Atheists In America (Where?! Let's Get 'Em!) America seems to be all about religion and demonstrable faith these days, with even the most secular of public figures feeling compelled to at least occasionally make nods toward their own piousness. In other words, it's a rotten time to be an atheist. "USA Today put the number of nonreligious Americans at 30 million... There are 5 million Americans who are Jewish, but everybody knows a lot more Jews than they know atheists, and why? Because atheists are afraid to come out of the proverbial closet." Boston Globe 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 6:44 am
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Guggenheim Loses Its Whale The Guggenheim has lost its chairman and biggest donor. Citing "differences in direction," Peter B. Lewis, the Cleveland philanthropist who has been a trustee of the museum since 1993 and most recently its chairman, resigned yesterday. He has given the institution about $77 million, nearly four times as much as any other board member in its history. The New York Times 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 9:43 pm
23 Superstar Architects, One Spanish Hotel Twenty-three superstar architects work on building a hotel in Spain. "Among those greeted by the mayor of Madrid when the project was unveiled yesterday, and pursued by what seemed like the entire Spanish press corps, were London architects David Chipperfield, John Pawson and Ron Arad. The Japanese master Arata Isozaki was seated next to France's Jean Nouvel, who has just completed a sparkling new addition to Madrid's Reina Sofia art gallery. Norman Foster, who couldn't be there, had made a video, and an ailing Zaha Hadid had sent her right-hand man to explain her contribution. I could go on, but suffice it to say, if architecture had Oscars, they would be like this." The Guardian (UK) 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 6:33 pm
Uncovering Nero's Roman House When Nero's Rome fell, his palace in the middle of the city was buried. "This week, almost 2,000 years after Nero's rule, Rome city officials unveiled a new find from the palace that offers a tantalizing hint of the treasures buried beneath the hill. It is a large mosaic, more than 9 by 6 feet, showing naked men harvesting grapes and making wine, a typical illustration for a Roman palace of the time." MSNBC.com 01/19/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 5:17 pm
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Dorian Goes Bust, May Liquidate Dorian Recordings, one of the last record labels truly devoted to classical music, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, and things may be even worse than that bit of news would make it seem. "Typically, companies that file under the code plan to negotiate a settlement with their creditors, and continue to operate. But language in court documents suggests the classical recording label might be planning a liquidation, a move seen more frequently under a Chapter 7 filing." Troy Record 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 7:29 am
Paying The Performers - What A Concept! "The growing popularity of satellite and Internet radio is creating a new source of royalties for performing artists... Under traditional copyright law, royalties have gone only to composers and music publishers. The new royalities, from airplay on the fast-growing XM and Sirius satellite services, are being paid to performers and the copyright holder of the recording -- generally a record label or, in some cases, the people who lease the master recording." Chicago Sun-Times 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 6:50 am
Is Eddins A Harbinger Of Change In Edmonton? The last few years haven't been the best of times for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Low pay, budget problems, and a lingering resentment from some musicians over the way the ESO dismissed former music director Grzegorz Nowak had some observers wondering if the orchestra could ever right itself. But the palpable enthusiasm emanating from all sides of the organization this week after the announcement that Bill Eddins would become the ESO's new music director seems to be having a restorative effect on a troubled institution. The musicians were so sure he was their man that they asked the orchestra board to suspend the search process after Eddins' last visit. Maclean's (CP) 01/19/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 6:09 am
San Diego's Newly Cooperative Partners The pact reached this week between the San Diego Symphony and San Diego Opera to share a common orchestra is significant for both organizations, and the deal appears to have been reached without much acrimony, an accomplishment for two groups which have not always played well together. Part of the success of the deal was getting away from traditional notions of a merger, which usually imply pending unemployment for some musicians and staffers. Instead, orchestra and opera officials are taking pains not to use the m-word, and are instead calling the pact a "contract for services." San Diego Union Tribune 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 5:36 am
Selling Off Some Jazz History Major icons of the jazz era are being auctioned. "Jazz artifacts have been auctioned before, through Christie's and Sotheby's, but there has been no single auction of this size entirely dedicated to jazz. And though there have been jazz collectors of one kind or another since the 1930's, it seems to have taken many of the families of jazz's royalty this long to dislodge the once mundane items, long buried in closets, that now have great value not only to jazz aficionados but also to the larger community of collectors." The New York Times 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 9:49 pm
Big Music's Improving Downloading Business Legal downloads of music topped 200 million tracks last year, up from 20 million the year before. "The digital music industry is now worth £177m in Europe, a figure expected to double this year. Some record companies estimate that the digital market could be worth 25% of total sales by 2009, compared with the present 1.5%." The Guardian (UK) 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 6:27 pm
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Taking Stock In San Antonio A new study indicates that residents of San Antonio enjoy art and cultural events, but are increasingly frustrated with the lack of financial support given to the organizations that make up the city's cultural scene. More than two-thirds of residents even support a $5-per-capita hike in the amount the city spends on the arts, which is significant when you consider how Texans normally feel about tax increases. But San Antonio's real cultural problem has never been the public sector, but private donors and foundations who either don't give nearly as much as their counterparts in other cities, or who give without any real understanding of where their money is going. San Antonio Current 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 5:47 am
Are Suburbs The New Arts Capitals? "At a time when many cities are basing their long-term hope on exploiting their traditional dominance in arts-related industries, the suburbs are beginning to provide some serious competition for both patrons and donors. This evolution has its roots in basic demography and economic trends. Since 1960, more than 90% of all population growth in America's metropolitan areas has taken place in suburbia. Today roughly two out of three people in large metropolitan areas live in the suburbs." OpinionJournal.com 01/18/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 5:12 pm
