Iraq Art Hole The art situation in Iraq is still bleak. "All museums remain closed, and looting of archaeological sites continues. The Iraqis lack the funds, equipment, and personnel to cope with the restoration and maintenance of museums and monuments and the protection of archaeological sites." The Art Newspaper 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 5:02 pm
African Plunder Recovered A huge collection of plundered African art was intercepted in Niger recently. "The 845-piece collection, dating as far back as 70 million years ago, includes antiquities of incalculable value, ranging from dinosaur teeth to neolithic arrowheads and ancient pottery. While this seizure is notable for the size and breadth of the artefacts contained within the collection, such caches of treasures smuggled out of the continent and into private collections or curio shops around the world are neither rare nor exclusive to Niger." News24.com 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 4:56 pm
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Top Of The Pops - New Charts Redefine "Bestseller" What are the most popular songs in the land? As the music business has changed, it's been harder and harder to tell. Some songs have made the bestseller list for sales of only 5,000 copies. "This week, Billboard began figuring in download sales in its main pop singles list, mixed with the two other factors it long leaned on — radio play and retail sales. At the same time, the magazine has introduced a new, download-enhanced chart that more accurately measures those songs that truly are the most popular." New York Daily News 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 7:47 am
Indie Musicians And The Benefits Of The Web All this shouting by recording companies about getting paid and protecting the rights of the artists. Somehow, writes Lawrence Lessig, the voices of independent musicians have been lost. Take the band Wilco, which dumped its label, went to the net, and found themselves more popular (and profitable) than they had ever been... Wired 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 7:38 am
SF Opera Gets New Director The San Francisco Opera has named David Gockley, the longtime head of Houston Grand Opera, as its sixth general director. He will succeed Pamela Rosenberg in January, six months earlier than planned. San Francsico Chronicle 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 6:15 am
- Bringing Opera Out Of The House San Francisco Opera's new director has some big challenges to solve. But David Gockley is looking outside the box: "In Houston, we've done a lot of outdoor performances and performed in smaller suburban theaters. One of the first things I want to do here is take an inventory of all the performance spaces in the Bay Area, both outdoor and indoor. I want to try to come up with a formula that would access those audiences and give them a taste that would make them want to come downtown, because this is where it really happens." San Francisco Chronicle 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 6:04 am
MacMillan: Of High Art And Classical Music Scottish composer James MacMillan has raised a furor over his comments about music last week: "One can’t listen to classical music and especially serious contemporary classical music with the ears - that rather distracted mode of listening - that one uses for other forms of musical styles. The orthodox and politically correct view that there is no meaningful difference between high and low art, I think, must be challenged anew." The Scotsman 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 9:10 pm
Popular Music? What's That? "Popular music" is no longer a homogenised entity: the very narrow band of commercial pop that is sufficiently ubiquitous to register with national newspaper leader writers is the tip of the iceberg. There has been a great rise in interest in underground, non-commercial music (helped by the availability of information and music files on the internet). Many people are hungry for anything that sounds a bit different, uses sound in a new way and sets itself apart from the naked consumerism of commercial pop. The Guardian (UK) 02/08/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 8:46 pm
Concert Companion, UK Version The Concert Companion, a handheld device designed to accompany orchestra concerts, is heading to the UK after undergoing several tests on audiences in the US. After a flurry of interest by US orchestra, the device has stalled there. Maybe it will find a better business model in Britain? The Guardian (UK) 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 5:58 pm
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Bush Proposes No Arts Funding Cuts With 154 federal agencies in line for budget cuts in George Bush's proposed new budget, the arts did pretty well, as Bush held funding steady... Washington Post 02/08/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 9:53 pm
The Cost Of Raising Money Fundraisers are a fact of business for most non-profits. But some of the lavish events suck up much of the money they raise. So what should a fundraiser cost? New York Magazine 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 5:35 pm
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Appreciating Karl Haas "Haas' program cut an idiosyncratic path through the forest of music appreciation, seducing listeners through his humanistic exploration of music and ideas, his irrepressible enthusiasm and gentle humor. His melodious German accent -- he was born in the city of Speyer and settled in Detroit in 1936 after fleeing the Nazis -- carried Old World authority. But he cut against professorial stuffiness by adopting a casual manner: chatty, anecdotal and off-the-cuff." Detroit Free Press 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 8:55 am
The New Star Conductor Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä has been music director of the Minnesota Orchestra since 2003. "In the past few years, Vänskä has gone from relative obscurity to the front ranks of conductors. In city after city, he has shaken orchestras out of their routines and audiences out of their slumbers." The New Yorker 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 5:24 pm
