“Just months after paying off construction bills dating from its opening seven years ago, [Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts] is undertaking its next act: renovations… The scope of the project is still fuzzy, though Kimmel leaders are taking this moment in time to think big.”
Author: sbergman
Reich To Obama: Take Some Jazz To D.C.
Could President Obama give the original American music form a major boost by inviting it back into the White House? “Obama’s mixed-race heritage reflects the genome of jazz, which first blossomed when multiple cultures and classes converged in New Orleans at the turn of the previous century.”
The Coming Asian Art Shift
“Of the world’s 20 top-selling artists, 13 are from Asia, with 11 coming from China. Asian artists make up six of the top 10 biggest sellers at auction, five of which are Chinese. Experts predict that within a decade, the term ‘Asian art’ will be as widely used as ‘Western art’ and will be responsible for most global sales.”
Billy Boosts Broadway
“Billy Elliot, which tells the story of a boy from a working-class city in England who wants to be a ballet dancer, is shaping up to be the one bright spot on an otherwise gloomy-looking Broadway, where shows are crashing with the speed of emerging markets in Southeast Asia.”
What To Do With Your Old Wal-Mart
Architecturally speaking, big box retailers are a blight on the American landscape. So when they fail, should the shells simply be left to rot? Maybe not – a new book argues that “those who gaze at the big-box stores…and fail to see future cathedrals, museums or artists’ communities have no sense of history. Or imagination.”
Jazz Biographer Peter Levinson, 74
“Peter J. Levinson, a music publicist who parlayed his close familiarity with jazz personalities into rich and sometimes intimate biographies of them, died on Oct. 21 at his home in Malibu… He eventually started his own publicity firm in New York and later expanded it to Los Angeles.”
Is Balanchine’s Legacy Ill-Served In New York?
25 years after his death, George Balanchine remains a giant of the dance world. But the company that made him famous, New York City Ballet, “has become less incisive, more lightweight, less disturbing” in presenting his work, says Alistair Macaulay.
MN Opera Makes Major Commitment To New Rep
“The Minnesota Opera will commit $5.5 million over seven years to contemporary repertoire under a new program just announced. Minnesota OperaWorks envisions three commissions, three revivals of American works and an international co-production.”
Measuring The Arts’ Rate Of Return
“Houston is an economic powerhouse in energy, technology, international trade and medical research… But Houston is also an economic powerhouse in the arts. When you compare this to the city of Houston’s $10 million public investment in the arts and the state’s symbolic $3.9 million investment, the citizens of Houston are getting a fifty-four percent rate of return on their tax investment.”
Major Cuts At OBT
Oregon Ballet Theatre is dumping its live orchestra for all but a few performances of The Nutcracker to save money. In addition, “nine senior staffers took a 5 percent pay cut, and salaries were frozen across the rest of the staff. The company also made production cuts for a total savings of a little more than $300,000, or about 5 percent of its $6.7 million budget.”