America The Manic Depressive Has America's obsession with wealth and material possession become a mania that distracts us from recognizing the truly important things in life? A new scholarly book argues that, "in the age of globalization, Americans are addictively driven by the brain's pleasure centers to live turbocharged lives in pursuit of status and possessions at the expense of the only things that can truly make us happy: relationships with other people." If the author is right, the country has crested the manic wave created by the 1990s stock market boom, and is headed for a very big emotional fall. The New York Times 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 7:53 am
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Can Anyone Save ICA? London's Institute of Contemporary Art has changed leaders as well as leadership models. But observers say that what ICA needs is a complete change of direction, if it is to survive and compete in an increasingly competitive environment. "Caught between the huge ambitions of its founders, its limited resources, its militant amateurism and a vast expansion in the number of arts institutions competing for ideas, attention and resources, [ICA's new leadership team] faces quite a task." The Observer (UK) 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 10:27 am
Small Wonders "Ever since its earliest days, limning (to give miniature painting its original name) has been the subject of a certain status anxiety. Practitioners and commentators have worried that it is not art at all, but itsy-bitsy hackwork. Or, conversely, that it is not an artisanal craft suitable for men, but merely a hobby for ladies. Or that it is an instrument of the court, full of pomp but not much else. Or, that it is small and domestic, a toy art. Yet alongside this anxious babble is the work itself, an unarguable four centuries' worth of small marvels." The Guardian (UK) 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 10:00 am
Piecing Together A City's Art Index Members of a San Francisco synagogue has discovered a "treasure trove" of 19th-century art hidden in plain sight on its walls and ceiling. The discovery that two prominent local artists working in concert were responsible for the temple's beautiful, Renaissance-inspired interior has touched off a renewed round of interest in San Francisco's often cloudy art history. "The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed public records and personal papers, erasing much of the city's artistic history from current memory." San Francisco Chronicle 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:19 am
Exhibit? What Exhibit? A new exhibition celebrating the legacy of photographer Larry Clark is opening in New York, and the organizers are treading very cautiously. Clark's body of work consists in large part of "stark, intimate photographs and movies of teenagers having sex, shooting drugs and waving guns," and there has always been debate over whether it can accurately be described as art. The exhibitors made a deliberate decision not to apply for any government money to back the exhibit, and the entire show seems to be intentionally flying well under the radar. The New York Times 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 7:47 am
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Did Toscanini Kill Classical Music In America? When did classical music fall off the American cultural radar? Moreover, how did it get on the radar in the first place? Joseph Horowitz's newest tome tackles the full scope and history of classical music in the U.S., and comes to some fairly dark conclusions. "Horowitz partly blames the early 20th century 'Toscanini Cult,' devout worshipers of an imported Italian conductor, as one of the main catalysts for the demise. This was the Waterloo, the point at which, in the eyes of Americans, classical music went strictly European... It was also the point at which we became overzealously fascinated not with the music being played, but with the performers who played it, a shift the author views as an unhealthy offshoot of a market-driven culture." Newsday (New York) 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:20 am
Nothing Much Going Right In Salt Lake In the two years since the Utah Symphony & Opera merged to become one organization, ticket sales have declined and the ensemble has become alarmingly reliant on special contributions to stay afloat financially. The merger was supposed to cut overhead costs, but spending has actually increased instead, leading to accusations of mismanagement from the US&O's musicians. Lots of U.S. orchestras are struggling, of course, but the US&O's 2002-03 operating deficit was fully 10% of its total budget, an alarming figure that is causing some observers to question whether the merged organization can survive. Salt Lake Tribune 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:08 am
- The Music's Not The Problem The Utah Symphony & Opera's financial problems stem in part from a busted marketing apparatus, according to concertgoers in Salt Lake City. Many in town still voice strong support for the quality of US&O performances, but have been put off by flippant marketing campaigns, nonsensical schedule changes, and other rankling inconveniences. Salt Lake Tribune 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:04 am
Levine in Boston: The First 100 Days It is foolish, of course, to try to judge a music director's tenure with an orchestra after only six months, but the immediate effects of a new arrival on both ensemble and audience can have a significant impact on the evolution of the relationship between maestro and musicians. In Boston, where James Levine is now firmly ensconced as music director, observers have begun to notice a distinct shift in how the orchestra is perceived. More young people have been showing up at concerts, and a number of musical heavyweights who couldn't be bothered with the waning years of the Ozawa era are back in the fold as well. "Clearly, Levine's programs are sparking all this interest. They are long; they are challenging. He is striving to create concerts that are at once provocative to the musically trained, yet not off-putting to the more casual concertgoer." The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 03/11/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:48 am
Pols, Players Rally To Save Tasmanian Orchestra Australia's musicians' union is joining forces with politicians and members of the public to lobby the country's arts ministry to reject the proposal laid out in a new study which recommends downsizing the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra to a chamber ensemble. Union representatives accuse Australia's conservative ruling party of trying to "wreck" the orchestra more than once, and calls any plan which would redistribute funds from one ensemble to another unacceptable. Hobart Mercury (Australia) 03/14/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:42 am
