Have Awards Replaced Critical Judgment? "Ours is truly the age of awards. Prizes are becoming the ultimate measure of cultural success and value. In a time of information overload - of cultural excess and superabundance - our taste is being increasingly created for us by prize juries and award ceremonies. Art is beginning to resemble sport, with its roster of winners and losers and its spectacles of competition: the Oscars, the Baftas, the Brits. Indeed, the larger cultural festivals and prizes, such as the Venice Biennale, the Oscars and the Nobels, are consciously imitative of international sporting competitions like the Olympics." The Guardian (UK) 10/22/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:31 am
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More And More Museums Reach For Global Profile "As the economies rise in Asia, the Middle East—and soon South America and perhaps one day Africa—leaders will want to found new museums. With the dwindling supply of quality art necessary to fill them, an attractive shortcut is to partner with a museum that already has the art, as well as the personnel and expertise."
Art & Antiques 10/02/06 Posted: 10/22/2006 7:16 pm
The Museum Of Light And Beauty Paris's newly restored Musée des Arts is a far cry from the dark, dingy place it used to be. "Radical decisions were made, bold steps were taken. While architects worked out how to open up the space, bringing in light and air, a team of curators settled down to choose the best 6,000 objects to put on permanent display... The result is a collection that positively shines with its own good fortune."
The Telegraph (UK) 10/21/06 Posted: 10/22/2006 10:38 am
Who Will Prop Up Canada's Homegrown Art Market? When Canadian über-collector Kenneth Thomson died last spring, it marked the end of an era for Canada. Now, many are wondering who will step in to fill Thomson's considerable void. "Buyers and dealers speculate about what will happen to the structure of the market with the removal of one of its pillars... No dealer is going to risk offending clients by naming them or telling them more is demanded of them. But while big fish prefer to move under the water, they cannot help but leave ripples in their wake."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/21/06 Posted: 10/22/2006 10:31 am
Decorating The City Public art is suddenly the hottest thing on Toronto's cultural scene. "Long forgotten are the political battles of the '60s that confronted the installation of Henry Moore's The Archer in Nathan Phillips Square. In such a media-intense city as we are now, a public display of significant contemporary art is seen as an innovative and necessary way to ornament existing urban space. And unlike the oversized bronze statues of a century ago, you don't necessarily need space on the ground, either."
Toronto Star 10/21/06 Posted: 10/22/2006 9:12 am
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How Things Sound In Miami "Everything is audible: a candy wrapper 50 feet away, someone tapping their shoe three rows back; even a moderate cough in the balcony explodes like a detonating landmine on the main floor. Miami audiences are going to have to engage in some serious self-policing to avoid disrupting performances in such a live acoustic." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 10:36 pm
Lamenting Tower Records "Many culprits contributed to the demise of Tower. It got out-chained by the likes of Wal-Mart and other mass retailers who now promote bestselling CDs, probably under cost. It got hit by the big record labels' indiscriminate releasing of junk in all genres. The downturn in DVD sales hasn't helped. And the ever-infuriating iTunes came along. Once Apple marketed its cute players as objects of lust, the CDs became prehistoric media. Downloaded music isn't inherently bad. But in its quest to rule the world, or at least become another Microsoft-ish monopoly, Apple can be." Los Angeles Times 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 7:41 pm
What Does It Mean To Be Russian Any More? For much of the 20th Century the was a mystique to Russian music. "If there is still 'Russian music' in the old sense, what are the criteria of Russianness?" The Times (UK) 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 7:30 pm
1906 Boston Symphony Recording Surfaces "Tomorrow, thanks to a Florida record collector and a serendipitous turn of events, that song -- believed to be the earliest known recording featuring members of the BSO -- will be played on the radio for the first time. After WGBH found out about it earlier this week, the station included ``The Kerry Dance" as part of its Sunday broadcast, which takes place exactly 125 years, to the day, after the BSO's first concert in 1881." Boston Globe 10/21/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 7:13 pm
Eschenbach, Philly Parting Ways In a move that stunned the music world, the Philadelphia Orchestra has announced that music director Christoph Eschenbach will leave his post when his contract expires after the 2007-08 season. At five years, Eschenbach's aborted tenure in Philadelphia will rank as the shortest any music director there has ever had. Philadelphia Inquirer 10/21/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 11:59 am
- So, What Now? "The successor scenario remains unclear, and the rest of the Eschenbach tenure - almost two full seasons - could go to a number of extremes: Conductor and orchestra might just give up on each other, which would be painful and/or soporific, or they might decide that since it's not a marriage anymore, they can relax and have fun. [As for a successor,] the orchestra will have a long, hard slog with dark horses eager to come up, veterans such as [Bernard] Haitink who guard their time jealously, and interested parties in between - all arriving here knowing that the orchestra needs them more than they need it." Philadelphia Inquirer 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 11:58 am
And This Is... Bad? Anthony Tommasini says that the opera world is suffering from a distinct lack of big voices capable of tackling the classic roles in big Italian operas. "Young voices are not being nurtured for this particular repertory as they once were. Instead, fledgling singers have the option of forging a distinctive artistic persona in the much broader repertory that has been embraced by companies everywhere." The New York Times 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 10:03 am
A Necessity, Not A Frill Is a musical education as important in child development as proper instruction in math and language? "At a superficial level, most teachers would agree that becoming involved with music at school has a markedly good effect on pupils. [But] more significant is the nature of the music itself. Nobody can deny how central a part music plays in the life of most children and adolescents... It is the purpose of education to extend the imagination, to open up new and infinite pleasures. For many children, to learn an instrument is the beginning of this extension." The Observer (UK) 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 9:48 am
Lyric Back On The Air And Fully Funded Lyric Opera of Chicago has found a sponsor for its radio broadcasts through the 2011-12 season. Lyric has been off the air for four years, but returns to local and syndicated radio this Saturday night. The donor making the series possible is a Chicago-area developer whose net worth is estimated at $3 billion. Chicago Tribune 10/21/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 8:42 am
