Ideas

The Great Big Music Debate Last week, composer James MacMillan and alternative rocker Alex Kapranos got into something of a public slapfight over the relatve merits of popular music and modern classical works. Unfortunately, what could have been a serious debate wound up being little more than the usual name-calling between artists on opposite sides of the populist divide. "At the end of the day, we’re left with no more than a difference in taste. And that matters, because these disputes feed into a very serious dispute about public funding for the arts." Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 10:55 am

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Visual Arts

When Did Philly Get So Tall? Philadelphia has long been an architectural throwback by American standards - a huge but almost entirely horizontal city of rowhouses and sprawling urban landscapes, with only a few towering skyscrapers marking its colonial-era downtown. But a new round of development is threatening to take the city vertical, and while residents and historians are understandably wary of becoming just another overcrowded concrete jungle, there may be some virtue in the towers now rising in the city center. "The new skyscrapers are a largely stylish and urbane group - especially compared with designs in other downtowns. Despite some clumsy assemblages of historical parts, most have the virtue of clean, sleek lines. A few even aspire to artful design." Philadlephia Inquirer 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 10:15 am

All That, And They Probably Want A Winning Record, Too Baseball stadiums don't generally have the architectural cachet of, say, museums or skyscrapers. But if you consider how many people are directly affected by the design of a building, it's hard to top baseball parks in the civic impact department. Washington, D.C. has a new baseball team, of course, and will shortly have a new park to keep it in. The question is, how will the design of the ballpark affect the city, and vice versa? "The park represents a giant architectural and planning opportunity for the nation's capital, a rare chance to build a splendid, 21st-century 'gateway' structure near a major bridge and within site of the Capitol dome. And to help revive a river and a section of the city." Washington Post 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 10:01 am

Sculptures Or Subdivisions? Hmmmm. Sculptor Richard Serra is in talks with officials in Ontario to save a 1972 work of his that stands in a Toronto suburb. "Its ownership is in some doubt, as is its future. According to some scenarios, developers could well chuck it in the dump to add a few more suburban monster homes... Shift, hidden on a patch of farmland just west of Dufferin St. near King City, was commissioned by Roger Davidson, a leading Canadian collector from a family of land developers who were also lifelong supporters of the Art Gallery of Ontario." Serra has a history of fiercely defending any of his sculptures which are threatened with removal. Toronto Star 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 9:29 am

Moscow Biennale Kicks Off Amid Sighs Of Relief The Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, a monthlong extravaganza designed to revive Russia as a center of modern art, launched last week, the first such festival to be held in Russia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. "Until the biennial actually opened, there were doubts that it would. Although the project was more than a year in the planning, its exhibitions were selected and installed in a desperate scramble, its organizers and curators having encountered innumerable obstacles, not the least the conservatism of Russia's cultural bureaucracies." The New York Times 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:29 am

New Library Takes Wing In Minneapolis A new Cesar Pelli-designed central library is rising in downtown Minneapolis, and residents are beginning to wonder about the thoroughly modern design, particularly how it will fit in in a city not known for its bold architectural tastes. Everyone's first question: what exactly is that giant wing floating above the avenue? "Is it a giant letter opener? A paper airplane? A loading dock from Star Wars?" Actually, it's just supposed to make you look at it. "The library lacks a grand entrance, so the wing acts as a spectacle that announces its presence." St. Paul Pioneer Press 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:07 am

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Music

Playing Hardball In St. Louis The St. Louis Symphony strike is proving to be a power struggle between two competing philosophies, with no victor in sight. The musicians of the orchestra are courting public opinion with free concerts and media-savvy public events, in the hope that public pressure will force the SLSO management to back off their demands for pay cuts. But orchestra president Randy Adams is taking a decidedly corporate approach to the stoppage, "[putting] aside the gentlemanly conventions of most orchestra disputes. That has left the musicians in a state of shock, scrambling to come up with strategies... that will help them in this new game." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 11:02 am

