And The Artists Shall Lead Them... These days, there is no shortage of gay characters on television or stage, and the increasingly easy familiarity of theatre audiences with gay culture makes it easy to forget just how far we've come in a relatively short time. Are we really only 20 years removed from La Cage Aux Folles, with its stereotypical drag queens and (at the time) shocking revelations of gay life? Dominic Papatola says that, at a time when much of America seems to be swinging hard to the right on social issues, the evolution of the arts paint a much different picture of the future. St. Paul Pioneer Press 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 8:45 am
Arts Need Mission As Much As Money Louisville has a long and proud cultural tradition, but in recent years, many of the city's arts groups have struggled financially, and Andrew Adler says that the problem isn't merely monetary. "Simply saying we 'need' an orchestra isn't sufficient. Same with the opera, the ballet, etc. Of course it takes money to keep these organizations afloat, and more than that, to make them thrive. But the aesthetic imperative continues to be obscured when financial concerns constantly occupy the foreground." Louisville Courier-Journal 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 8:21 am
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Gender Barrier Officially Down At U.S. Museums There was a time when top jobs at museums were more or less off-limits to women, but a survey of today's art world shows that the glass ceiling has long since shattered, and to good effect. "Women are especially prominent at the nation's top tier of modern and contemporary art museums... Directors point to women's long history of involvement in museum-dom, the culmination of decades of institutional advancement and greater diversity on the boards of trustees that hire directors." Los Angeles Times 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 9:39 am
Was Kandinsky Painting By Sound? "A new exhibition of Wassily Kandinsky's work shows how the artist used his synaesthesia - the capacity to see sound and hear colour - to create the world's first truly abstract paintings... There is still debate whether Kandinsky was himself a natural synaesthete, or merely experimenting with this confusion of senses in combination with the colour theories of Goethe, Schopenhauer and Rudolf Steiner, in order to further his vision for a new abstract art." The Telegraph (UK) 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 9:36 am
MIA's Grand Opening The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has unveiled a major expansion, and officials are hopeful that the ability to display a larger percentage of its collection will elevate MIA, which has always been considered a respected midsize institution, to the rank of top U.S. museums. "The new Target wing designed by Michael Graves is devoted to 20th-century art. There also are many more galleries for non-Western art, including six new Japanese galleries and one for art from the Pacific Islands." Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:12 am
Major Asian Collection To Have Homes In New York, Minnesota The largest privately held collection of Japanese art outside of Japan is being split up and donated after its owner's death to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Mary Griggs Burke's well-known collection is 900 pieces strong, and has long been coveted by museums around the U.S. The announcement comes as the Minneapolis museum is unveiling its new expansion, which includes a major increase in gallery space devoted to Asian art. Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:02 am
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Toronto's New Opera House Toronto's glittering new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts opens this weekend, and the $150 million venue is aiming high, as is the primary tenant, the Canadian Opera Company. "Architect Jack Diamond's spare, modernist structure is first and foremost an ideal place to experience the powerful blend of words, music and drama that is opera. If the opera company and its associated Canadian Opera House Corporation can continue to pay their way, the new structure heralds a bigger dot for Toronto on the world's cultural map." The Four Seasons Centre opens just in time to play host to COC's upcoming production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Toronto Star 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:54 am
- Opera As Exhibit A In The Wonder Of The Modern City So Toronto's opera lovers have a new palace. That's nice and all, "but why should anyone who doesn't know Parsifal from Pagliacci give two hoots? The answer, I think, has something to do with the importance and the wonder of cities... Cities stretch us, challenge us, broaden us. Cities, like magazines in their glory years, can pique our curiosity with an almost unlimited table of contents. And we become intrigued. About hockey, perhaps; about graffiti, perhaps; about commodities, perhaps; about Verdi." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:50 am
Soundtrack, Bloody Soundtrack "Like most of modern life, surgery has acquired a soundtrack, whether it be Sinatra or Vivaldi, Mozart or Bob Marley, 'La Bohème' or the Beatles. Surgeons say it relaxes them, focuses their attention and helps pass the time... Music can become a subtle bone of contention among the members of the surgical team or a practical aid. Loud rock 'n' roll is good for routine operations, they say, Mozart for trickier ones. There is even a genre called "closing music": raucous sounds to suture by." The New York Times 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:34 am
New Leadership In Baltimore The Baltimore Symphony, which has lately been plowing through controversies like most orchestras go through Beethoven, is expected to select a self-made millionaire and venture capitalist as its next chairman of the board. The hope is that Michael Bronfein can help right the BSO's financial ship as the organization attempts to put behind it the controversy generated when conductor Marin Alsop was appointed music director without the approval of the musicians. Baltimore Sun 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:20 am
We Vote For Whichever One Doesn't Remind Us Of Braveheart Scotland's national orchestra is making a push to choose a new national anthem for the region, to supplement the UK-wide anthem, "God Save The Queen," which doesn't have a great deal of resonance with Scots. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra has recorded renditions of five contending songs (not surprisingly, two are based on poems by Robert Burns, and a third is a bagpipe tune,) and is inviting Scots around the world to vote on its website over the next month. The Scotsman (UK) 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:12 am
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The Ongoing Minnesota Miracle Minnesota's Twin Cities have seemingly always enjoyed a thriving cultural scene far larger than a medium-sized metropolitan area could reasonably be expected to support. The quiet secret to the region's artistic success has been a long history of private stewardship, spearheaded by a succession of ultra-rich benefactors who have poured a sizable chunk of their net worth into orchestras, museums, and theaters. There have always been doomsayers who warn that once the existing generation of philanthropists dies off, the Twin Cities arts scene will wither on the vine. But recent evidence suggests that a new generation of supporters is ready and able to take the reins. Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 8:26 am