Shouldn't Some Arts Institutions Be Allowed To Die? So some Seattle arts groups find themselves financially imperiled. Again. Who says, asks Roger Downey, that failing arts groups ought to be bailed out just because they're arts groups? "Even individual artists are expected to live by the economic rules that govern all the rest of us. Somehow only arts organizations are allowed to claim immunity from the laws of financial gravity; for them, there's no connection between supply and demand, balanced budgets are for profiteers and sissies, and water runs uphill when we tell it to." Seattle Weekly 01/19/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 5:06 pm
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Success = Risk What's the formula for success in the theatre, asks Michael Billington? "I've argued till I'm blue in the face that, in the arts, caution kills while risk ultimately pays off. It's an approach made possible only by subsidy. But if you look at which theatres have prospered in recent decades, it is invariably those that have been artistically daring." The Guardian (UK) 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 9:23 pm
West End Considering Matinees (Is This Really Good For Theatre?) Producers in London's West End are considering adding Sunday matinees to their schedule. "This makes complete sense from the perspective of the public. Alongside retail and sport, all other forms of secular entertainment are now freely available on Sunday afternoons, when it's cheaper to drive into city centres and park. It's also better for families and older people to be on their way home by 6pm, it's nice not to have to rush straight from work, and you can easily eat before or afterwards. Broadway has been doing it for years, so why don't we?" The Telegraph (UK) 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 9:02 pm
Checking Out Broadway's 2004 Numbers "Overall, according to the report, the past season generated the third-highest attendance in Main Stem history, rising to 11.6 million tickets purchased from 11.4 million during the prior season and nearing the all-time record of 11.9 million achieved during the 2000-01 season. The numbers can be analyzed another way, however: In a sign of just how difficult it has become to mount plays on Broadway, 10.02 million people saw a musical last season, a new record, versus the 1.57 million who saw a play, the lowest figure in almost a decade." Back Stage 01/19/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 5:42 pm
How Did Shakespeare Die? "A study conducted by an infectious diseases specialist concludes that the bard likely had syphilis and that mercury, used to treat the disease, could have poisoned the playwright and contributed to his death." Discovery 01/19/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 5:37 pm
Trump's Apprentice As A Musical? "Reality superproducer Mark Burnett and Donald Trump, executive producers of NBC's reality hit, are developing "The Apprentice: The Musical." Burnett is writing the book for the musical, which is under way, with several songs already written." Hollywood Reporter 01/19/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 4:26 pm
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Faber Breaks With Penguin Faber & Faber is breaking with its international distributor of the past 23 years, Penguin International, to represent itself - and a group of small independent publishers between them responsible for some spectacular bestsellers. The Guardian (UK) 01/20/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 9:39 pm
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You Skip The Commercials, We'll Just Infiltrate The Shows As TiVo and other digital video recorders captivate an ever wider swath of the American TV-viewing public, advertisers are in full panic mode. After all, how are the companies that pay for commercial television's otherwise unsustainable programming supposed to see a return on their considerable advertising investment if every other viewer has the capability to simply skip the commercials? The answer seems to be in a new generation of product placement, with dramatic storylines actively working sponsoring brands into the action, a concept which viewers may eventually find even more irritating than traditional advertising. Chicago Tribune 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 7:06 am
Disney-Miramax Infighting Causing Concern "Miramax, the alpha distributor that long dominated the indie-film scene, has been embroiled in contentious contract negotiations with parent company Disney, and all signs point to an imminent divorce, with Disney keeping the Miramax name and film library and Miramax co-founders Harry and Bob Weinstein raising money to start another company elsewhere." But as this year's edition of Sundance, the premiere indie film festival in the U.S., prepares to kick off, filmmakers associated with Miramax are in an awkward and uncertain position. Chicago Tribune 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 7:03 am
Hollywood vs. High-Tech, Round 2 "Intellectual property legislation that failed to pass in Congress last year likely will reappear in the new session, but after 2004's bitter battle, technology and consumer groups are ready to get more aggressive." The effort to prevent stricter copyright enforcement is likely to have more corporate muscle behind it this year as well. Last year's battles convinced many high-tech companies that they needed to go on the offensive, lest they get steamrolled by the entertainment industry's highly effective Congressional lobbying. Wired 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 6:38 am
Underground Net Pirates Convicted, Face Jail Time For the first time in the U.S., two men have been convicted of illegally sharing music files over an online peer-to-peer file-trading system, and face up to five years in prison for their crimes. "The US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network. The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files." BBC 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 6:26 am
Sundance Giving Up On Original Web Content? Five years ago, the Sundance Film Festival launched a parallel online festival designed to showcase the best examples of the new genre of web film, which everyone figured was just about ready to blow up. As it turns out, web film is pretty much dead, and these days, Sundance's online component features streaming versions of the same short films shown at its main festival. "On the one hand, the new SOFF format is exciting news: Anyone with a computer can watch some of the world's best new short films. But SOFF's makeover also suggests that made-for-the-web films haven't evolved as quickly as expected." Wired 01/20/05
Posted: 01/20/2005 6:20 am
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Savion Conquers Classical "When it comes to God-given talent that can mesmerize an audience today, Savion Glover is some kind of miracle. He tells us, among much, about sheer aliveness onstage, the joy of performing, the gift of speed and dazzling improvisation, the exactness of rhythm, the ability to listen, the emotion of sound and music beyond all words. There are times when performers are so scintillating at what they do, all you can do is shake your head in disbelief. They’re too good; they’re so good, it’s laughable. "Astonish me!" was Diaghilev’s mantra and artistic prayer. Mr. Glover astonishes us every time." New York Observer 01/19/05
Posted: 01/19/2005 5:27 pm
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