Karl Haas, 91 Radio broadcaster Karl Haas has died. His "Adventures in Good Music," an hour-long program in which Haas blended music and talk aimed at casual listeners, was syndicated to hundreds of stations in the United States, Australia, Mexico and Panama and was broadcast by Armed Forces Radio. Haas delighted listeners with his vast musical knowledge and his penchant for punny program titles, such as "The Joy of Sax" and "Baroque and in Debt." CNN.com 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 4:44 pm
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NY Comics Smiling About Raises In December New York comedians got together to form an organization to negotiate higher pay from comedy clubs. "Two months ago it sent letters to the owners of 11 clubs around the city asking for raises, and as of last week all but 4 of the clubs had acquiesced and submitted proposals for a new pay scale. Yesterday the union made contact with the four remaining clubs and today will meet with their representatives." The New York Times 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 6:48 am
Seattle Rep's New Era Seattle Repertory Theatre's hiring of David Esbjornson as its new artistic director signals a new era for the company. And that new era will be marked by... Seattle Times 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 9:40 pm
London Smoking Ban Hits Theatres London is considering a ban on smoking indoors. This means everywhere - including on stages of theatres. "Cigars and cigarettes feature heavily in many stage productions, from the Old Masters by Simon Gray to Kathleen Turner's portrayal of Mrs Robinson in the stage production of The Graduate." So what.... audiences will have to imagine smoking scenes? The Guardian (UK) 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 5:50 pm
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How A South Dakota Library Stuck Up For Imprisoned Cuban Librarians In March 2003, Castro's State Security police arrested independent librarians who provided access to books excluded from Cuba's censored library system. "These 'subversive' independent public librarians were sent to Castro's foul prisons, along with the other dissenters. During the raids on these independent libraries, the offending books were confiscated, and many of them burned." A tiny library in South Dakota "adopted" a Cuban library, sending books and drawing attention to the plight of the librarians... Village Voice 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 8:05 am
Wright Starts Poetry Press Charlie Wright is chairman of timber and development company R.D. Merrill is known in art circles for restoring solvency to the New York-based Dia Foundation. Now he's turning to another big interest - poetry - and starting a new publishing house. "We'll be focused on mid-career American poets. There will be some exposure to emerging poets, also reprints and translations - sort of a mixed bag." Seattle Post-Intelligencer (AP) 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 7:27 am
Kipen: New American Lit Awards Have A Conflict So there's to be an Oscars for the book world - the Quill Awards. Televised on TV too. But David Kipen has a problem with one of the overseers of the awards - Reed Business International, the company that owns Publishers Weekly: "Now, PW is a pleasant and frequently useful publication. Unaccountably -- maybe by mistake? -- it's even hired a gifted and energetic literary journalist, Sara Nelson, to become its new editor. But still, in co- administering an annual awards ceremony honoring the very industry PW covers, the magazine's conflicts of interest are, not to put too fine a point on it, ripe for the plucking." San Francisco Chronicle 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 6:28 am
BBC's New Book Club The BBC is starting a book club after seeing the success of other such clubs. "The shortlist of 24 books, designed to showcase the "best new books" on offer in the UK today, was whittled down from a longlist of over 300 by a panel of book-loving celebrities and literary experts." The Guardian (UK) 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 8:55 pm
LA Schools Computer Program Fails To Teach Reading The Los Angeles School District has spent nearly $50 million on a computer reading program that failed to improve student reading skills and in some cases hindered achievement because schools did not use it properly... Los Angeles Times 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 8:23 pm
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Armed Conflict - Coming To A Screen Near You Get ready for a slew of films and TV shows about war on American TV. "Not since World War II has Hollywood so embraced an ongoing conflict. It took years for pop culture to tackle the Korean and Vietnam wars, and it took time before the country was ready to be entertained by those politically charged conflicts. With Iraq, however, and after 9/11, all bets are off."
USAToday 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 7:58 am
Oscars Change Presentation Procedures The Oscars are changing the way some of its awards are presented. "Some winners will not go on stage to pick up their awards - while in other categories, all five nominees will get on stage before being told who has won. The traditional system where the winner walks up to the podium after their name is read out will also still be used." BBC 02/08/05
Posted: 02/08/2005 6:35 am
Disposable DVD's Get New Traction The EZ-D is a disposable DVD, and while Disney has abandoned it, others are giving it a try. "The EZ-D was marketed to consumers as a way to avoid late fees from movie rental shops. Once opened, the EZ-D can be played unlimited times in 48 hours. Then a chemical compound on the disc combines with oxygen, rendering the DVD opaque and unreadable after two days. Movie fans can throw away the expired disk or pack it off to a special recycling facility to be recycled." Wired 02/07/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 9:45 pm
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China's New Dance Reflecting a society in flux, professional modern dance has spread beyond Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai to attract budding choreographers in universities in other provinces. True to the essence of modern dance anywhere, it is no longer limited to one kind of movement idiom or aesthetic. The New York Times 02/08/05
Posted: 02/07/2005 9:01 pm
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