Is The Real New Orleans Dead And Buried? A new proposal from the blue-ribbon commission studying ways to rebuild New Orleans has suggested that any low-lying areas of the city which were inundated with floodwaters after the levees on Lake Ponchartrain failed should be abandoned, and Eugene Robinson says that you might as well begin writing the city's obituary. The commission "envisions a city with lots of green space and a new light rail system; it sees revitalized schools and world-class medical research centers, all protected by invincible levees. It might be a nice place to live, but it won't be the old New Orleans. In the old days, at a jazz funeral, the 'second line' of followers would sing and dance the departed to heaven. The music is still playing in New Orleans, but there's nobody to form the second line." Washington Post 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:28 am
The Fabric That Sings To You "Sound and visual artist Alyce Santoro has created Sonic Fabric, a cloth made from pre-recorded, recycled cassette tape combined with other fibers. Using a minimally hacked Walkman, the fabric becomes an audible reminder of its musical past. Sonic Fabric feels a bit like flexible plastic tarp, and is durable and hand-washable." Of course, that's no why it's getting attention: if you run a specially mounted head from a cassette player over the fabric, it will literally play the music embedded in the tape. "[Santoro's] latest creations play 20 tracks at once. She creates sound collages on a four-track, and the reader picks up five strands at a time." Wired 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:00 am
A Culture Of Prizes And Awards "In the realm of literature and the arts, honors have been pullulating like kudzu. Worldwide, the number of movie prizes handed out each year - about 9,000 - is more than double the number of full-length movies produced, and literary prizes are being hatched at a faster rate than new books. The rise of prizes over the last century, and especially their feverish proliferation in recent decades, is one of the more glaring symptoms of a consumer society run rampant, a society that can conceive of artistic achievement only in terms of stardom and success." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:22 pm
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Do We Need All Those Galleries? Those Museums? "Do galleries have to run or look the way they do? How inevitable is the repeating cycle of solo and group exhibitions and the steady movement of artworks from galleries to museums, auction houses and collectors' homes? How can you slow, expose or disrupt the delivery mechanism - maybe even avoid it altogether occasionally - to reassert art as a process and a mind-set rather than a product?" The New York Times 01/13/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:27 pm
In LA - Immersed In Images "Los Angeles has recently been home to several large-scale immersive image environments. A cynical perspective would suggest this is due to museums’ waning importance and the subsequent need to attract viewers with big, sparkling, cinematic images. Further, the easy mixing of disparate cultures and histories in massive mash-ups of artists and image-based technology suggests a utopian global village and a narrative of unity and harmony wrought by digital tools." On the other hand, maybe not... LAWeekly 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:47 pm
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Nashville To Open Its New Hall With A Bit Of Down-Home Flair When the Nashville Symphony opens its new $120 million concert hall this fall, the celebration will be clearly designed to draw in more than just your average fan of Beethoven and Brahms. In country music's undisputed capital city, outreach is a must for a classical orchestra, and Nashville's opening concert at the new Schermerhorn Symphony Center will feature, among other guests, jazz/bluegrass banjo legend Bela Fleck and crossover bassist extraordinaire Edgar Meyer. Conductor Leonard Slatkin will lead the gala, as the orchestra is between music directors following the death of longtime leader Kenneth Schermerhorn last year. PlaybillArts 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:18 am
Pop Goes The Orchestra Manager The San Antonio Symphony has named local beverage industry executive David Green as its next president and CEO, continuing a long-demonstrated preference for executives plucked from the corporate world with little to no experience in the orchestral sphere. "Green has held several executive positions, including chief financial officer and vice president for operations, at San Antonio's Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of the Southwest. [He also] founded Logicor LLC, a company that makes productivity-enhancing equipment for soft-drink dispensers... Green becomes the symphony's seventh interim or permanent top administrator in less than seven years, and the fourth to have no prior experience in orchestra management." San Antonio Express-News 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:13 am
Alsop In Baltimore: You Can't Hear The Controversy Over The Music For the first time since her appointment as music director designate of the Baltimore Symphony and the subsequent controversy that erupted when the BSO's musicians complained that they had been shut out of the appointment process, Marin Alsop has taken the stage to conduct what will become her orchestra in 2007. Since those difficult days, Alsop and the musicians have been taking pains to demonstrate that there are no hard feelings, and "last night, the orchestra continued signaling its intention to work with Alsop, this time in the best possible way - giving her a strong, attentive performance of a program that very much reflected the kind of tastes she is going to bring to the organization." Baltimore Sun 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:00 am
Zukerman: NACO's "Rotten Apples" Must Be Eradicated Following a week of bad publicity and press revelations about his behavior as music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Pinchas Zukerman has as much as admitted that it wasn't physical exhaustion that caused him to take a last-minute leave of absence from the ensemble for the remainder of the current season. Zukerman has been quoted saying that the NACO has some "rotten apples" who have created a divisive atmosphere within the organization that "has to be eradicated." Representatives of the NACO's musicians have shot back that Zukerman's single-mindedness and unwillingness to hear dissent is the real problem, and the orchestra's manager is backpedaling in an attempt to ratchet the rhetoric down a few notches. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 5:43 am
