Bravo Piano - Chicago Plan Looks Like A Winner The Chicago Art Institute's expansion plan designed by Renzo Piano and unveiled last week, is a winner, writes Blair Kamin. "The plan calls for a $258 million wing at the southwest corner of Columbus and Monroe Drives that will concentrate the Art Institute's now-scattered modern and contemporary collections in a 264,000-square-foot temple of steel, glass and limestone. Completion is due in spring 2009. In most cities, this would be a stand-alone structure, the leading art museum. Here, it has been deftly woven into an urban composition that includes the sober classicism of the Art Institute's 1893 temple along Michigan Avenue and the baroque modernism of Gehry's Pritzker music pavilion, across Monroe in Millennium Park. That is a balancing act worthy of a circus acrobat carrying a parasol." Chicago Tribune 06/05/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:21 am
Liquidating Wildenstein? A court has said one of the biggest private art inventories may have to be sold. "Unless the sons of the late art dealer Daniel Wildenstein, Alec and Guy, reach a settlement with Daniel's widow, Sylvia Wildenstein, a significant collection of paintings and drawings will be sold at auction in early July." International Herald Tribune 06/03/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 8:59 pm
Pollock Or Not? It looks like there will be protracted battles to determine whether a trove of paintings said to be by Jackson Pollock are authrntic or not. With lines in the dispute being drawn, "they should get the paintings out and let the sides be drawn and make some new educated observations. The thing to do is to keep an open mind until it's all sorted out." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 8:32 pm
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Top Two Cliburn Winners A Contrast Russian pianist Alexander Kobrin wins top honors at the Van Cliburn Competition; Chinese pianist Sa Yang wins second. "Kobrin and Yang, the two top prize winners, couldn't be more different. Kobrin polarized critics, bloggers and audience members. He often received screaming ovations, and fans threw carnations on the stage after his chamber orchestra performance Thursday night. Yet, some critics reacted strongly toward his steely style, dubbing him "The Undertaker." Yang, on the other hand, is effervescent. She so dominated the news conference after the awards, that it was easy to forget Kobrin was actually the gold medalist." Fort Worth Star-Telegram 06/06/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:59 am
- Some Do's And Don'ts At The Cliburn After weeks of listening to competitors of this year's Van Cliburn Competition, Scot Cantrell has some advice for competitors... Dallas Mornign News 06/05/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:54 am
New Star Wars Soundtrack Hits Top 10 The new Star Wars movie sound track has cracked the Billboard Top 10 albums. And the music? It's epic, writes Richard Dyer. "What Lucas does not say is that the music often tells the story more clearly and in greater depth than the filmmaking does; the music's emotional resonances reach further than the dialogue and the acting do." Boston Globe 06/06/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:39 am
An Ode To The Bassoon What use is a bassoon? "We hold the whole thing together. Aside from holding up the bottom of the four main woodwind instruments, we modify our colors, and in the process, suddenly it's not a flute and a bassoon, it's a 'flassoon.' And the combination of clarinet and bassoon is a 'bassinet.' The same thing with the oboe. It's our job to make these instruments into something altogether different. A good bassoon player has to have an ear for color and has to be a good ensemble player." Los Angeles Times 06/05/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:18 am
What Is A Carnegie Hall Concert? "Many casual ticket buyers assume, logically enough, that all classical concerts at Carnegie Hall are in fact Carnegie Hall classical concerts. Not so simple. In fact, two completely different species of events take place inside the same building, even though, as in nature, one species sometimes mimics the other to gain advantage in a competitive cultural ecosystem." The New York Times 06/06/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 10:12 pm
The Computer Recommends... Music retailers are turning to sophisticated computer analysis of music to try to recommend music to consumers. "The listeners classify hundreds of characteristics about each song, including beat, melody, lyrics, tonal palette and dynamics, then plug the data into a music recommendation engine — software designed to find songs that share similar traits." Yahoo! (AP) 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 9:34 pm
Russian Wins Cliburn Russia's Alexander Kobrin, 25, has won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The silver medal went to Joyce Yang, 19, of South Korea. Sa Chen, 25, of China took third place. "Each medalist wins $20,000 in cash, three years of concert tours and career management and the opportunity to record an album. Kobrin also will perform internationally." Yahoo! (AP) 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 9:18 pm
