The Real Greatest Generation (Just Ask Them) The first wave of the massive generation known as the Baby Boomers is about to turn 60, and Alex Beam can think of nothing worse than continuing to live in a world where the culture is dominated by his fellow self-absorbed children of the '60s. "The continuing cultural hegemony of the boomers means that, for the rest of my life, every time I turn on a radio, I run the risk of hearing the song A Horse With No Name. Now there's a reason to move to Canada. How does one loathe the boomers? Let me count the ways." Boston Globe 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:20 am
Deck The Halls With Blood And Tears "What's going on in [London] theatres this Christmas? Discerning theatregoers have long had access to alternative shows at the festive season as innovative companies eschew the commercial instincts of the panto industry. But this year, it seems, some theatres have abandoned the glitz entirely, taking audiences to a far darker world where macabre is all the rage." The Guardian (UK) 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:09 pm
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Antiquities Market Strong Despite True Trial "The antiquities market appears to be thriving in spite of adverse publicity from the trial in Rome of Marion True, the former curator for antiquities at the Getty Museum in California... At Christie's £8.2 million antiquities auction this month, its second highest total ever, a 4,000-year-old, 14in statue of a family group made a record for any Egyptian antiquity, selling for £1.6 million to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas... Looking ahead, another local market worth watching could be Greek art of the 19th and 20th centuries. Proceeds from the Greek art sales at Bonhams and Sotheby's in London have nearly doubled in the past four years, rising to more than £8 million this year." The Telegraph (UK) 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:46 am
UK's National Portrait Gallery: 150 Years Of Art Crossed With Celebrity "It is not always easy to grasp what Britain's National Portrait Gallery is for. Is it about fame or the art of portraiture? And, if the former, how to differentiate it from Madame Tussaud's or a historical [celebrity magazine]? ... It was on a different wave of self-confidence that Lords Stanhope, Ellesmere and the others floated the idea of a National Portrait Gallery 150 years ago. They wanted a gallery that would reflect the Whig view of history, a parade of personalities who could fairly be seen as the cultural and political ancestors of what had only recently become an administratively centralised world empire. What they got, and we have still got, is rather different: a gallery that shows art in the service of human individuality." Financial Times (UK) 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:36 am
Six Indicted In Scream Theft Six indictments have been handed down by Norwegian prosecutors in the August 2004 theft of Edvard Munch's masterpieces, The Scream and Madonna, from an Oslo museum. "Three of those indicted are already in police custody. Five of the suspects are charged with aggravated robbery tied to organized crime, which could result in prison terms of up to 17 years. The sixth is charged with fencing, because he allegedly helped store the stolen paintings. Neither has been recovered." Aftenposten (Oslo) 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 9:25 pm
Architect of Faith Whether for better or for worse, religion is becoming an important global issue once again, and more often than not, matters of faith seem to be fodder for bloody conflict and bad feeling between nations. So a prominent architect who specializes in designing houses of worship can be counted not only as a progressive development, but a profoundly unusual one. But Mario Botta's driving inspiration goes beyond simple religious faith, and crosses over into a complex and deeply felt belief in "ethical" design. The Guardian (UK) 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:04 pm
Paris's Rodin Reinvents "Big changes are afoot at the Rodin Museum in Paris. There is a new and more spacious entrance on the Rue de Varenne, and a new and more generously stocked bookshop. Orientating oneself through the gardens and into the main body of the museum in the Hotel Biron feels less bemusing than in the past. What is more, a new director, Dominic Vieville, has just been appointed, and the museum's 19th-century chapel, closed for restoration for almost a decade, has reopened as a space for twice-yearly temporary exhibitions." Financial Times (UK) 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:01 pm
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Are We Too Hung Up On Acoustics? "Music lovers, critics and writers worry too much about acoustics. Truly bad acoustics - whether you hear too little or too much - cannot be ignored, but the imperfect world that lingers between the two extremes just has to be dealt with. The hall is too bright (Walt Disney in Los Angeles); the hall is dead (Royal Festival Hall in London). There are devils everywhere intent on spoiling your listening pleasure. Go to concerts, and hear people cough and cellphones ring. Stay at home, and your CD player skips or an ambulance goes by the door. Relax. Rise above it." The New York Times 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:15 am
