“FT management has begun consultation with employees about the redundancies, with staff in the editorial library and the managing editor’s office at risk of losing their jobs. Other employees who face possible redundancy include staff from advertising sales, finance, IT, conferences and marketing. No journalists will be made redundant, but FT insiders fear the loss of librarians will affect editorial quality.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Dutoit Named MD of Verbier Festival Orchestra
Currently chief conductor of the London’s Royal Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dutoit has a longstanding relationship with the VFO, including conducting the group on its last tour of the U.S. in October 2007.
Pakistan Could Sure Use Someone Like This Now
A new documentary remembers Badshah Khan (né Abdul Ghaffar Khan), who “was called ‘The Frontier Gandhi’ and built an Islamic parallel to Gandhi’s violence-eschewing ideals of compassion for one’s enemies and peaceful resistance to oppression as a means of overcoming it.”
Experimental Artist Simon Hantaï, 85
The strong-willed painter, who walked from Hungary through Italy to Paris and abandoned the art world for 15 years because he hated commercialism, tried “to overcome the aesthetic privilege of talent.” (He was also the father of the early music specialists Pierre, Marc and Jérôme Hantaï.)
Are Living Legends Off-Limits To Criticism?
In reviewing Tina Turner’s L.A. concert last week, Ann Powers observed that the 68-year-old rock goddess’s singing just ain’t what it used to be. And she got walloped for it. (Samples of reader abuse are included.) “For many fans,” Powers writes, “just being in the presence of an elder artist confers residual magic… This takes us into the realm of pop music as religious ritual. Who are we to judge the gods and goddesses?”
Miami’s Carnival Arsht Center Gets It Together
“After a budget-busting inaugural year marked by financial crises, empty seats and community outrage, the publicly owned Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts has closed out a second year that stands in stark contrast to the first. The budget is balanced, attendance has nearly doubled and elected officials no longer dress down leaders of the center in public meetings.”
The Jewel of Medina Just Isn’t That Incendiary
Carlin Romano: “Its departures from solid historical facts… lie within the normal ambit of historical fiction. Its sympathies tilt completely toward Muhammad and Aisha. Controversial aspects – Aisha’s possible flirtatiousness and fibbing, her jealousy, her sharp tongue… all stem from Islamic history itself. Only a Muslim who rejected Muhammad’s lifelong insistence that he was a man like other men could find The Jewel of Medina objectionable or anti-Islam.”
Why The Movies Keep Destroying New York
“When the aliens shoot up a grain silo, we yawn. When they blast the head off the Statue of Liberty, we all gasp and know they mean business.”
The Power of Being Yoko Ono
“I’ve always been an outsider and I have the power of an outsider. And I bring that in. I’m always very, very different from the environment… The power that I have is from being me all the time instead of changing.”
Kansas City Symphony’s Lawsuit For State Funding Thrown Out
A Missouri judge has rejected the orchestra’s claim to dedicated monies from the state’s arts fund. He ruled both that the Missouri government is protected by sovereign immunity and that laws dedicating funding are not binding. “While there are many statutes with seeming ‘promises’ by the Legislature as to how revenues from a particular tax will be spent, these ‘promises’ are but empty words that have no legal consequence.”