Critical Conversation: Critics Can't Fix Everything Does the classical music industry expect too much from the critics who cover it? "It asks for 'constructive criticism' which, in my experience, is merely a euphemism for good reviews. Then there are complaints that music critics here don't engage with the music as much as they used to in the glory days... but the space for the single-event review has diminished drastically since their days. One can only look with envy at the column inches the New York Times and most of the big-hitting German daily papers still accord to important opera openings or headline concert events. But the fact is, surely, today, that fewer and fewer musical offerings are headline events." Critical Conversation (AJ Blog) 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 7:01 am
Why Don't We Value Talent? "Nowadays, if someone is vastly more talented than us, we don't congratulate them - we envy them and resent their success. It seems we don't want heroes we can admire, so much as heroes we can identify with. We want to think we could be like them, and so we make sure to select heroes that are like us. This is the real reason for the astonishing rise of reality TV. We allow halfwits to become celebrities precisely because there is no great gap separating them from us. We can't bear the idea that some people might be better than us, so much better that we could never be like them, no matter how hard we tried. That upsets our democratic ethos, our belief that all people are born equal. But raw talent is not distributed equally... The Guardian (UK) 07/21/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:49 pm
A Backlash Against Hip? "Just what is hip has become nebulous in a digital age of microtrends, when a cultural blip goes from underground to overexposed in one season. Likewise, the original concept of hip as something outside the purview of the mainstream has been replaced by the hipstream: mainstream cool packaged by corporate marketing departments. The inevitable backlash — not against the bohemian veritas but the sycophantic consumer of cool — is well underway." Los Angeles Times 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:42 pm
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Chicago's Architectural Mainstay "In the vast pageant of Chicago architecture, Holabird & Root is in every scene. From the Beaux Arts to Art Deco, from the era of Louis Sullivan to that of Mies van der Rohe and beyond, Chicago's most venerable architecture firm has been continually onstage, often in a leading role -- rarely flashy but always rock-solid, durable and reliable... Although Holabird & Root was rarely an innovator (except in its pioneering use of materials such as steel skeletons and pre-cast concrete), it had a way of adapting to the prevailing styles of the day successfully enough to produce memorable, even iconic structures -- such as the original Soldier Field -- that defined Chicagoans' ideas of what civic architecture ought to look like." Chicago Sun-Times 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 6:53 am
Griswold To Minneapolis The acting director and chief curator at L.A.'s J. Paul Getty Museum, who took his name out of the running for that museum's permanent directorship three months ago, has been snapped up by the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. William Griswold will take over as president and director of the MIA this fall. "The Minneapolis job is considered to be a plum because the museum, although smaller and less well-endowed than its counterparts in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, has an enviable collection of paintings, drawings and decorative arts that are often sought for loan exhibitions around the world." Minneapolis Star Tribune 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 6:40 am
Flushing Bush - Protests Over Political Artwork Supporters of President George Bush are protesting the display of a painting on display in California's Department of Justice building in Sacramento depicting "a star-spangled map of United States being flushed down a toilet. The piece, titled "T'anks to Mr. Bush," is part of an exhibit sponsored by California Lawyers for the Arts. The California Arts Council presented the show in conjunction with the attorney general's office, and the paintings hang in the building's cafeteria." San Diego Union-Tibune (AP) 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:00 pm
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China's Next Generation Of Classical Stars As China becomes an ever-more-important player on the world stage, the clash between its relatively closed and controlled Communist society and its desire to compete with Western countries on every front possible is leading to some incongruous situations. Case in point: the rise of China's stable of young classical musicians, bred almost from birth to be the next generation of superstars. On the one hand, the cultural push is giving rise to some phenomenal talents who might otherwise never have had the opportunity to learn the musical craft. On the other hand, some Europeans have been dismayed by the Chinese approach, claiming that children deprived of a normal childhood in favor of intense study in a single area will not grow into well-rounded musicians. International Herald Tribune 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 5:53 am