Boston Opera Company Scraps Plans For Free Aida "Three years after Boston Lyric Opera staged a free production of Carmen that drew a stunning 140,000 people to the Common, the company has reluctantly shelved plans for a follow-up event, concluding that it couldn't find enough local corporate support to underwrite the show. After wrestling with funding for months, the opera company announced yesterday that it has scrapped a free production of Aida set for September 2006. The abrupt cancellation is a sign that local arts groups are starting to feel the impact of recent corporate mergers and acquisitions, which have diminished the number of companies with home bases -- and loyalty -- in the region." Boston Globe 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:49 am
Ugly Estate Battle Brewing In Edmonton The Edmonton Symphony thought it had $1 million or more coming to it from the estate of philanthropist Stuart Davis, but a dispute over the money has erupted between the orchestra and Davis's son, who believes that the money is rightfully his. At issue is a handwritten copy of Davis's will, which includes multiple revisions and crossed-out sections. The pbilanthropist distrusted lawyers to the point that he refused to consult them in preparing his estate for posthumous dispersal, leading to the dispute. Edmonton Journal 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:37 am
Concord Buys Telarc Cleveland-based classical recording company Telarc International has been acquired by the California-based Concord Music Group. In Telarc's nearly 30 years of existence, it has captured 46 Grammy awards and led the way in making compact discs the new standard for recording in the 1980s. "[Telarc's] catalog has 1,000 titles, including albums by the Cleveland Orchestra, jazz great Dave Brubeck and the South African vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo." The merger will not mean the end of the Telarc name, and the business will continue to operate from its suburban Cleveland home. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:20 am
Zukerman Taking A Break From Nat'l Arts Centre Ottawa's National Arts Centre Orchestra has announced that music director Pinchas Zukerman will take a half-season sabbatical from the ensemble, effective with the start of the new year. He was scheduled to conduct five more concerts in the current season, but the NACO will find guest conductors to cover those dates. The centre says it fully expects Zukerman, whose current contract is up at the end of the 2006-07 season, to return in fall 2006, but news of the sabbatical came as a surprise to the orchestra's musicians. Ottawa Citizen 12/19/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:08 am
- NACO on Zukerman: Don't Fret, He'll Be Back The Zukerman announcement had a predictable effect on the orchestra world - speculation is rampant concerning the violinist/conductor's longterm status with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. But NACO officials are taking pains to make clear that Zukerman's unexpected "sabbatical" is not a precursor to his leaving the ensemble, and the orchestra's managing director says that he expects to announce an extension of Zukerman's current contract soon. "There has been some tension behind the scenes in recent seasons, as musicians have become divided about Zukerman, but [one] musician said 'there's been nothing really that unusual that you would think might have provoked this.'" Ottawa Citizen 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:05 am
Government Continues To Bully Australian Opera "The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra cannot budget for productions because the Federal Government is refusing to reveal the results of a review of its funding and management." The review is completed, but the government doesn't want to give away its funding priorities in advance of next May's budget negotiations in Parliament. Australian Opera has run significant deficits in recent years, and was forced to hire nearly an AUS$100,000 worth of extra musicians last month when new workplace regulations deemed sound levels in the orchestra pit legally unhealthy. Sydney Morning Herald 12/20/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 9:18 pm
Iranian Leader Bans Western Music Iran's new hardline president, who has made waves in recent weeks with his comments questioning the scale of the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel, has banned all Western music from state-owned radio and TV stations. The ban includes everything from American pop to European classical music, and is "an eerie reminder of the 1979 Islamic revolution when popular music was outlawed as 'un-Islamic' under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini." The move comes weeks after the conductor of the Tehran Symphony quit his post and left the country in protest of the government's ill treatment of his musicians. The New York Times (AP) 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 9:02 pm
