Babeling In Translation Computerized language translation programs are getting better and better. But they still have a propensity for making babel out of ordinary phrases... Wired 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 5:45 pm
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Dundas Artifacts Headed Home To B.C. "More than 140 years after they were given up for God, the most prized items from the world-famous Dundas Collection of rare northwest native art are returning to their ancestral home in British Columbia. The 19 sacred artifacts of Tsimshian origin purchased at auction last week by two members of the Thomson family will be publicly exhibited at an undisclosed B.C. museum late this year or early next year. The collection's permanent home is still undecided."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/11/06 Posted: 10/11/2006 5:33 am
Art Theft Gang Caught UK police have busted a gang of major art thieves. "For four years the audacious burglaries at some of Britain's best-known stately homes in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire have embarrassed police and left leading insurers in the art world smarting from multimillion-pound payouts for antiques, curios and paintings from leading collections. More than 100 police officers from five forces were involved in the raids and 14 people seized."
The Guardian (UK) 10/10/06 Posted: 10/10/2006 6:56 pm
Good Gehry, Bad Gehry Two new Frank Gehry buildings in New York show the good and bad sides of the star architect.
The New Yorker 10/09/06 Posted: 10/10/2006 6:47 pm
Seattle's New Curator Cadre Seattle has plenty of good curators. Trouble is, there aren't nearly enough curator jobs to keep them busy, So freelance curators have turned to alternative spaces and in the process building a new art scene.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10/10/06 Posted: 10/10/2006 6:39 pm
Acropolis Museum To Open In 2007 The Greek government says its museum built to house the Parthenon Marbles will be opened next year. "Once the museum is completed, Greece will have a very strong argument for the return of the Parthenon sculptures," Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said Monday.
CBC 10/10/06 Posted: 10/10/2006 4:40 pm
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And They're Better Behaved Than Deadheads Anyone who doubted whether a fully staged production of Wagner's Ring could thrive at a suburban opera house (in this case, the Orange County Performing Arts Center outside L.A.) clearly doesn't understand the obsessive nature of Wagner devotees. "If you stage the operas, pretty much anywhere, they will come, from pretty much anywhere else... 'It helps to be a bit mad,'" says one Ring addict. Los Angeles Times 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 5:36 am
Hard To Believe No One Thought Of This Before Opera tends to be a fairly rigid form, from the narrow range of repertoire embraced by its devotees to the seemingly unbreakable tradition of the evening performance. But in the last several years, Lyric Opera of Chicago has discovered a surprising niche audience that has apparently been patiently waiting for someone to start offering weekday matinees. "The decision to add the extra matinees may have had a Field of Dreams effect on a certain demographic -- the one made up of folks who might not feel quite as energetic as they used to when it comes to staying awake through an evening three-hour opera and, possibly, a long drive back to the suburbs around midnight." Chicago Tribune 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 5:20 am
Why Throw Good Money After Bad? As Ontario's Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony continues its drive to raise the $2.5 million it needs to avoid bankruptcy, civic leaders are debating whether public money should be spent to help bail out what some see as an expensive and culturally irrelevant organization. Some observers are also concerned that helping the symphony achieve its short-term funding goal would only delay the organization's inevitable collapse. The Record (Kitchener, ON) 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:32 am
The Amplified Orchestra Huge, acoustically superior new concert halls designed by superstar architects are all well and good for orchestras that can afford them, but those can be counted on one hand. So what is everyone else supposed to do to improve the quality of live sound? A California company is marketing its supposedly undetectable electronic enhancement systems. There's plenty of resistance, of course, but "we live in an electronic, computerized, rock 'n' roll world. How can electronics be kept at bay in the concert hall?" San Jose Mercury News 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:21 am
Orchestra Exec Caught In Predator Sting The former executive director of a small regional orchestra in Indiana has been arrested and charged with solicitation of a minor. Edward Williams, formerly the head of the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, was arrested when he traveled to an Indianapolis suburb to meet what he thought was a 15-year-old girl he had chatted with online. The "girl" was, in fact, a police officer. The orchestra, which had already cut ties with Williams, is stunned by the news. Lafayette Journal & Courier (IN) 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:15 am
Austin Music Series To Get Major Upgrade Austin City Limits, the popular public television program featuring live performances by up-and-coming musical acts in various genres, is getting a splashy new home, courtesy of a major downtown development plan in the city known as America's indie-music capital. The new venue will triple the size of the ACL audience, and bring the popular performances downtown for the first time. Austin American Statesman (TX) 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 3:47 am