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The Professor Who Attacks Arts Subsidies John Carey's new book "What Good are the Arts?" argues that the majority should not have to pay for the entertainment of the educated minority. "What, he explains, really gets him about Covent Garden, is the 'luxury' of it. He also feels it's wrong that the majority should pay for the pleasures of the educated minority. When there is no way of proving that so-called great art has any transcendental value, Carey feels, it is hard to argue that it should be made available at the tax-payer's expense, as in his view it offers no demonstrable moral or spiritual benefits to society. This even leads him to question the state subsidy that makes the National Gallery entrance free of charge." The Guardian (UK) 06/05/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:13 am
Checking Out The Source Of The Gift Focus on the possible misdeeds of philanthropist Alberto Vilar has got arts organizations and colleges thinking about how they accept gifts. "Nationwide, gifts tarnished by scandal represent a tiny share of campus philanthropy, but the dollar total is rising. In 2003, The Chronicle of Higher Education estimated that campuses had received more than $100 million from firms or individuals investigated, accused or convicted of white-collar swindling." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/06/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 6:55 am
Scotland - Accessibility Threatens Quality? Scotland is undergoing a debate about the accessibility and quality of its support for the arts. Is one incompatible with the other? "We must not confuse accessibility with the lowest common denominator. You should aim to put out the best art exhibitions, the best musical performance, the best book festival and then you make that accessible. My belief is that this shows the greatest respect of all to the individual to whom you are trying to create access, to say 'we have the best here'." Scotland on Sunday 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 10:32 pm
Taking A Closer Look At Benefactors "In an era when megamillionaires are made faster than ever, fund-raising experts have grown more cautious about whom they anoint as board members and about ensuring that pledges are in hand before money is spent. Yet at the same time, arts groups say, there is no sure-fire way to predict or guard against a reversal of fortune. And as corporate and government aid declines, cultural institutions need to take what they can get." The New York Times 06/06/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 10:22 pm
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Rushdie - Campaigning For Freedom As president of PEN/America, Salman Rushdie is campaigning for the American government to loosen laws on banning importation of some literature. "It seems somewhat ironic that Rushdie should survive a period of life-threatening danger, living in 30 houses in nine years, and wind up in the land of the free only to discover that he must start campaigning for freedom all over again." Scotsman on Sunday 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 11:03 pm
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Doubt, Spamalot Win Tonys "Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's drama of suspicion and certainty has won this year's Tony for best play. "Monty Python's Spamalot" wins best musical. Yahoo! (AP) 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 9:13 pm
Blue Men Got The Blues In Toronto The Blue man Group is opening an outpost in Toronto. But there are problems. "With the first preview set for Tuesday night, the major focus is not on the show itself, but on the boycott against it waged by Toronto's three major performing arts unions — Canadian Actors' Equity Association, the Toronto Musicians' Association and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Inflammatory rhetoric is now the order of the day, lawsuits are being threatened and the unions are planning continued action once the previews start." Toronto Star 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 8:28 pm
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Pair Arrested In Theft Of New Harry Potter Two men who stole copies of the new Harry Potter book due out later this summer and tried to sell them to newspaper reporters have been arrested. When one reporter tried to recover the book from the men for police, shots were fired... The Guardian (UK) 06/03/05
Posted: 06/06/2005 7:32 am
Are Book Browsers Disappearing? There are more books available than ever before. And people are still buying. But will booklovers still browse book stores? "People are spending less time in the back of the store, looking through the philosophy section, and more time at the tables for `recommended books' in front. They're looking for someone to narrow their choices." Yahoo! (AP) 06/05/05
Posted: 06/05/2005 9:26 pm
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