Marin Makes Peace Before signing her contract as the Baltimore Symphony's next music director, Marin Alsop spent some time with the orchestra's musicians in an attempt to put aside any hard feelings and articulate her artistic vision for the ensemble. The musicians, in return, assured Alsop that they would "always give [her] 110%." Meanwhile, various BSO board members have begun to publicly explain their decision to appoint a music director opposed by 90% of the orchestra's players, and Alsop herself has described the controversy, which seems to have been about principle as much as personality, as "a warning light about other issues the musicians have that need to be addressed." Baltimore Sun 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 5:33 am
- Previously: Baltimore Symphony Board Offers Music Director Job To Alsop "Despite pleas by its musicians that it consider other candidates, the board of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Tuesday formally offered the post of music director to Marin Alsop, the principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England, who will become the first woman to head a major American orchestra." The orchestra's musicians responded: "The musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra are disappointed in the premature conclusion of the music director search process. However, this will not dampen our enthusiasm and zest for music-making. We will work together with Marin Alsop and every other conductor to present the inspiring performances our audience has come to expect." Baltimore Sun 07/19/05
- No One Won This Dust-Up Richard Dyer says that there's plenty of blame to go around in the Baltimore mess. "At this point, no one should be patting themselves on the back except perhaps Alsop, the innocent bystander/victim in an ugly management-vs.-musician conflict. The management and board should never have let the news out before it had all the ducks lined up. And once the announcement was made, the players should not have made a public issue of their dissatisfaction. What possible purpose could this serve?" Boston Globe 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 5:30 am
The Most Popular Music Online? Beethoven Free downloads of BBC Beethoven symphonies have blown off the lid of the download charts, beating all popular music. "Final figures from the BBC show that the complete Beethoven symphonies on its website were downloaded 1.4m times, with individual works downloaded between 89,000 and 220,000 times. The works were each available for a week, in two tranches, in June. It would take a commercial CD recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies 'upwards of five years' to sell as many downloads as were shifted from the BBC website in two weeks." The Guardian (UK) 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:45 pm
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Royal Opera House To Vilar: Pay Up! (Or Else) London's Royal Opera House has given troubled philanthropist Alberto Vilar 60 days to pay up on his £10 million pledge, or else. Or else what? The ROH isn't saying if they'll take Vilar's name off its building. "The 1999 agreement allows the Royal Opera House to give Mr Vilar notice in writing that, by not making the payments he has committed a material breach of that contract. If he does not resume making payments by the end of a 60-day period specified in the agreement, the ROH will then be entitled to notify Mr Vilar that the agreement is terminated." BBC 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:23 pm
Kennedy Center Goal: Bring Arts To The Country Washington's Kennedy Center has big aspirations beyond the beltway. "With its new $125 million education initiative, the Kennedy Center aims to give the performing arts bug to more than 11 million people across the country. The center's expanded programming targets not only young, would-be art lovers but also art managers, aspiring dancers and musicians, and even board members at other cultural institutions." PlaybillArts 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:11 pm
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Lapham Vs. Polanski, With Memory In The Balance Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham has taken the stand in fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski's libel case against Vanity Fair, retelling the story that led to the lawsuit in the first place. In the article in question, Polanski was said to have tried to seduce a young actress on the way to his wife's funeral, offering to make her a star in exchange for sex. In court, Lapham remained firm in his memory of the incident, saying he wa "impressed by the remark [Polanski made to the actress], not only because it was tasteless and vulgar, but because it was a cliché." The New York Times 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 6:34 am
SFS's Principle Oboe Beats Cancer "San Francisco Symphony patrons who watch the stage of Davies Symphony Hall carefully are seeing a welcome sight this month. William Bennett, the orchestra's principal oboist, is back in action after a bout of tonsil cancer. Bennett was diagnosed in September, just before Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the orchestra made their live recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. He kept mum until the recording sessions were over, not wanting to distract anyone from the task at hand, then went in for surgery followed by a punishing course of radiation and chemotherapy. Today, the tumors are gone, and Bennett, 49, is back where he belongs." San Francisco Chronicle 07/20/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 6:05 am
