Several Boston-based classical music organizations have begun to offer performances at pubs and nightclubs, in an effort to broaden their reach beyond the traditional concert hall audience. “It’s not a pops concert; it’s just a popular location. And it’s more intimate, in every way.”
Author: sbergman
LA’s ‘Literary Oasis’ May Dry Up
A landmark independent bookstore is facing possible closure in Los Angeles because its landlord wants to redevelop the site to take advantage of a surge in real estate prices. “In a neighborhood where median housing prices approach $2 million, neighbors fear the loss of a quirky, laid-back community gathering spot. But a reckoning between the burgeoning Westside real estate marketplace and this rambling, anachronistic store seems inevitable.”
$10M Will Buy You A Lot Of Furniture
The Baltimore Museum of Art has received a $10 million pledge from a 94-year-old local philanthropist. The gift, which will be the largest in the institution’s history, will be used to expand the museum’s “American collection of furniture and decorative arts into the present day.”
Another Acquisition For LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has unveiled a newly acquired sculpture – “‘Saint John Capistran,’ a 450-year-old work in glazed terra cotta by the Italian artist Santi Buglioni – that it purchased last year from a New York art dealer. The unveiling caps a big year of acquisitions for the museum.
Savvy Marketing Or Shutting Out The Little Guy?
“Representatives of a consortium of six medium-sized Canadian-owned publishers are scheduled to meet today in Toronto with members of the Canadian Booksellers Association to try to resolve a dispute over a controversial book-marketing ‘pilot project’ scheduled to start next month and largely targeting Chapters/Indigo stores.”
Combatting Horror With Art
As the trial of one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers gets underway in British Columbia, three artists are attempting to bring some measure of comfort to a stunned populace by memorializing the 26 victims of Robert Pickton in a variety of very public ways.
Will Emoticons And Blog Entries Be Accepted?
“Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, has promised to publish a book by a first-time author who wins a contest on Gather.com, a social-networking site that might be described as MySpace for grown-ups… Unpublished writers can enter free by submitting a manuscript for a full-length work of fiction.”
Toscanini’s Art (The Kind You Can See)
“He was the maestro di maestri of music, but few people knew of Arturo Toscanini’s passion for collecting art. Now, as the 50th anniversary of Toscanini’s death approaches, part of his private collection is going on display for the first time.”
Reviews Aside, Embracing The New
“The Metropolitan Opera has to be discouraged by the mostly negative critical reactions to The First Emperor, Tan Dun’s ambitious opera, which had its world premiere at the house on Dec. 21.” But the very fact that the Met is embracing newly commissioned work at all, and the further fact that the entire run of Tan’s opera is sold out, shows that old notions of opera lovers’ conservative nature are overblown, says Anthony Tommasini.
Where New Music Is The Rule, Not The Exception
For all too many symphony orchestras, forays into contemporary music are short-lived and occasional, reflecting programmers’ fears that the public just won’t buy into anything more daring than Mahler. But in Los Angeles, the L.A. Philharmonic’s “Green Umbrella” new music series is turning 20 and going strong.