Are Skylines Killing Miami? Miami is filling in its skyline at an alarming rate, and it promises to change the very character of the city. "As of April, there were 261 development projects in motion (this is to say somewhere between preliminary application and recent completion) in the city of Miami. For Miami this means a mind-boggling 69,039 residential units, which is basically the equivalent of building a medium-sized city. Not all of this is what might be considered ''prime'' residential development, along the bay or in or near downtown, but a significant percentage is." Miami Herald 06/01/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 7:45 am
Viso To Direct Hirshhorn Ned Rifkin is giving up directorship of the Hirshhorn Museum to concentrate on running the Smithsonian. Taking for the Hirshhorn is deputy director Olga Viso. "Viso, 38, a Florida native whose parents emigrated from Cuba, joined the museum's curatorial department 10 years ago as an expert on contemporary Latin American art. She became curator of contemporary art five years later, and stepped up to the role of deputy director of the Hirshhorn in 2003. She previously worked for the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla., and holds a master's degree from Emory University." Washington Post 06/01/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 6:58 am
Chicago Art Institute Pushes Out The Chicago Art Institute unveils a major addition designed by Renzo Piano. "The Art Institute will present the design in conjunction with the formal groundbreaking for the new $258 million building, which is to rise in the northeast quadrant of the museum's site, at the corner of Monroe Street and Columbus Drive. The addition will increase the institute's size by one third and is to be completed in the spring of 2009." The New York Times 06/01/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 6:14 pm
Help Wanted: Museum Director Eighteen American museums are looking for directors. "As this leadership shift takes place in the museum world, we can expect big changes in how collecting institutions operate. After several years of controversy over what the mission of museums should be and, in some cases, even outright ethical scandal, there's good reason to hope that trustees will actively seek out directors who make institutional integrity their first priority." Bloomberg 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 5:11 pm
de Montebello: Why Museums Matter Why should the public care about museums? Met director Phillipe de Montebello takes a whack at an answer: "The fact is, in the rooms of our museums are preserved things that are far more than just pretty pictures. These works of art, embodying and expressing with graphic force the deepest aspirations of a time and place, are direct, primary evidence for the study and understanding of mankind." OpinionJournal 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 4:48 pm
What The Barnes Will Mean For Philly The Barnes move to Philadelphia is a coup for the city. Pew Trusts president Rebecca Rimmel: "We had two primary objectives: to make sure the foundation was on secure financial footing and to make sure the art and the education programs were accessible. We could have just given money to solve the first problem, but that would have done nothing for the second…. This is a public asset, something to make Philadelphia even more paramount in art." Los Angeles Times 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 4:42 pm
Record Prices For Canadian Art Record auction prices for Canadian art fuel a brisk market for the resale of Canadian paintings. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 3:24 pm
Are Stadiums The New Museums? "Few famous architects had sullied their hands with stadiums before Herzog and de Meuron did so in Basle (for the club they support, FC Basle) and Munich. They are still building Beijing’s Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Games. All this signals a new era: stadiums are becoming keynote urban buildings, as cathedrals were in the Middle Ages and opera houses more recently. When Norman Foster’s new Wembley opens in 2006, it will be his first stadium in more than 40 years in architecture." Financial Times 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:53 pm
The Electric Brush An electronic brush promises to give artists more control of their digital work. "Unlike other painting programs that allow artists to pick up colors from a limited computer palette, I/O Brush lets people paint with colors and textures that might come from, for instance, a piece of fruit, a favorite shirt, a memento from a trip, a teddy bear or garden flowers. The brush contains a microphone, a miniature video camera, and sensors and is wired to a computer that runs a touch screen. An artist picks up "ink" from her environment by lightly brushing over the desired object." Discovery 05/27/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:48 pm
Ediface Complex "Almost all political leaders find themselves using architects for political purposes. It is a relationship that appeals to egotists of every description. That is why there are photographs of Hitler and Mussolini, Tony Blair and François Mitterrand and the first President Bush - as well as countless mayors and archbishops, chief executives and billionaire robber barons - each bowed over their own, equally elaborate architectural models looking just as narcissistically transfixed as the beatific Saddam beaming over his mosque." The Observer (UK) 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:43 pm
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Sydney Symphony Finishes With Large Surplus The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has closed out its 2004 books with a $582,000 surplus. "Also last year, Gianluigi Gelmetti replaced Edo de Waart as the SSO's artistic director. The change had almost instant success - the concert that launched Gelmetti's tenure, a gala performance of Verdi's Requiem, won a Helpmann award for Best Classical Concert Presentation of 2004." Sydney Morning Herald 06/01/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 7:20 am
Fogel: Why Orchestras Need To Change Orchestras need to change their image, says Henry Fogel, head of the American Symphony Orchestra League: "It's for the fur coat crowd. It's stuffy. It's too formal. I don't know enough about music. It's intellectual, not emotional. I might applaud at the wrong time. I'm, sorry to say that - particularly in the first half to two-thirds of the 20th century - orchestras kind of cultivated that image. Now it's biting them in the behind." Cincinnati Post 05/31/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 6:41 am
Opera - Age Of The Director "It's a fact that today opera is increasingly emphasizing theatrical values rather than musical ones. This may or may not be a good thing, but it's the way it is. And until conductors begin mentoring singers again, until opera houses work harder to understand voice types rather than mounting productions like "Turandot" and "Norma," according to what the audience wants to see, directors will continue to play a significant role in the art form." The New York Times 06/01/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 10:49 pm
Toronto - Looking For A Horn The Toronto Symphony is auditioning for a new horn player. "In North America, the appointment of a new member of a professional symphony orchestra is a complicated process, full of protocols and safeguards intended to ensure that the selection is fair. Good orchestra jobs come up only rarely, and it's been decades since the TSO last searched for a principal horn: Fredrick Rizner held the job for 39 years, before retiring last year to Eastern Ontario, to start an antique business."