Why Can't Eschenbach Just Be Eschenbach? Philadelphia Orchestra music director Christoph Eschenbach, who has a passion for 20th-century music and is legendary for his fiery performances of Shostakovich, could not be much more different from the man he replaced, Wolfgang Sawallisch, a low-key European conductor of the old school, whose tastes ran more to German romantics. "So you have to wonder why [Eschenbach] has spent so much time in his first year and a half as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra plowing through repertoire that was the specialty of his immediate predecessor. Comparisons are inevitable, and Eschenbach is not coming out on top." Philadelphia Inquirer 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:14 am
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Berlin's Cultural Comeback "The toppling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 recast daily life, as the two halves of the country awkwardly reunited. A capitalist gentility took hold in the historic Scheunenviertel, a district of the old East Berlin, as courtyards along Sophienstrasse and elsewhere were tidied up and residential buildings converted into showcases for art. Today, what Prague and London were in the 90's, Berlin has now become: a magnet for anyone who wants to live and work in a city that is humming with cultural energy and, by contrast with the rest of northern Europe, an insane bargain." The New York Times 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 10:41 am
Humanities Meet Human Nature Eileen Mackevich forced departure from the helm of the Chicago Humanities Festival has left the event at a crossroads. Mackevich, who co-founded the festival, was known for crafting a high-minded series that somehow never smacked of elitism, and her ouster was widely portrayed as a purely political move by her enemies on the board. Regardless of the circumstances, the festival will have its hands full as it tries to regroup under new leadership. Chicago Tribune 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 10:19 am
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Crafting A Unique Career Robert Craft has never been music director of an orchestra, and has always taken great pride in causing discomfort to the more staid and traditional corners of the classical music world. Still, Craft's influence over the direction of 20th-century music was profound, and a slew of reissued CDs on the budget Naxos label are reasserting his position as one of the primary trendsetters and culture shapers of his era. The New York Times 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:36 am
The 22-Year-Old Ambassador Whatever you may think of his slightly offbeat style or flamboyant stage manner, there can be no denying that pianist Lang Lang is bringing people back to classical music in droves with a devastating combination of "charm, charisma, stamina and an almost evangelical sense of mission... As far as Lang Lang is concerned, changing the world means you don't just play concerts, you also appear on The Tonight Show and Sesame Street." His open embrace of all the publicity that has come his way in recent years has led to an unusually bitter critical backlash, but none of the sniping seems to have dimished the pianist's confidence or ability in the slightest. Toronto Star 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:00 am
So You Wanna Be An Opera Singer... What does it take to become a player in the hypercompetitive world of opera? "Even a stellar voice is no guarantee of success. It helps, but so do looks and luck and that intangible, uniquely human quality called charisma. A knack for strategic schmoozing can't hurt either. And great hair. Very important, that." Sherrill Milnes, who knows a thing or two about all of those qualities, may be the best thing ever to happen to young singers hoping to become the next big operatic thing. From his perch at Northwestern University, Milnes has earned a reputation as not only one of America's great vocal teachers, but as a man who can prepare students for what they will face in the professional opera world. Chicago Sun-Times 03/13/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:57 am
Shirley Fleming, 75 Legendary classical music critic Shirley Fleming, who wrote for the New York Post and the New York Times, has died at her home in Georgia, aged 75. In addition to her newspaper work, Fleming spent 25 years as editor of Musical America magazine. New York Post 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:10 am
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The Big Broadway Spam Scam Theatregoers who signed up for e-mail newsletters for two popular Broadway musicals may be getting more than they bargained for, after it was discovered that a software glitch allowed the e-mail addresses of those signing up to be accessed by any savvy visitor to the shows' websites. The security hole is one that has frequently been exploited by hackers to gain lists of e-mail addresses for spaming purposes. And in case you were wondering: yes, Monty Python's "Spamalot" was one of the musicals affected. The New York Times 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:03 am
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UK Libraries In Desperate Need Of Cash Britain's public libraries are in serious decline, according to a new report, and a £650 million backlog of crucial repairs needs to be addressed soon. The lack of public funding for library maintenance has led to the "scandalous" situation, and the report calls funding for book allocation "very low" as well. BBC 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:56 am
It's An Author! It's A Marketing Whiz! Wait! It's Both! "With profits in the publishing world pretty flat in recent years, big publicity budgets are largely limited to the heavyweights in the writing world, the proven novelists (such as Stephen King) or famous memoirist (such as Bill Clinton). Everyone else gets about $5,000 to $10,000 to promote their title, if they're lucky. Many get nothing at all... The days when it was enough for an author to launch a Web site and give away some tote bags are over. An unknown writer today has to be an imaginative entrepreneur, with strong marketing skills -- not just a wordsmith." Washington Post 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:34 am
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Rare Victory For Classical Radio In a reversal of the way these things usually go, Cincinnati's all-classical public radio station, WGUC, has purchased WVXU, the city's powerful public news and information station, along with the three-state network it was attached to. The merger has the potential to make WGUC a major force in the increasingly ratings-driven world of public radio, but unlike in so many other markets, where classical stations have been eliminated or converted to news/talk, the consolidation would seem to strengthen the place of classical music on Cincinnati's air. Cincinnati Enquirer 03/11/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 9:39 am
Warner Music To Go Public "As the music industry confronts declining sales, the Warner Music Group said yesterday that it had filed to sell up to $750 million of stock in an initial public offering. The company, which is the smallest of the world's four major record conglomerates by market share, said it expected to sell its stock on either the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq. It did not detail the number of shares it planned to offer or their expected price range." The New York Times 03/12/05
Posted: 03/13/2005 8:09 am
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