Recalling The Pain The fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks will be inescapable this weekend, but how many tributes can we stomach? It's a question that artists and musicians have been facing since the first days after the attacks, and the answer seems to be that it all depends. "Some genres are inherently more concrete and visceral than others. A television show or film might punch viewers in the stomach, while a novel or song taps them on the shoulder. The answer also has to do with the type of story that the artworks choose to tell, and whether the way that story is told makes us more anxious and afraid or offers some hard-won comfort." Baltimore Sun 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 11:40 am
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Architecture, Terror, And Renewal "If it's true that architecture holds up an unflinching mirror to society reflecting how we live, then the story our buildings tell five years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is as complex -- and as conflicted -- as America itself." Chicago Tribune 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 11:52 am
Appeal Sought In Nazi Loot Case Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza museum is appealing a US court's ruling in "a lawsuit seeking the return of a disputed Impressionist masterpiece allegedly stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family during World War II." The Spanish government, which administers the museum, had asked the court to dismiss a lawsuit by a San Diego family which claims it is the proper owner of the Pissarro street scene valued at $20 million. Los Angeles Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:24 am
Destroying The National Mall, Step By Painful Step Washington, D.C.'s National Mall is arguably "America's greatest 20th century work of civic landscape art." But in recent years, politicians have given their blessing to a series of projects which Christopher Knight says are ruining the whole area. "The Mall's planning and oversight process is irreparably broken. At least six federal agencies, eight congressional committees, plus the District of Columbia have jurisdiction — so many competing overlords that no one is effectively in charge. That makes it ripe for exploitation." Los Angeles Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:17 am
- A District Under Siege By Its Own Leaders In an age of terror fears, Washington, D.C. has become a virtual fortress, and Blair Kamen says that "in this struggle between armor and aesthetics, armor is invariably emerging the victor, marring public buildings and public spaces that symbolize the ideals of democracy and help hold together a diverse, often-fractious society." Chicago Tribune 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:15 am
Will Shiite Clerics Spell The End Of Iraqi Antiquities? "There is mounting concern among scholars that the appointment of religiously conservative Shiite Muslims throughout Iraq’s traditionally secular archaeological institutions could threaten the preservation of the country’s pre-Islamic history." The New York Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:54 am
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A Classical Landmark In Country's Hometown Nashville's imposing new Schermerhorn Symphony Center opened this weekend with a gala celebration that some observers called the biggest party the city had seen in a decade. The opening night concert, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, had a distinct Nashville flavor, with standard works by Barber, Mahler and Shostakovich sandwiching a new triple concerto by country/jazz/folk legends Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer. The Tennessean (Nashville) 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 11:16 am
No Risk, No Reward Minneapolis/St. Paul is the only metropolitan area in the US to support two major orchestras - the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra - and over the years, the Twin Cities have earned a reputation for adventurous audiences and daring programming. But Michael Anthony says that reputation is increasingly at odds with reality, as both orchestras stack their seasons with Beethoven, Brahms, and little else, "a reflection of economics, of orchestra boards and marketing departments running scared, hoping to avoid deficits and sustain their graying audience by programming the same old works they think the audience wants to hear." The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:37 am
When Adulation Has Little To Do With Ability Pity the poor music critics whenever Andrea Bocelli is performing. Bocelli is as big a star as the classical music world has at present, and his fans are utterly devoted and will not hear a word said against him. So given all that, is it just bad form for critics to point out that, by any objective standard, Bocelli just isn't a very good singer? The Independent (UK) 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:20 am
Inner Beauty Toronto's new opera house is off to a successful start, garnering positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. And while the new building isn't going to win any daring architecture awards, its place in the city seems to fit with the mindset of its resident company. "Operagoers in Toronto are an adventurous lot, as befits a city where forty-nine percent of the population (as of 2001) was born outside of Canada. From its beginnings, [the Canadian Opera Company’s] artistic directors have made a point of programming works outside the standard nineteenth-century Italian, French and German repertoire." Opera News 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:06 am