America's New Two-Orchestra Town With the new Music Center at Strathmore open for business in suburban Washington, D.C., featuring regular appearances by the Baltimore Symphony, a unique head-to-head orchestral competition is shaping up in the nation's capital. "Indeed, with the Baltimore Symphony's incursion into the back yard of the National Symphony Orchestra, the capital area becomes the first metropolis in the country in almost 80 years to present listeners with a choice of programs by two full-size, full-time, regularly scheduled orchestras every week of the season." Washington Post 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 10:44 am

Pay-For-Play In Hartford? "It was all smiles and handshakes in October when state politicians, town officials and Hartford Symphony Orchestra administrators attended a groundbreaking for a $1.5 million outdoor band shell... But the good cheer has given way to some behind-the-scenes negotiating, as the town's first selectman is suggesting charging the symphony a fee [for the use of the shell]... Both sides say they are trying to reach an agreement and look forward to working together. But critics question whether the town should charge a cash-strapped nonprofit that brings culture, professional-level music and thousands of visitors to its downtown." Hartford Courant 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 10:29 am

de Waart Takes On Hong Kong Conductor Edo de Waart has lost no time in diving into the middle of political controversy in Hong Kong, where he is the new chief conductor of the city's Philharmonic. Protesting the government's devotion to a HK$40 billion "arts hub" project which doesn't include money for arts education or a new concert hall for the Phil, de Waart says that the plan severely miscalculates the city's scale. "For a city with no opera company of its own to build a 2,000-seat theater, it most probably would have to rely on flying in unknown numbers of performance groups because no home group will be able to regularly fill it. It's promoting glitz - a culture of events, not a culture of continuity. It's the completely wrong way to do things." The Standard (Hong Kong) 02/07/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 10:07 am

Music Education As Endangered Species: Exhibit 734B Ask just about anyone involved in classical music about the cause of the genre's decline in popularity, and you will likely get a speech about the lack of music education in U.S. schools. So the existence (and popularity) of a 28-year-old statewide classical music listening competition in Minnesota has to be considered a positive sign. But the competition is in financial trouble, having lost much of its corporate support this year when Minnesota Public Radio slashed its contribution. Minneapolis Star Tribune 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 9:06 am

Hunter Officially Tapped To Succeed Sills On the same day that a published report appeared naming Christine Hunter as the frontrunner to succeed Beverly Sills as chair of the Metropolitan Opera, the Met announced Hunter's official nomination to the post. "She already serves as chairwoman of the executive committee and has been on the board for 22 years. During that time her loyalty was divided between the Met and the Washington National Opera, where she had top jobs from 1974 to last year, including president and chairwoman." The New York Times 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:56 am

Talk About The Passion One of the most frequent modern criticisms of classical music and the people who play it is the aloofness of the form; the grand, formal presentation of performers who don't speak, don't interact with the audience, and acknowledge accolades with only a stiff bow. Offering the counterpoint to that perception is cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who seems to delight in passing on his passion for music to the next generation of young performers, and thinks nothing of offering a starry-eyed 17-year-old a chance to play alongside him. Baltimore Sun 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:15 am

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Arts Issues

Architecture of Urban Exclusion "First there was the speed bump; now it's the bench barrier. The former is designed to slow traffic, the latter to stop skateboarders, BMXers, in-liners — and anyone else who would do more than sit upright in the public spaces of downtown Toronto. Although this architecture of exclusion can be hard to notice, much of the civic realm is being quietly altered to eliminate the menace of kids on wheels and, even worse, the homeless, and all those who would use benches, window sills or walls for other than their intended purposes." Toronto Star 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 9:26 am

Gunplay As Art? "Joseph Deutch, a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, was the last student to perform a final project in a seminar taught by the performance artist Ron Athey on Nov. 29. According to witnesses, Mr. Deutch, wearing a coat and tie, pulled what appeared to be a handgun from a paper bag, loaded it with a single bullet, spun the cylinder, aimed the pistol at his head and pulled the trigger. When the gun failed to discharge, he left the room and, seconds later, the seminar members heard the sound of a shot." So is Deutch a dangerous individual with suicidal impulses, or can a game of Russian Roulette really be legitimately construed as art? Believe it or not, there is some precedent for this... The New York Times 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:53 am