And Some Opera Singers Look A Lot Like An Offensive Line Most people in the arts assume that there just isn't a lot of crossover between the core audiences for high culture and professional sports. But honestly, football really isn't all that different from opera, right? ...no, really! "The crowd is better behaved at the opera, [but] there are moments watching both that make my spine tingle... Second-guessing plays a big role in both the football and opera experiences. By halftime of the game or intermission of the opera, almost everybody has become a critic." Baltimore Sun 10/21/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 8:37 am
Alabama Exec Resigns The executive director of the Alabama Symphony has resigned after only three seasons. Paul Ferrone's brief tenure in Birmingham was widely considered a success - "he leaves an orchestra with a balanced budget, a new music director and a growing statewide presence" - and it appears that the decision to leave was entirely his. Birmingham News (AL) 10/21/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 8:11 am
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Fewer Women Accept Harvard Positions A study says that "slightly more than 20 percent of those who accepted tenure-track offers in Harvard’s main undergraduate college last year were women, down from 40 percent in 2004-5. Thirty-nine percent of tenure-track offers were to women last year." InsideHigherEd 10/23/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:53 am
Orange County's Arts Deficit Southern California's Orange County just opened a flashy new performing arts hall. But a study says spending on culture in this rich area is below average. "Orange County nonprofit arts groups had assets of $257 million, or $90 per capita — compared with $155 in Los Angeles and San Diego counties and $506 in Santa Barbara County. Orange County's per-capita arts capitalization is 72% of the Southern California average of $124." Los Angeles Times 10/23/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:26 am
Humanities Of Art And Science Lawrence Weschler is putting his stamp on Chicago's Humanities Festival. "The division between the sciences and the humanities is completely artificial and one that is extremely recent. Until 100 years ago, it was the arts and sciences. Michelangelo and Leonardo and so forth were scientists as much as they were artists. I am very much for getting the sciences in the humanities where they belong." Chicago Tribune 10/22/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:06 am
Arts Meet Technology In Pittsburgh These days everybody's online. So that's where the artists are going too. "The good news is there is plenty going on in technology to help artists create new works, arts organizations to support them and ultimately for art fans to experience them." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 7:34 pm
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Renaissance Scolar Thomas Puttfarken, 62 "He was an internationally eminent scholar of Renaissance and Baroque art, elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2003 and for 30 years a pivotal figure in the department of art history and theory at the University of Essex." The Guardian (UK) 10/22/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:01 am
What Happened To Maya Lin? "The Vietnam Memorial used to be the First Great Work of Maya Lin. But that Lin is gone, transformed into Lin the Artist, who, despite having served on the panel that chose a design for the memorial at the World Trade Center site, wants to project an image of disengagement from the huge civic issues she raised. When she speaks as an artist, she's so determined to be out of the fight that it's not clear she has any fight left in her." Washington Post 10/22/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 7:36 pm
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Pirates Of Penzance In Yiddish? The Gilbert and Sullivan classic is a masterpiece of word play. "Theatrical translations, of course, are common. Still, Gilbert’s dazzling patterns of double and triple rhymes, his ingenious puns and his lyrics’ perfect match with Sullivan’s music make the work terribly difficult to translate. Why go to the trouble?" The New York Times 10/22/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:09 am
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Microsoft Makes A Deal To Digitize Microsoft is ramping up its efforts to digitize books and make them available online. The company has made a deal with a digital-scanning company to produce a vast library of online-accessible digitized books.
Yahoo! (AP) 10/23/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:48 am
Rethinking Uncle Tom's Cabin "Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in 1852, sold 10,000 copies within days of publication, 300,000 within a year. In a few decades it had been read in dozens of languages and so inspired Tolstoy that he regarded it as a model. But during the last half-century, the book has come to be seen almost as caricature." The New York Times 10/23/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 10:56 pm
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Studies: More Media Consolidation Will Kill Niches Easing government rules to allow more media consolidation would push out niche radio programming such as classical, jazz and gospel music while doing little to improve local TV coverage, new studies say. Yahoo! (AP) 10/23/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:46 am
No More TV Theme Songs? "Back in the day, even into the '90s, shows usually had a 'main title,' a 40- to 60-second opening montage that introduced the cast and was often set to music written by a composer. Songs summed up what a show was all about... But now many sitcoms and one-hour dramas are dropping that device. They dive straight into the action, sometimes flashing the show's title or logo at various points throughout an episode." Los Angeles Times 10/23/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:21 am
TV - Living In A Gilded Age? NBC's decision to stop programming scripted shows at 8 pm is a shock to the industry. "The broad range of programming choices in the 100-channel era has led many to conclude that TV is basking in a second golden age (the first was during the 1950s, when pioneers like Lucille Ball, Milton Berle and Sid Caesar held sway). But NBC's move suggests that ours is actually a gilded age, and the paint is starting to flake off." Los Angeles Times 10/23/06
Posted: 10/23/2006 7:12 am
Why YouTube Is Worth So Much "What's so unique about YouTube is that most of the content on the site is this conversation between people. The interesting thing is that the conversations are happening in videos."
Los Angeles Times 10/23/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 7:58 pm
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Is Toronto International Dance Festival On The Way Out? The festival lost money. "This year's festival was the first time the event, formerly known as the fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists, featured mainstage shows with invited artists. Many of the performances were poorly attended." Toronto Star 10/23/06
Posted: 10/22/2006 10:46 pm
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