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Assessing Scotland's New Funding Scheme It's been several months since control of Scotland's national cultural organizations passed from the national arts council to the Scottish Executive. This made many in the arts quite uneasy: "No government is immune from politics, and politics and the arts make uneasy bedfellows." Still, the new arrangement seems to be working well so far. The Scotsman 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 11:10 am
Is Orange County Overreaching? Orange County, California's recently expanded performing arts center has made the region a major player in the West Coast cultural scene, where once it was thought merely as an appendage of Los Angeles. But "a closer look at the [center's] 2005-06 fiscal year, which ended June 30, reveals that it wasn't spectacular. In fact, all key measurements – attendance, ticket sales, income, expenses and number of events – were down from previous years." Orange County Register 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 11:04 am
Remembrance? No Thanks, We'd Rather Argue. In the five years since the 9/11 attacks, there has been no shortage of ideas for a memorial honoring the victims. But a deadly combination of shrieking bloggers, opportunistic politicians, and shortsighted bureaucrats have thus far managed to shoot down, water down, and wrap in red tape every serious proposal. "Future memorial juries would be wise to think about how and why these designs have been so easily pushed off track." Los Angeles Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:06 am
Will Carry-On Ban Jeopardize London's Cultural Reputation? When British airline authorities imposed harsh new restrictions on carry-on baggage in response to a terrorist threat, few complained. But when officials began murmuring that the near-ban on hand baggage could become permanent, musicians cried foul. "The impact if these policies continue will, over time, be inconceivable. London, along with New York, is one of the musical capitals of the world but these restrictions could lead to the erosion of that status — and of the reputation of Britain as a whole — as musicians are forced to alter their plans." The Times (UK) 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:25 am
- And This Makes Us Safer How, Exactly? One soloist who has been feeling the effects of the UK baggage restrictions is London-based violinist Viktoria Mullova, who went so far as to smuggle her unprotected Stradivarius onto a Helsinki-bound flight in a shopping bag last month. This week, she's due to play concerts in the US, and there's a very real possibility that she will have to make the trip without her instrument. Comparing Notes (MPR) 09/08/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:24 am
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Don't Call It Non-Fiction Margaret Atwood's latest book is like nothing the famed novelist has produced before: a loosely connected story arc tying together a collection of "stories about people who might well be thinly disguised versions of Atwood's parents, sister, husband and various other friends and acquaintances that have passed through her life." Still, Atwood is insistent that there is no autobiography here. "It's not that the things in the stories didn't happen. A lot of them did. They didn't necessarily happen in that order. And there are a lot of glaring omissions." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:01 am
Mourning Delayed Sir Charles Mackerras conducted Beethoven's 9th at the Edinburgh Festival last week, unaware that his daughter, Fiona, had died hours earlier from cancer. The news of her death was apparently withheld from Mackerras until after the concert was completed. The Scotsman 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:12 am
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No, Thanks, We Gave At The Office Why is political drama so absent from the theatrical stage in America's political capital? "When it comes to putting politics on its stages, Washington is a pretty buttoned-up town... Not many people enjoy taking their work home with them. It's been said that Washingtonians don't like taking it to the theater either." Washington Post 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 12:25 pm
How To Save A Relic Houston's River Oaks Theatre, the city's oldest functioning movie house, is in sore need of an overhaul if it is to survive. So how do you revive an old theater? That depends entirely on what you plan to do with it... Houston Chronicle 09/10/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 11:29 am
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Presumably, This Means The Dance Numbers Are Back In "With no disrespect meant to Jon Stewart or Chris Rock, the last two Oscar hosts who garnered mixed reviews for their efforts, the announcement that Ellen DeGeneres will emcee the 79th Academy Awards appears designed to boost the ratings of the show by presenting a comedian who has a broader appeal with the public than her two predecessors." Los Angeles Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:22 am
The Hollywood Disconnect ABC-TV has been under fire this week for its new "docudrama" about the path America's leaders followed in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Tim Rutten says that the network deserves exactly what it's gotten: "[ABC] somehow thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television executives — the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a streetwalker blush — and that nobody would mind." Los Angeles Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 10:13 am
Furious Leftists Invade Canada! The Toronto International Film Festival is completely overrun by angry liberals this year, and the films being featured, while diverse in some ways, seem to have a distinct sameness of message, "attacking President Bush or the protracted war in Iraq — in subtle ways and like sledgehammers, with vitriol and with dispassionate fly-on-the-wall observation." The New York Times 09/09/06
Posted: 09/10/2006 9:48 am
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