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People

Ossie Davis, 87 Ossie Davis was far more than a great actor, although he certainly was that. Together with his wife, the actress Ruby Dee, Davis fought tirelessly to expand the opportunities available to black Americans both on the stage and off. He delivered Malcolm X's eulogy, served as master of ceremonies for the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, and at the same time earned a reputation as one of the nation's most accomplished and intellectual stage actors. Davis died this weekend in a Miami hotel. The New York Times 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:33 am

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Theatre

The Great Neon Way? Is Broadway being eclipsed by an even glitzier and more glamorous new center of American theater? In a word, yup. "Las Vegas has taken over for New York -- certainly for a generation, perhaps for good. This is a seismic shift in the American cultural landscape that has yet to be fully realized. Led by the constantly self-reinventing Cirque du Soleil, which has taken over the high-end entertainment world here and moved light-years away from its street-circus roots, Las Vegas is running full-tilt toward experimental, high-end art created by figures from the opera and performance worlds, even as Broadway drowns in a sea of movie knockoffs, retreads of rock-music catalogs and other forms of cheap pastiche." Chicago Tribune 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 11:27 am

Yo, Theatuh in Brooklyn, What! "The industrial corner of Brooklyn located about five minutes from the East Village by L train is known as a haven for Orthodox Jews and art school hipsters. In the 1990's, it became home to an alternative gallery district. But over the past few years, Williamsburg, Brooklyn has also evolved into something else: a full-fledged theater district. Call it Off Off Off Broadway." The New York Times 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 11:12 am

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Media

Swank, Foxx Score At SAG "Jamie Foxx was named best lead male movie actor for his portrayal of the late R&B legend Ray Charles in Ray, and Hilary Swank won best female lead actor for playing a scrappy boxer in Million Dollar Baby on Saturday night at the 11th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Foxx and Swank both won acting awards three weeks ago at the Golden Globes, and both are nominated for Oscars. It remains to be seen whether the SAG awards will live up to their reputation as a prognosticator of the Academy Awards." Los Angeles Times 02/06/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 11:19 am

No Good Deed... Eyes on the Prize, the acclaimed documentary series focusing on the civil rights movement, has not been seen in more than a decade, due to copyright laws governing snippets of film and music used in the series. "In late January, members of Downhill Battle, a group of four young activists, appalled that there is so little access to the film, made a digitized copy of the series available through its website." But the activists are now drawing the ire not only of copyright enforcers, but of the filmmakers themselves, who are preparing to renew their expired rights. Boston Globe 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 9:01 am

Caught In The Righteous Crossfire The recent controversy over an episode of the children's program Postcards From Buster, which featured the main character learning about sugar mapling from a family with two women at its helm, has sent PBS scurrying for cover, and has conservatives once again suggesting that public broadcasting is incurably liberal. Caught in the middle of the firestorm is an 11-year-old girl from Vermont who was to be the star of the episode. The "immoral" family featured in the show is her family, the two mothers are her two mothers, and she doesn't quite understand what is so objectionable about her demonstration of how to tap a maple. The New York Times 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 8:41 am

• Previously: Spellings: PBS Should Be "Straight Down The Line" New American education secretary defends her concerns about the cartoon Postcards from Buster on PBS because it shows gays in the background. "When people turn on the Public Broadcasting System, they expect to get something that is very straight down the line that is educationally oriented. And I think that particular topic, of sexuality and lifestyles, are things that need to be introduced by parents and families in their own way and in their own time." Toledo Blade 02/02/05

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Dance

New Boss, New Strategies For PBT Days after appointing a new interim managing director, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has decided not to pursue its effort to force the company's pit musicians to accept an immediate 50% pay cut. The cut, demanded by the company last year, would have necessitated the early reopening of an existing contract, and would have fixed the musicians' pay well below the per-performance rates required by the venue in which the PBT performs. Both sides now say that they are working towards a new long-term contract for the musicians. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/05/05
Posted: 02/06/2005 9:16 am

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