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Reacting To Disaster With Art "Ever since the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that left at least 216,000 people dead or missing, artists from around the world have tried to capture the epic scale of the horrific event... The Thai Culture Ministry organized an exhibit in October in the popular tourist resort of Phuket, where many people lost their lives in the waves, to help make tsunami art more accessible to the public. About 30 artists showed their sculptures, installations and paintings." Chicago Tribune 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 7:59 pm
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The Long Journey Back Pianist Alexei Sultanov's motor skills may have been destroyed by a crippling series of strokes, but the part of his brain that allowed music to reach him survived, and he fought to regain his ability to play the piano, even as more basic tasks such as walking or speaking eluded him. "On a cellular level, the musical brain remains virtually uncharted territory. The calamity of Sultanov's strokes, though, showed how quickly a virtuoso's brain can be robbed of its gifts--and how slowly and painstakingly they can be reclaimed." Chicago Tribune 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:27 am
A Wunderkind Cut Down... Alexei Sultanov was 7 when he began performing as a soloist with professional orchestras in his native Uzbekistan. He was 19 when he became the youngest pianist ever to win the prestigious Van Cliburn Competition. And he was barely 30 when five simultaneous strokes wracked his brain and left him a shell of the energetic young musician he had always been. "Though doctors eventually stanched the hemorrhage, the damage was done. The strokes destroyed portions of his brain that are central to normal life and to the extraordinarily complex task of making music." Chicago Tribune 12/18/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 7:25 pm
- ...And Reborn Alexei Sultanov might have given up on life, let alone music. After his strokes left him a broken man, he couldn't even bear the sound of the music which had once been his whole world. But a determined physical therapist refused to accept her patient's defeat, and demanded that he relearn not only the basic skills of human movement, but the intricate art that had made him famous. Sultanov resisted at first, fighting against the humiliation of struggling to bang out a single melody line on a keyboard he could no longer recognize. But then, that Christmas... Chicago Tribune 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 7:20 pm
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Dublin Throws Struggling Theatre A Lifeline Ireland's beleagured Abbey Theatre is to receive a €4 million ($4.77 million) aid package from the federal government which will wipe out its €3.4 million debt and allow it to begin to dig out from several years of "catastrophic box office returns." The Guardian (UK) 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:40 am
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Seeing The Book Business From Both Sides "Laurence J. Kirshbaum, who spent 30 years in the book business, nearly all of it at Time Warner and its corporate forebears, made his mark in the staid publishing world by signing up celebrity authors like Madonna and offering million-dollar advances to franchise writers like James Patterson and Nelson DeMille. Now he has become part of a steady stream of editors and publishers who, over the last two decades, have jumped to the agenting side of the business." The New York Times 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 6:12 am
Neue Deutsche Bücher Sind Ganz Plötlich Wunderbar! "Having eschewed the traditional model of heavy, politics-laden prose in favor of light, even lively storytelling, German authors are in the midst of a breakthrough that is propelling their work to hitherto unfound success abroad." The factors leading to the increased popularity of German literature abroad appear to be myriad, but there is little question that the influence of the Frankfurt Book Fair has played a role, as has Oprah Winfrey's famous book club. The New York Times 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:59 am
Well, There Are Only So Many Ways To Describe Bloodstains Crime writers have long been relegated to an unfashionable corner of the literary sphere, somewhere between political satirists and romance novelists. But why should great writing go unrecognized and unrewarded just because it happens to concern cops and robbers? At least one prominent author is speaking out. The Independent (UK) 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:12 pm
Making Their Own Way A new Boston-based children's magazine may be the ultimate in niche marketing, and it represents a fascinating crossover between the world of traditional publishing and the do-it-yourself ethos of the online world. "On several counts, Kahani is unusual. The founders knew nothing about magazine publishing when they started in 2004 but found their way with study, practice, and expert advice. They have no advertising; they've funded the project themselves, so far. Most unusual is the publication itself: the first children's literary magazine for South Asian kids in the United States." Boston Globe 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 7:56 pm