- Previously: The Puzzling Case Of The Conductor Who Abandoned His Orchestra Why did Pinchas Zukerman abandon his National Arts Center Orchestra in the middle of the season? Officially the orchestra says the conductor is taking sick leave. But "his freelance schedule between now and the end of the season includes dozens of concerts on three continents, including a European tour with the National Orchestra of Belgium. That doesn't look like the agenda of a man dragging his feet with fatigue. Nor does it seem much in keeping with Zukerman's formal obligation, in the contract he signed with the NACO in 1998, 'to ensure that his role and responsibility to NACO are a top priority of his career'." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/12/06
Chicago Lyric Freezes Ticket Prices (Sort Of) Chicago Lyrica Opera used to sell out most performances. Now it sells 90 percent of its seats. Still good. But. "To help stop any further erosion and, at the same time, reward its longtime subscribers, the Lyric is coupling its announcement of repertory and casts for its 2006-07 season with the news that it also is freezing subscription prices next season. That's the good news. The bad news, for single-ticket buyers, is that the company (which has an operating budget of $58.2 million) is raising single ticket prices by about 3 percent." Chicago Tribune 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:34 pm
Mozart And The Case Of The Boring Tenor Tenor Ian Bostridge loves Mozart, yes he does. "But there is a problem with Mozart, one I readdress every time I sing in one of his operas. It has been said - often - that Mozart tenor roles are boring. This is an opinion that I am anxious, for obvious reasons, to rebut. However, the evidence to support it is easy to find." The Guardian (UK) 01/13/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:31 pm
A Flood Of Classical DVDs "While classical recordings dwindle, or self-feed on repackaged reissues, the flood of video operas continues unabated and, for the most part, rewarding. I can remember when experiencing just the sounds of Wagner’s Ring at home meant piecing together several albums of excerpts with varied casts and agonizing omissions. Now my shelves bend under the weight of five complete videos of the cycle." LAWeekly 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:53 pm
Mozart's Diary Online "A digital version of Mozart's musical diary is being put online by the British Library to help celebrate 250 years since the composer's birth. The digitised diary lets people click on and hear music from the opening bars of many of the works it mentions." BBC 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:08 pm
San Diego Chamber Orchestra Gets A New Leader In the midst of auditions for a new music director, the San Diago Chamber Orchestra suddenly canceled the rest of them and hired conductor Jung-Ho Pak, the San Diego Symphony's former artistic director. San Diego Union-Tribune 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:02 pm
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California May Boost Arts Funding... A Bit California, which perenially ranks last in the nation in per capita arts funding, is proposing to add $2 million per year to the state arts budget by promoting the sale of a new arts-themed license plate. Several other states offer such plates, which can be purchased for an additional fee by any driver, with all profits going to the state arts board. The influx of funds would raise California's arts budget by more than 50%, but in a sign of just how meager that budget is, it would remain firmly in last place in per capita funding among the fifty states. Los Angeles Times 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:54 am
KC PAC A Long Way From Fundraising Goal Backers of Kansas City's proposed $346 million performing arts center have managed to raise only $11 million of the $45 million they'd hoped to raise by February 1 in order to keep the controversial project on track. Without a successful campaign, it is unlikely that construction could begin on the center this year. As an incentive to potential donors, PAC backers are offering to sell the naming rights for one of the venues within the center for $5 million. Kansas City Star 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:05 am
Is It A Hijacking If No One Notices They're Being Hijacked? A group of Danish artists last month attempted to "culturally hijack" the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been the subject of much controversy as a holding site for suspected terrorists who, under Bush administration policy, are frequently denied the right to a court hearing or access to legal representation. "The artists hoped a blast of Beethoven’s Eroica [Symphony] from a boat moored offshore would send the American forces fleeing in terror and that they and their crew could occupy the military base and 'have a great party'." Shockingly enough, soldiers armed with automatic weapons operating a prison camp behind fortified walls and rows of razor wire turn out not to be frightened of classical music. The Art Newspaper 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 5:35 am
Canadian Actors To Pols: What About Culture? Where do Canada's leaders stand on culture? The country's artists want to know: "With less than two weeks left in the election campaign, we know very little about the parties' plans on cultural issues. Canadians deserve to see the parties' cultural planks before we let them lead us down a path of no return. We're asking Canadians to vote for the candidates most committed to taking action to give our country a strong, vibrant and independent culture." Toronto Star 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:02 pm
Wanted: Better Canadian Cultural Support Canadian actors are lobbying for a more aggressive support of culture from federal politicians who are about to face the electorate. "We are facing cultural integration with the U.S. and our next government needs to take immediate action. Our own broadcasters are more interested in simulcasting U.S. programming than they are showing Canadian programs."
