Researchers: TV Screen Clutter Impedes Understanding "In the past few years, television stations have begun to reformat their screen presentations to include scrolling screens, sports scores, stock prices and current weather news. These visual elements are all designed to give viewers what they want when they want it. However, Kansas State University researchers say that it's not working. 'Our conclusion has been that if you want people to understand the news better, then get that stuff off the screen. Clean it up and get it off because it is simply making it more difficult for people to understand what the anchor is saying. We discovered that when you have all of this stuff on the screen, people tend to remember about 10 percent fewer facts than when you don't have it on the screen." Newswise 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 7:51 pm
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Barnes Move Cleared By PA Supremes The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected on a technicality an appeal of the decision which cleared the way for the Barnes Foundation to move from its home in suburban Philadephia to the city's thriving downtown. The appeal had been filed by an art student, but the high court ruled that he waited too long to file it. Opponents of the move say that they will continue to look for ways to continue their fight, but they would appear to be out of legal options. Philadelphia Inquirer 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 7:03 am
New Generation Of Collectors Tilts Art Market Towards The New Spring auction season is almost upon us, and indications are that new will be the new old this year. "A decade ago the big money was primarily to be found in Impressionist and modern art. But during the next two weeks of back-to-back evening auctions, newer art is expected to be where hungry buyers will gravitate. Fueled in large part by a passionate group of multimillionaire hedge-fund managers, with deep pockets and a taste for the 20th and 21st centuries, they relish the competition of bidding at auction and will often pay whatever it takes to bring home the best." The New York Times 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 6:39 am
Monet For Money: The Boston-Vegas Art Exchange Continues "It was a gamble when [Boston's] Museum of Fine Arts decided to loan more than a dozen Monets to a Las Vegas casino gallery last year. Art critics and museum curators were not pleased, saying that it violated the mission of the nonprofit institution. But the MFA received a reported $1 million, and the show at the Bellagio Gallery of Art will draw about 450,000 people by its May 30 closing." So naturally, the Bostonians will shortly be sending more works to Vegas for the casino's next show, in exchange for a now-undisclosed amount of money. Boston Globe 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 6:10 am
Is Laocoon A Michelangelo Fake? The Laocoon is an iconic piece oif art, an ancient wonder. But "an art historian is claiming that the ancient masterpiece - which fascinated not just Michelangelo but Blake, who engraved it, and Napoleon, who seized it - is not what it seems. She says it was carved by Michelangelo himself. Can this be possible and, if so, what would it mean?" The Guardian (UK) 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 8:43 pm
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Boulez The Mellow? Think Again. It's almost impossible to write a profile of the suddenly-new-again Pierre Boulez without mentioning how the onetime enfant terrible of music has mellowed over the years. But while Boulez may no longer blast his contemporaries and openly dismiss composers whom the rest of the world loves, his opinions haven't really changed all that much. For instance, Boulez still insists that Stravinsky's neoclassic period - during which all of his most famous works were written - is "totally artificial," and the composer didn't really do anything interesting until he "discovered" twelve-tone music. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 5:22 am
Philly's Very Own Italian Opera Conductor (No, Not That One) Opera Company of Philadelphia may not exactly be La Scala, but that hasn't stopped the company's new young music director from thinking big. When Italian conductor Corrado Rovaris agreed to take the reins at OCP, he shook things up immediately, and has won praise for his willingness to push for what he believes are the highest artistic standards, and the free rein to achieve them. The effect has been immediate. "Many substantial opera companies rely only on visiting conductors and go for years without a music director to consistently build orchestral standards. It's opera: Singers are the attraction... Besides raising musical standards, [Rovaris] is attracting singers whom the company couldn't normally afford." Philadelphia Inquirer 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 5:14 am
Britain Forgets Its Centennial Composers 1905 proved to be a bumper year for birthing British composers. But you'll not be hearing much about them this year. "So who’s to blame for centennial neglect? The finger points at craven British orchestras which seldom venture these days from a narrow corridor of safe works. London bands which once begged Lambert to conduct them cannot spare a birthday bouquet. Birmingham, which commissioned a Rawsthorne symphony, will not revive it. The Halle shows no interest in a local hero. Their timidity diminishes the art they exist to serve." La Scena Musicale 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 8:36 pm
Rethinking The Message Of Rap From The Inside "Violence and vulgarity are hardly unique to rap. The mainstream is full of gore and borderline porn. But these tendencies are undiluted in rap, which is why many young African-Americans and Latinos who grew up embracing hip hop as a grassroots, multimedia art form now deplore rap as a cynical "neominstrelsy" being mass-marketed not just nationally but globally. This global twist is new." OpinionJournal.com 04/28/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 4:56 pm
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Why Tony Blair Never Talks About The London Phil Great Britain is in the midst of an election cycle, with Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair fighting desperately for a third term as the opposition Tories seek to prove to the nation that they deserve another shot. And yet, as the campaign winds down, there has been not a single significant mention of the position of the arts in British culture. The sad truth is that, while British art and culture is thriving like never before, and while the UK has a long tradition of government support, the country lags far behind its European brethren in the establishment of a stable cultural identity which can be used as political capital. The New York Times 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 6:47 am