SF Opera Chief Heads To Berlin "San Francisco Opera General Director Pamela Rosenberg will return to Germany next year to become intendant, or administrative director, of the Berlin Philharmonic. In making the move, Rosenberg, 60, whose term at the Opera ends Dec. 31, will be going back to the country that has been her home and base of operations for most of her career. Although she was born and raised in California, her children and grandchildren live in Germany... Rosenberg's appointment in Berlin comes as a surprise. She has little or no experience in the orchestral world, having spent her career in opera. And for an administrator who has always taken a hands-on role in artistic decisions, Rosenberg's new job will involve a much higher degree of fund raising and financial oversight." San Francisco Chronicle 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 5:27 am
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Inside The Lines The tourists who pack Broadway shows seem, unaccountably, to have developed a new habit of standing in line outside the theatre they're waiting to enter, when they could just as easily walk right up to the door and walk to their $100 reserved seat anytime they please. No one seems to know why they do it, and no native New Yorkers seem especially eager to point out that the big line o' tourists isn't strictly necessary. "There was no rational reason to stand in line. Had security lines at airports inured people to standing around, waiting to shed their shoes? Or had Americans since 9/11 come to see lining up as a sign of good citizenry, and a rejection of unseemly anarchy?" The New York Times 07/20/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 5:15 am
The Enduring Appeal Of Vintage Musicals? "Popular culture has turned divisive and pop-based musicals are unlikely to be outings that the whole family can enjoy. What gives the musical form its growing heritage status is an appeal that carries across the generations, from war vets to under-tens, and that is such a precious rarity in our fissured society that it demands conservation and participation. Poised at the midpoint of high and mass culture, musical theatre reaches the parts that more formal arts cannot begin to touch." La Scena Musicale 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:09 pm
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Harry Potter & The Vengeful Nerds The new Harry Potter book is available in dozens of languages, but J.K. Rowling and her publisher appear to have forgotten to market to one key demographic: technogeeks. The lack of an officially sanctioned eBook version of Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince infuriated some readers, and a pirated version of the book sprang up within hours on BitTorrent, thanks to an impressively coordinated effort by hundreds of readers. Wired 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 6:13 am
Get Ready To Pay For Your Surfing At the moment, the internet is a consumer's paradise, with endless mountains of information and entertainment available to anyone with a connection, absolutely free of charge. But will all that content really stay free? Not likely, say some observers. "The only thing slowing down the move away from free content is the sorry state of micro-transactional software. Once all the bugs are worked out, the free internet gateway in which publications generate revenue from ads will slowly morph into another, more-lucrative business model: gated content." Wired 07/21/05
Posted: 07/21/2005 6:09 am
Why Reading Aloud Is So Compelling What I notice as I sit listening with children is how much harder they concentrate on a heard story than a seen one. They can't cheat and follow the pictures to make sense of it, so they listen acutely. They ask questions, too: always relevant, though sometimes tangential. You can almost see their brains working. The Telegraph (UK) 07/21/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:55 pm
Are Libraries Without Books A Good Idea? "Where will the library ghosts go when all the books have been made immaterial and antiseptic through digitization? What is the message of this new medium? What does it mean when the University of Texas at Austin removes nearly all of the books from its undergraduate library to make room for coffee bars, computer terminals, and lounge chairs? What are students in those "learning commons" being taught that is qualitatively better than what they learned in traditional libraries?" Chronicle of Higher Education 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:33 pm
Prison Inmates Raise Money To Keep Public Library Open When the town of Salinas, California threatened to close its public libraries to save money, residents rallied. So did inmates at a local prison. "Prisoners in San Quentin's inmate-to-inmate tutoring program sponsored something of a bake sale for literacy, selling doughnuts, pizza and fried chicken to other prisoners. Today, they will present a $1,000 check to the ailing Salinas Free Library, plus another $500 for literacy services in Marin County. Those sums are nothing to sniff at, given that an inmate with a high- paying prison job makes $56 a month." San Francisco Chronicle 07/20/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:15 pm
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A Powerhouse Principal Svetlana Zakharova, now 26 and a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet, based in Moscow, is a remarkable onstage force. For seven years, Ms. Zakharova was the brilliant young face of the Kirov Ballet, in St. Petersburg, where she spent one year in the corps before being promoted to principal dancer; in 2003, she surprised the dance world by defecting to the Bolshoi." The New York Times 07/21/05
Posted: 07/20/2005 7:37 pm
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