Well, You Could Always Move It To Manhattan "Some people strolling past the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park [New York] assume that the building is closed. And many motorists speed by it on the Grand Central Parkway without realizing that the museum even exists. The building itself has an eclectic history cluttered with the contributions of earlier architects." So how do you remake a museum in such a way as to encourage people to take note of its very existence?
The New York Times 10/05/06 Posted: 10/05/2006 6:07 am
Change Roils Brooklyn Museum Major changes at the Brooklyn Museum have the institution in turmoil. "Curators see the changes as a way of diminishing their traditional power to conceive, propose and organize exhibitions. As many as eight curators have retired or resigned over the last two years."
The New York Times 10/05/06 Posted: 10/04/2006 11:15 pm
The Polish Supermarket Fights The Wrecker A supermarket in Poland has become a rallying cry for preservationists who appreciate its unique charms.
OpinionJournal 10/04/06 Posted: 10/04/2006 6:18 pm
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At Least They Can't Threaten Him With The Gulag Anymore Dmitri Shostakovich was always the composer who couldn't get no respect, even (or especially) in his own country. Now, with celebrations of Shostakovich's centennial underway around the world, the birthday boy is under fire once again, this time by the Russian Orthodox Church. "The State Theater of Opera and Ballet of the Republic of Komi, a region once notorious as a center of the prison camp system, or Gulag, recently bowdlerized a commemorative performance of 'The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda'... after the local diocese objected to the portrayal of the priest in the work." The New York Times 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 6:10 am
How To Make Fundraising Fun (And Successful) The much-beleagured Scottish Opera, so recently forced to shut down for a year as a federally imposed cost-cutting measure, is taking a unique approach to fund-raising for its latest production. "In an attempt to raise extra funds towards the cost of the production, and give audiences a chance to get more involved, the company offered patrons a chance to sponsor individual characters for any sum between £25 and £5,000. It was inundated with requests and ended up with each character being sponsored more than once." The Independent (UK) 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 5:45 am
Montreal Opera On Life Support Montreal Opera was once a vibrant company on the rise, but these days, it's happy even to still exist. "Money does make the opera world go round, and there is definitely not enough of it in the Montreal opera company coffers. The accumulated deficit is $1.95 million, generated over two years -- quite a sum for a company that spent only $6.9 million in 2005-2006... There is no artistic director, Bernard Labadie having submitted his resignation in June, more or less on the grounds that in such an atmosphere there were no serious artistic decisions to be made... So what went wrong?" Ottawa Citizen 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 5:35 am
- Another Canadian Band On The Brink The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, a regional ensemble in Canada's most populous province, says it needs to raise CAN$2.5 million by the end of the month to avoid immediate bankruptcy. That goal might well prove unreachable - the total contributions of the orchestra's board members to the emergency drive total only $230,000. The Record (Kitchener, ON) 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 5:30 am
Apparently, There's A Bit Of Money In The Bay Area One day after San Francisco Opera announced an unprecedented $35 million gift, the San Francisco Symphony has great news of its own. The SFS is the recipient of a $10 million challenge grant designed to bolster its endowment, which already stands at an impressive $180 million. San Francisco Chronicle 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 5:20 am
- Of Course, Money Is Only Half Of The Equation As San Francisco's arts groups rake in the cash, arts leaders in the wealthy and heavily populated Silicon Valley, less than an hour to the south, are left wondering why their own cultural scene has stalled out. "Generally speaking, people here don't care about the arts the way people do in San Francisco. The apathy extends into the moneyed community... We probably have the greatest concentration of billionaires on the planet, yet no one steps forward to reward the organizations that are trying so hard to make this a richer, more cosmopolitan, and stimulating place to live." San Jose Mercury News 10/04/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 5:18 am
BBC Phil Locks Up Its Maestro The Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic Orchestra has extended the contract of its music director, Gianandrea Noseda, through 2010. "The partnership has proven fruitful, with nine CD's for Chandos and dynamic performances of large-scale choral works and operatic repertoire... [Noseda's] Beethoven Symphony Cycle last year - offered free for download via the BBC's website - won ITV's South Bank Show Award in January." Gramophone (UK) 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 5:17 am
Vinyl Makes A Comeback "Most of us have a soft spot for records, whether for the memories that the picture sleeves conjure up or simply because we think a slab of vinyl is a lovely thing. And for vinyl lovers, the news is good: last year, sales of 7in singles were 1,072,608, compared with a dismal 178,831 in 2001." The Telegraph (UK) 10/05/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 11:05 pm
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Pac-Man To Better Math? A new study says video games belong in the classroom. "The strategies for successful game-playing are increasingly complex, sophisticated, challenging and cerebral. This edges games towards the very heart of where learning is headed." The Telegraph (UK) 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 10:47 pm
Parsing The Getty Report So the California Attorney General's investigation of the Getty is done. But the findings of the investigation are unsatisfactory, contends Lee Rosenbaum. CultureGrrl (AJBlogs) 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 10:08 pm
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Penumbra In The Black The Penumbra Theatre, the Twin Cities' leading company focusing on African-American work, operated with a surplus for the third season in a row. "Penumbra also announced that by June it will retire its debt, which ballooned to more than $500,000 in 2002. The debt, described as an albatross, triggered the company's restructuring program." Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 6:52 am
Stratford '07 Will Salute Departing Director Richard Monette is retiring after 15 years at the helm of Canada's beloved Stratford Theatre Festival, a fact you won't be able to miss if you attend any of Stratford's 2007 performances. In fact, the entire 2007 season, unveiled this week, is a tribute to Monette's achievements. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 6:44 am
Arizona Actors Talk About Colorblind Casting "It’s still a new subject area for us in the Valley. Even though across the nation people have been dealing with it for 30 years, here it’s still fairly new." Get Out AZ 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 6:07 pm
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If Only More Classic Novels Had Sequels "A sequel to children's classic Peter Pan has been published - more than 100 years after the original... The book is set 20 years after the original, with Peter Pan's friend Wendy now having children of her own and the Lost Boys having grown up... Publishers tried to keep details of the book secret but were forced to launch an investigation back in August after an American newspaper printed a summary of the plot. The book is being published in 30 different countries in 34 languages." BBC 10/05/06
Posted: 10/05/2006 6:01 am
Newspaper Readership Soars (What A Great Headline To Write) Online readership of newspapers is going up. And the readers are younger. "The average number of unique visitors to online newspaper sites in the first half was more than 55.5 million a month, the study said. That compares with 42.2 million a year earlier." Wired (Reuters) 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 8:06 pm
Forward Thinking - Robertson Wins Robin Robertson wins the £10,000 Forward Prize for Poetry. "Robertson, 50, from Scone, Perthshire, is the first poet to have won both the best collection prize and the best first collection prize." BBC 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 7:59 pm
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Measuring The UK's Worldwide Film Biz In the first half of 2006, money spent on film production in the UK rose by 76% compared to last year. BBC 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 8:01 pm
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New Takes A Pass At NY City Ballet "Anyway, barring this little piece, there will be no new ballets this season. Given the quality of six of the seven new ballets in last season's Diamond Project (only Ratmansky's contribution, Russian Seasons, was a hit) detractors will point out that this may be just as well. But isn't it a truth universally acknowledged that new choreography is essential to the stimulation of both audience and dancers? What's up?" Seeing Things (AJBlogs) 10/04/06
Posted: 10/04/2006 6:40 pm
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