The Globe & mail (Canada) 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:54 pm
How Recordings Have Changed Music "For music to remain vital, recordings have to exist in balance with live performance, and, these days, live performance is by far the smaller part of the equation. Perhaps we tell ourselves that we listen to CDs in order to get to know the music better, or to supplement what we get from concerts and shows. But, honestly, a lot of us don’t go to hear live music that often. Work leaves us depleted. Tickets are too expensive. Concert halls are stultifying. Rock clubs are full of kids who make us feel ancient. It’s just so much easier to curl up in the comfy chair with a Beethoven quartet or Billie Holiday. But would Beethoven or Billie ever have existed if people had always listened to music the way we listen now?" The New Yorker 05/30/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 5:38 pm
EBay's Bootleg Biz Even as big recording companies prosecute downloaders for trading in copyrighted recordings, there's a better place to find illegal music: EBay. Sellers are offering lots of bootlegged recordings for sale, and for some reason no one's being sued. Rocky Mountain News 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 3:12 pm
Shock - Wigmore Hall Director Quits "In a move that has shocked the British music world, Paul Kildea, artistic director of the Wigmore Hall - regarded as one of the plum jobs in the arts - has resigned after just two years in the post." The Guardian (UK) 05/26/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:15 pm
Colorado Opera: You Will Donate Want a shot at the best seats in Colorado Opera's new theatre? It'll cost you the price of the tickets plus a "donation" of $100-$500 a seat. Gotta pay for that new building somehow. And the number of donors has gone up. Denver Post 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 1:34 pm
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Canadians Cash Out On Culture Canadians are spending more and more on culture. A new government report say that "consumer spending on cultural goods and services grew 36 per cent from 1997 to 2003. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index, which gauges all spending, increased 14 per cent. The 2003 amount, pegged at $22.8 billion, was more than Canadians spent on alcohol, tobacco and gambling ($20.8 billion) or RRSP contributions ($16.3 billion). Consumer spending on culture was more than triple government contributions to culture nationwide, which topped out at $7.4 billion." Toronto Star 06/01/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 7:14 am
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Vilar Fails Bail, Stays In Jail Alberto Vilar, the man who gave away millions to the arts, apparently can't make bail to spring himself from jail. "His attorneys asked a federal judge Tuesday to delay a bail hearing that might have sprung their client from jail. That hearing has been rescheduled for Friday. Until then, a man once reputed to be among the country's richest men -- in 2004 his personal fortune was pegged at $950 million by Forbes magazine -- will reside in the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan." Washington Post 06/01/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 6:53 am
Composer George Rochberg, 86 "Rochberg was one of the most successful composers of the 1970s and '80s. His Violin Concerto was championed by Isaac Stern, who performed it 47 times between 1975 and 1977; his Symphony No. 5 was premiered in 1986 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti and his Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra was premiered in 1996 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:51 pm
Vilar In Jail "Alberto Vilar, a New York money manager and benefactor to that city's Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera and other leading cultural institutions worldwide, was arrested late Thursday and charged by U.S. authorities with stealing $5 million in client funds, which he allegedly used to pay bills and continue his philanthropy." Los Angeles Times 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 12:32 pm
First American Woman Orchestra Member Dies At 101 "Elsa Hilger, 101, the first woman in the world, other than harpists, to be a permanent member of a major symphony orchestra, died May 17 at Wake Robin Retirement Community in Shelburne, Vt. Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski hired her as a cellist in 1934. She never missed a performance - except the day her son was born - until retiring in 1969. And she retired only because of union rules." Kansas City Star (KR) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:55 am
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A groundbreaking British Play The first-ever play by a British-born black playwright has hit London's West End. "That the play should be a groundbreaking event in London may strike Americans as odd, given the longer tradition of African-American playwrights dramatizing the black experience. But subjects like the lives of West Indians, former colonials, in Britain have rarely been given such a platform here, not to mention plays that examine the pressures on young black Londoners today to live outside the law." The New York Times 06/01/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 6:08 pm
Stars Bid To Save London Theatre "Leading figures in British theatre have made impassioned pleas for London's Arts Theatre - which staged the director Sir Peter Hall's English-language premiere of Waiting for Godot 50 years ago - to be saved from demolition." The Guardian (UK) 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:20 pm