Senator vs. Smithsonian's Small "A key Senate Republican has asked the Bush administration whether Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small should continue to head the national museum complex... The letter is the latest in a series of clashes between Congress and the Smithsonian. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa cited 'Small's involvement in the extensive financial fraud' reported by federal regulators at Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association), where Small worked before moving to the Smithsonian in 2000. Grassley also noted that the museum's finances and executive compensation packages are being scrutinized by the Smithsonian's Office of the Inspector General." Washington Post 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 8:07 am
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Barenboim's Tenure: A Success, But Just Barely Fifteen years is a long time for a conductor to stay with a single orchestra, so it's not surprising that, as Daniel Barenboim prepares for his final sendoff as music director of the Chicago Symphony this week, the assessments of his tenure are not universally positive. But John von Rhein says that, on balance, Barenboim has been good for the CSO: "Like all marriages, that of Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony survived honeymoon, discord, absences, misunderstandings, threats of divorce and shared successes. Both used the other for their own benefit. Both traveled an enormous learning curve together." Chicago Tribune 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 9:13 am
- Boundless Talent, Offset By Endless Self-Importance The CSO may have benefitted from Daniel Barenboim's celebrity, says Alan Artner, but it certainly didn't benefit from his self-important conducting style. "The emotional blockage, vainglory and shallowness of interpretation I heard at the beginning I still hear; only now, it's no longer offset by the promise of natural ability and aptitude... In place of audible conviction, we have gotten testimonials." Chicago Tribune 06/11/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 9:11 am
Filmmaker Meets Cuba Ban Head On - Feds Not Amused The federal government is investigating Cuban-American filmmaker Luis Moro for possible violation of the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba. Moro isn't exactly denying the charge - he traveled to Cuba and made a film there as a direct challenge to the ban, which he believes to be unnecessary and punitive. Moro's film, Love & Suicide, has been screening at various U.S. film festivals this season. Toronto Star 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 8:04 am
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Big Night Ahead For History Boys? So who will go home happy from tonight's Tony Awards ceremony? It might not be that hard to figure: "The best play and best play revival categories look to be about as suspenseful as a three-minute egg: Alan Bennett's History Boys and the revival of Clifford Odets's Awake and Sing!, said those polled, are safe money. The directors of those two plays, Nicholas Hytner and Bartlett Sher, are leading contenders in their category; Mr. Hytner will easily win. Indeed, The History Boys seems so likely to dominate the evening's proceedings that it would hardly be surprising if the play somehow won the award for best regional theater, even though the recipient has already been announced." The New York Times 06/09/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 9:04 am
Chicago Program Book Ceases Production "The League of Chicago Theatres, the advocacy organization for approximately 190 local venues, is about to cease publication of Chicago Plays," the program book created four years ago to replace the late, lamented "Stagebill." Chicago's extensive theatre community had hoped that a joint effort to produce a Chicago-specific program book would prove profitable, but as of this summer, the league owed $400,000 in back printing costs, and the project became unsustainable. Chicago Sun-Times 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:24 am
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A Literary Prize From The Inside Out "Worth a lucrative 100,000 euros ($126,000), the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the richest and most international prize of its kind. Libraries from all over the world nominate books and, unlike many other awards, it is open to translations and thus to books written in any language." Judging for large literary prizes is generally conducted with the utmost secrecy, but one of this year's IMPAC judges has decided to document her experiences. Toronto Star 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:59 am
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FCC Fines Go Through The Roof After years of threats, Congress has finally acted to dramatically increase the maximum fine that can be levied by the Federal Communications Commission against a television or radio station deemed to have aired objectionable material. The new maximum fine per violation of the FCC's often vague and always controversial obscenity rules is $325,000 (a tenfold increase.) The New York Times 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:46 am
The Dixie Chick Factor When the alt-country stars known as the Dixie Chicks released their latest album this spring, industry experts expected that the Chicks would be looking to patch up their relationship with "traditional" (read: right-wing) country fans, which soured when the group's lead singer took a potshot at President Bush a few years back. But the new album seems more like an angry rejoinder than an apology, and mainstream country stations have refused to play it. Somehow, though, the Chicks are #1 on the charts, even without radio. The initial surge can be attributed to savvy marketing, but if the album proves to have staying power, it could signal that increasingly generic terrestrial radio is fading as America's primary hitmaker. The New York Times 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:37 am
Underdogs To Get A Fair Shake From Emmy "Don't expect the Emmy Awards to look like a TV rerun again this year. Although favorite, high-rated nominees usually return year after year, there's a new voting system that aims to boost the chances of low-rated snubees in the top series and acting categories." Los Angeles Times 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:29 am
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NYC Ballet Picks Its New Class It's the time of year when young dancers at the New York-based School of American Ballet find out whether they have been chosen to serve as apprentice members of New York City Ballet, and the competition is fierce, with good reason. "Every year 6 to 10 advanced dancers from the school join the company as apprentices, enjoying essentially a trial run. Almost all stay on as permanent members. In fact, the ballet company draws an overwhelming number of its dancers from its school — 90 of the current 97." The New York Times 06/10/06
Posted: 06/11/2006 7:31 am
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