Nine Out Of Ten Want Mandatory Arts Ed In Schools Nine of ten respondents to a survey in California believe that arts should be a mandatory subject in public schools. "Arts education has been on the decline in public schools for decades because funding has not kept pace with the rising cost of services. The emphasis on language and math instruction has made subjects such as music susceptible to reduction or elimination. Private fundraising has enabled restoration of programs in some, but not all, public schools." San Jose Mercury-News 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 7:39 pm
Proposed Virginia Performing Arts Center Hits A Speed Bump "The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation is acknowledging for the first time that it won't meet a July 1 deadline to raise $93 million for a performing-arts center in downtown Richmond. It's also no longer hoping to open one of its key attractions - a music hall on East Broad Street - by the target date of 2007." Richmond Times-Dispatch 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 5:11 pm
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Harper Lee Emerges, For A Moment Harper Lee, author of the classic American novel To Kill A Mockingbirg, is famously reclusive and publicity-averse. In fact, she hasn't given an interview in over forty years. "But like her reclusive character Boo Radley, Lee recently emerged to perform an act of kindness. The author signed a first edition of her book that will be sold to raise money for the seriously ill son of [a] Cookeville, Tenn., police chief." New York Post 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 6:36 am
France's Other Great Living Composer When you start your career as a French composer in the mid-twentieth century by openly dismissing Pierre Boulez and writing works that don't contain a hint of serialism, you're probably asking for a good swift kick from the establishment. Henri Dutilleux absorbed plenty of them, but somehow, he and his music refused to go away. "His oeuvre vies with that of Boulez to be the most accomplished body of French music in recent years, and yet is relatively neglected because of the 70-year-old [sic] Boulez's greater clangour. But, like Elliott Carter, the 96-year-old US composer, Dutilleux is one of the indomitable forces of music, carrying on writing after all these years." The Guardian (UK) 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 5:33 am
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D.C. Fringe (And We Don't Mean Tom DeLay) Washington, D.C. is getting a fringe festival, and about time, too. "Capital Fringe will be concentrated downtown along the Seventh Street corridor, offering multiple events in 20 venues, ranging from traditional theaters to alternative spaces such as galleries, lobbies, vacant storefronts and outdoor areas." The ten-day festival will launch in summer 2006. Washington Post 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 7:00 am
Playwright To Critic: Get A Clue! Playwright David Eldridge attacks critic Michael Billington's complaint that contemporary plays are lacking in imagination and too tied to a 90-minute formula. "For the most part Billington's thesis is shot through with an ignorance of the modern playwriting culture that is breathtaking for someone who goes to the theatre as much as he does, and belies a backward-looking agenda that bears as little relevance to a 21st-century theatre as John Major's whimsical fantasy of re-creating the 1950s with warm beer and cricket on the village green." The Guardian (UK) 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 8:45 pm
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A Kinder, Gentler, TV Turnoff Push It's Tilt-At-Windmills Week again, otherwise known as TV Turnoff Week, when do-gooders across the U.S. beg, plead, and otherwise cajole us to snap off the tube and for-God's-sake-do-something-with-our-lives. But this year, you may not notice the usual screeching about the evils of television, because proponents of the turnoff effort are taking a new tack, and you probably won't even know they're working on you unless you're paying close attention. Chicago Tribune 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 6:18 am
Movie Filtering Technology Legalized A bill giving legal protection to companies which "sanitize" Hollywood movies by removing nudity, profanity, and innuendo was signed into law by President Bush on Wednesday. "The legislation, called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, creates an exemption in copyright laws to make sure companies selling filtering technology won't get sued out of existence." Wired 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 5:49 am
New Law Threatens Jail Time For File-Swapping "People who 'pirate' music and movies on the internet in the US face up to three years in jail under a new law signed by President Bush on Wednesday. The bill targets file-sharers who put copies of new songs and films online before their commercial release. It also introduces tough new penalties for anyone caught in a cinema filming a movie with a video camera." BBC 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 5:45 am
Rock Away - American Radio Drops Rock Music Rock music is falling off American radio airwaves. "In the last four months, radio executives have switched the formats of four modern-rock, or alternative, stations in big media markets, including WHFS in Washington-Baltimore area, WPLY in Philadelphia and the year-old KRQI in Seattle. Earlier this month WXRK in New York discarded most newer songs in favor of a playlist laden with rock stars from the 80's and 90's. Music executives say the lack of true stars today is partly the reason." The New York Times 04/28/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 8:51 pm
Bollywood's Legit Financing In Peril Bollywood, home to the world's biggest movie industry has long had a shady connection to organized crime. But four years ago "top conglomerates run by India's wealthiest families plunged into film financing when the Indian government declared Bollywood a bona fide industry. A series of flops and millions of lost dollars later, however, and the more respectable investors are running scared, leaving Bollywood's hopes of putting its murky past behind in tatters." Yahoo! (AFP) 04/27/05
Posted: 04/27/2005 8:04 pm
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From Bad To Worse In Denver "The departure of Colorado Ballet's executive director two weeks ago has set off a chain reaction of resignations, including the company's board chairwoman, its head of sales and marketing and five other board members. At the same time, the company still owes the city of Denver $146,629 in rent and other fees from its fall production of "Dracula" in the Buell Theatre. And it will owe about $150,000 more at the end of the current run of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. As a backdrop to all this, Jane Hermann, the New York agent for internationally renowned choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, said the company is in breach of contract with him." Denver Post 04/28/05
Posted: 04/28/2005 6:25 am
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