Rebirth Of The Broadway Musical "The resurgence of the musical as a creative form, evidenced in the length and diversity of West End queues, is no mere coincidence. Seeing several hits in close succession suggests a chain reaction, a common attitude. The Producers introduced a genre of self-mockery in which the action halts momentarily to reflect sourly upon itself. This hiatus device appeared at the NT as the so called Jerry Springer Moment and now, in Billy Elliot, as the episodes at the start of each act when the audience is exposed to the legend of British coalmining without the requirement of empathy that came with Daldry’s film." La Scena Musicale 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 10:07 am
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Men Stick With Men A study of what people read reveals that men are more likely to read male authors. "Four out of five men said the last novel they read was by a man, whereas women were almost as likely to have read a book by a male author as a female. When asked what novel by a woman they had read most recently, a majority of men found it hard to recall or could not answer. Women, however, often gave several titles. The report said: 'Men who read fiction tend to read fiction by men, while women read fiction by both women and men." The Guardian (UK) 05/28/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 6:36 am
That Perfect Little Magazine Little literary magazines have small readerships - sometimes just a few thousand. But there's freedom as a writer working for a small publication that cares only for an aesthetic... New York Sun 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:59 pm
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Network TV Audience Stabilizes For the first time, Fox won the network ratings race for a season. More significant though, is that the total network TV audience staying steady this season for the first year in a dozen. "The broadcast networks in general had virtually the same number of prime-time viewers this season as they had in 2003-04, which is significant because viewership had dropped every year since the 1993- 94 season." Rocky Mountain News 06/01/05
Posted: 06/01/2005 7:27 am
Racy DVDs Outsell Their G-Versions "Often racier or more violent than their big-screen counterparts, unrated DVDs usually outperform the less-explicit version. Pouring new life into a movie franchise, they're a valuable marketing tool — particularly effective with the 18-to-34-year-old demographic, the heaviest home video users." Los Angeles times 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 5:56 pm
Trailing Edge - Coming Attractions Movie trailers have become an artform intheir own right. "At the multiplex, it is now common for a theater to present seven, sometimes 10 trailers before the feature film (as is the case now with the latest "Star Wars" episode)." Now there's a festival to screen the best of them. "At the Golden Trailers, known as the Trailzees, organizers showed 95. It was like some kind of extreme scientific experiment you would perform with crack monkeys in cages. If it were legal." Washington Post 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:57 pm
Illinois Legislature Votes Video Game Ban The Illinois legislature votes to ban sales of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors. "Under the legislation, clerks who knowingly sell adult video games to minors could be fined $1,000. They could defend themselves by showing they did not know the buyer was a minor or that they followed the industry ratings on the games." Wired (AP) 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:11 pm
Bye Bye Rock (On The Radio) More and more radio stations are abandoning the rock music format. "With the share of people age 18-34 listening to modern-rock stations down more than 20 percent in the past five years - and with thriving numbers for 13-21-year-olds, a demo some big advertisers don't care about - rock radio should be on a quest to redefine itself. But it's not. " Denver Post 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 1:42 pm
Sound Of Music At 40 "Forty years ago this Memorial Day weekend, "The Sound of Music" was not just the summer movie of 1965. It was the spring, fall and winter one, too, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, it remains the third-biggest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office, according to Box Office Mojo. It hit the Billboard Top 40 video sales chart shortly after it became one of the first movies ever released on home video in 1979, and still holds the chart's longevity record, of more than 300 weeks and counting." The New York Times 05/30/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 1:25 pm
Rolling Over Star Wars Star Wars is a juggernaut that has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie (which many critics say it is not). "Whether the final Star Wars installment is good or bad seems largely irrelevant. Regardless of what ink-stained critics aver, the benighted masses that queue up at theaters at 3 in the morning will continue to debate the philosophical intricacies of C-3PO, Anakin Skywalker and Count Dooku with all the gravity and entrail scrutiny with which monastics once pondered Cartesian dualism." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 12:26 pm
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Taking Tap Back To The Streets Tap is big again, but it's not the tap we remember from Fred Astaire movies. It's rougher street dance. "In its early years, tap boasted the same macho profile as early hip-hop, with dancers holding regular "battles" on street corners. Dancing on makeshift wooden platforms to amplify the sound of their feet, they competed to produce the sharpest, most original rhythms, with the judges sitting under the platform so they could listen without being distracted (or threatened)." The Guardian (UK) 06/01/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 10:54 pm
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