Mighty Tower Comes To Ground Tower Records is having a giant going-out-of-business sale before closing its doors. "In a download-happy, file-swapping era, the discreet joys of browsing among record racks and losing oneself in reverie while pondering album cover art — the boilerplate experience of shopping at a brick-and-mortar outlet operated for and by music lovers — seem lost on a generation of young shoppers." Los Angeles Times 10/11/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 7:10 pm
Poll: The Top Ten European Orchestras Ten media outlets voted on the best orchestras. The Vienna Philharmonic tops the list, barely edging out the Royal Concertgebouw... PlaybillArts 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 6:26 pm
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Claude Luter, 83 "Claude Luter, a horn player who hobnobbed with Louis Armstrong and was one of France's most celebrated jazz musicians, has died... Best known for boosting the trans-Atlantic transferal of New Orleans-style jazz to Paris, Luter suffered complications after a fall and died Friday at a hospital outside Paris." Washington Post (AP) 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:58 am
Ozawa Ill 71-year-old conductor Seiji Ozawa has canceled two concerts scheduled for early November in Paris due to ill health. Ozawa, who had to pull out of several appearances with the Vienna State Opera earlier this year, isn't disclosing the nature of his illness. ContactMusic (UK) 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:54 am
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Smokin' Mad A pending statewide smoking ban in Colorado would include a ban on actors smoking in theatrical productions, and the Denver theatre scene isn't taking the action lying down. "The Curious Theatre Company will take pre-emptive action against the ban this morning, when it plans to file a lawsuit in Denver District Court against the Colorado Department of Health and Environment." The suit contends that the ban constitutes a violation of the company's right to free expression. Denver Post 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 5:30 am
The British American Invasion London's theatre district has been developing a distinctly American flavor of late. From the Broadway smash, Wicked, to Eugene O'Neill's A Moon For the Misbegotten, the American tradition is suddenly everywhere in London, and no one seems to be complaining. International Herald Tribune 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:42 am
Tony Kushner's New Project "I'm working on a big, new gay play. It's been a long time since I've written about gay issues. I guess I feel that corners have been turned for me personally and also for the [gay] community and we're in a different, though unfortunately, not improved era." Yahoo! (Playbill) 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 6:11 pm
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Save Time, And Still Sound Smart! Back in 1940, a ponderous, 400-page tome called How To Read A Book was all the rage. But such a volume would be of little use to the average reader these days, says Alex Beam. Why, what with the inescapable wave of excerpts, previews, press releases and half-assed analysis of every important new book that comes out, what we really need is an expert guide to how not to read a book. Boston Globe 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 5:09 am
Desai Wins Booker Kiran Desai wins for her novel "The Inheritance of Loss." "Desai beat favourite Sarah Waters - shortlisted for The Night Watch - and fellow nominees Kate Greenville, Hisham Matar, M J Hyland and Edward St Aubyn." BBC 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 4:35 pm
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Politics Aside, Life (And Television) Goes On Palestinian television has launched its first-ever locally produced soap opera, and its immediate popularity says much about modern life in the Occupied Territories. "Politics are in the air, naturally, but are rarely center stage. References to guns and checkpoints are rare. In the one episode that deals with the road map - a US plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - most of the characters acknowledge that they don't really know what the road map represents." Christian Science Monitor 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 5:26 am
How Sesame Street Changed The World The show has been on the air since 1969 is currently available in 120 countries. Los Angeles Times 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 7:22 pm
GoogleTube - Lawsuits Ready To Happen? So Google now owns YouTube. What does it mean? "The acquisition will give Google a major foothold in the emerging market for video advertising, but it also stands to inherit court challenges from independent film makers, garage bands, television studios and others who may chafe at YouTube users uploading copyrighted material to the site without permission." Yahoo! (AP) 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 6:04 pm
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New Ballet Company Rises In L.A. "Aiming to become what artistic directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary call 'a major company that belongs to L.A. — that has a local flavor at an international level,' the newly formed Los Angeles Ballet has announced its first season of performances and placed subscription tickets on sale... The current roster includes 21 resident professional dancers on 21-week contracts. Home is the Malibu Performing Arts Center. The projected annual budget is $1.7 million." Los Angeles Times 10/11/06
Posted: 10/11/2006 4:38 am
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