Out of those contradictions spring its strangeness -- and success... It's unusual among literary magazines for publishing more nonfiction than fiction and hardly any poetry. Although based in London, it has numerous American contributors, and more than half of its readership is American." Boston Globe 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 8:41 am
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Let Chicago Be Chicago Regardless of what the Canadian film board might tell you, Toronto does not look like New York. Nor does it look like Chicago, L.A., Seattle, Boston, or any of the other cities that Canadian cities have been standing in for in Hollywood films over the last decade. A new documentary makes the case for on-location shooting, and claims that moviegoers can easily tell the difference between accurate depictions of a city and generic stand-ins. St. Paul Pioneer Press 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 11:22 am
Hollywood Pushing Out Indies In Foreign Markets The indie films and B-movie flicks that once constituted the bulk of the American presence at foreign theaters are rapidly being replaced by big-name Hollywood movies. "As [DVD] sales have been replacing video rentals, globe-spanning media conglomerates have begun using 'specialty' film wings like Disney's Miramax, Sony's Screen Gems, News Corporation's Fox Searchlight and Warner Independent Pictures to fill the demand of foreign markets with their own products, leaving less room both for independent sellers and for the small local distributors." The New York Times 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:20 am
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Who Watches Dance, And Why? A major study of dance audiences has been completed in Chicago, with researchers attempting to quantify the impact of dance on the average citizen, and to further determine exactly who is likely to attend a dance performance and why. Among the study's findings: women are a whopping 71% of dance attendees; intellectual stimulation finishes behind aesthetic beauty on the list of reasons that attendees enjoy dance; and very few audience members can tell the difference between modern, classical, and jazz dance without labels to help them. Chicago Tribune 11/07/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 11:08 am
Authenticity and Politics Hurting Cuba Dance Fest Cuba's International Festival of Ballet is featuring the work of George Balanchine this year. Or is it? The festival only has official permission to perform one of the seven Balanchine ballets it is presenting, and copied the rest from videotapes. "The debate over the authenticity of these productions has emerged at a festival already hurt by the United States government's restrictions on travel to Cuba. Nine dancers from the New York City Ballet and one from the Dance Theater of Harlem were barred from attending, making this the first time in 30 years that an American has not performed at the festival." The New York Times 11/06/04
Posted: 11/07/2004 9:00 am
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