Your Own Slice Of The Pi From the moment Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel, The Life of Pi, came to public attention, it seemed to cry out for images to match the vivid prose. A deal for the movie rights predictably followed, and now, Martel is taking the unusual step of soliciting illustrations for a new edition of the book. Amateurs and professionals alike are invited to submit entries in the competition, which is being sponsored by Martel's publisher in partnership with newspapers in Canada, Australia, and the UK. The Age (Melbourne) 12/17/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 7:49 pm
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Golden Globe Press Organization Roiled By Suicide The small and ultra-secretive cadre of foreign entertainment journalists behind Hollywood's second-biggest awards ceremony has been shaken by the suicide of one of its own. "The events surrounding the suicide, which occurred four days before this year's [Golden Globe] nominations were announced in Beverly Hills, offer a rare glimpse at the inner workings of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which has used disciplinary procedures to protect a lucrative show that has become an important part of the Hollywood awards game." The New York Times 12/20/05
Posted: 12/20/2005 5:55 am
Kidding Because They Love Peter and Bobby Farrelly are not exactly known for highbrow comedy. The sibling filmmakers behind the slapstick hits There's Something About Mary and Dumb & Dumber have always relied on gross-out gags and borderline-offensive jokes to sell tickets, and while their movies frequently garner good reviews from serious critics, they are hardly the stuff of serious art. So you might have expected the folks at the Special Olympics to react with horror upon learning that the Farrelly's next movie would feature a protagonist who fakes a mental disability in an attempt to steal the gold at the games. Instead, though, officials from the organization saw an opportunity, and the result is a movie that all involved hope treads the line of good taste in the name of humanizing those with disabilities. Washington Post 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:55 pm
How Many 18-Year-Olds Do You Know With Any Money, Anyway? If you're not between the ages of 18 and 49, you may as well be dead to the American entertainment industry and its attendant advertisers. The rationale behind this seemingly arbitrary distinction has always been based on issues of disposable income and willingness to spend it, but as an article of faith, the dominance of the young adult crowd seems to be seriously flawed. "It's almost impossible to get anyone to revisit conventional wisdom, but maybe it's time advertisers took a deep, relaxing breath and a careful second look. It's possible they're coveting a demographic that's strapped for cash and not watching much television. And ignoring one, with cash, that is." Los Angeles Times 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:40 pm
Emmy To Recognize "Non-Traditional" Media The Daytime Emmy Awards have taken the first step in acknowledging the importance of new media forms in the modern entertainment industry, announcing the creation of a new category for Outstanding Achievement in Content for Non-Traditional Delivery Platforms. "The award will recognize excellence in entertainment programming created specifically for viewing online or via cellphone, Ipod or video-on-demand." Los Angeles Times 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:34 pm
Is Satellite Radio On The Verge of Stability? Satellite radio has never suffered from a lack of faith on the part of its investors. "It's only a matter of time," we've been constantly told, before pay radio becomes the new standard in a media universe clogged with corporate radio conglomerates, 8-minute ad blocks, and shrinking playlists. The predictions may have seemed grandiose, but with XM and Sirius finally snaring some top-of-the-line star personalities (Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, and Bob Dylan) and securing exclusive deals with the four major sports leagues, satellite may be on the verge of fulfilling its promise. The New York Times 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:30 pm
Middle America May Not Hate Gay Cowboys After All There was never really any question about whether Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, fast becoming known as "the gay cowboy movie," would be a good film. From the beginning, the critics were nearly unanimous in their approval. But the larger question was obvious: is the wider America of 2005, a country deeply divided along social and political lines and embroiled in a bitter debate over issues of homosexuality, ready to embrace a love story with two men in the lead roles? The early answer, it appears, is yes. In its first weekend in wide release (beyond the notoriously liberal boundaries of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco,) cracked the top ten in national box office receipts, and scored with moviegoers in locales as diverse as St. Louis, Miami, and Plano, Texas. Los Angeles Times 12/19/05
Posted: 12/19/2005 8:19 pm
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