Canoe.com 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 6:51 pm
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Remembering Birgit Nilsson It used to be said of Nilsson that she had "dimples of iron." She insisted upon being paid the highest fee an opera house could offer. Rudolf Bing, who was general manager of the Met from 1950 through 1972, was asked if Nilsson was difficult. "Not at all," he replied. "You put enough money in, and a glorious voice comes out."
Washington Post 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 6:59 pm
- Nilsson - A Wonder Of The World "The size, power and precision of Ms. Nilsson's voice was long considered to be one of the seven wonders of the operatic world, starting in her 1946 Stockholm Royal Opera debut in Der Freischütz and her 1951 Glyndebourne Festival debut in Idomeneo." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 6:00 pm
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Marin Theatre Director Moves On Lee Sankowich is quitting as director of the Marin Theatre Company after 16 years. "His tenure at Marin has been marked by improvements in general production quality as the budget has grown from about $800,000 to $2 million. He also attracted some national recognition with a commitment to developing new works." San Francisco Chronicle 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:09 pm
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Creative Embellishment Or Plain Old Lying? The literary phenomenon known as "creative nonfiction" has caught on in recent years, especially among authors who are belatedly discovered to have made up parts of what were supposed to be factual books. As memoirs and other works of supposed non-fiction have risen to become the most profitable corner of the publishing industry, the line of acceptability in "sprucing up" dull old reality has been blurred. The problem may be that, unlike magazines and newspapers, publishers don't spend a lot of time on fact-checking, and basically take an author's word on the events related in a given manuscript. Chicago Tribune 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:45 am
Oprah Backs Frey, Random House Denies Refund Story Oprah Winfrey says she still supports James' Frey's "A Million Little Pieces", even if not all he events depicted are true. "I am disappointed by the controversy surrounding 'A Million Little Pieces,' because I rely on the publishers to define the category that a book falls within." In other news of the Frey, publisher Random House denies it is offering refunds on the book. Washington Post 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:57 pm
- Frey: 18 Pages In Dispute? I'm Shocked! Author James Frey defended his memoir Wednesday night on Larry King. Frey, 36, told King that only 18 pages of his 432-page memoir were in dispute, an "appropriate ratio for a memoir." He said there was a "great debate on what a memoir should serve: the story or some kind of journalistic truth. I've been shocked by the furor that's erupted. I don't know any memoir in the history of publishing that's been so carefully vetted so long after publication." Yahoo! (USAToday) 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:12 pm
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Musicland Files Chapter 11 "Musicland Holding Corp., among the nation's most prominent music retailers, filed for bankruptcy reorganization after years of losses and relentless competition from superstores such as Circuit City and its onetime owner Best Buy." Musicland operates Sam Goody, Media Play, and Suncoast Movie stores across the country. "Musicland's woes began a decade ago, as its mall stores saw its customers siphoned away by the rapid growth of big-box retailers where prices on music and movie releases often are $3 to $4 cheaper. The advent of downloading songs from the Internet further pressured in-store sales." Minneapolis Star Tribune 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:59 am
Has The Small Screen Eclipsed The Big One? It's finally happened. "The best American television is better today than the best American movies... Adequate is what movies, these days, are above all required to be: tasteful, familiar and safe. The schlock of the past has evolved into star-driven, heavily publicized, expensive mediocrities that carefully balance novelty and sameness... Television not only offers writers the chance to create nuanced characters but also to follow them on deeper journeys than any two-hour film could offer." Chicago Tribune 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:50 am
Apple Under Fire On Privacy Criticism is mounting over privacy concerns at Apple's online iTunes music store. The iTunes site collects information on users in order to recommend tracks other than those already purchased, and Apple says that it doesn't keep the information or use it for other purposes. "Privacy advocates complained that Apple had not done enough to warn people about the information that was being collected, nor what was being done with the collected data." BBC 01/13/06
Posted: 01/13/2006 6:34 am
Wanted: Gadgets That Can Talk To One Another Last week's Consumer Electronics Show offered lots of whiz-bang ways to get electronic entertainment. A utopia? Or a maze of tech problems? Tech heavyweights such as Intel, Panasonic, Samsung and Sharp all showed off networking systems, but none of those systems are designed to work together. The resulting problems are similar to miscommunication between people who speak the same language but different dialects -- sometimes they might understand each other perfectly well, but at other times they might not. Wired 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 7:26 pm
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Everything (And More) Tango Robert Farris Thompson's gargantuan new critical study, "Tango: The Art History of Love," argues that African rhythms are at the root of Argentina's most alluring export.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 01/12/06
Posted: 01/12/2006 8:15 pm
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