Category: people

Architect Michael Graves is “suffering from paralysis of the lower body as a result of ‘a disease with the symptoms of meningitis. Graves contracted the disease of the nervous system in February.

Two of the hottest opera tickets this summer are Peter Sellars productions. Sellars is a high concept guy. “Much of Sellars’s talk tends to abstract generalisations. ‘I am more interested in the periphery than the centre. Places with no centre, like Los Angeles, are both more chaotic and more democratic’ is typical. When I asked him about what happened in Adelaide, all he said was, ‘People flip out about the fires in Australia, but the Aborigine tradition is that you have to burn off the land to regenerate’.”

Uber-collector Charles Saatchi is famously reticent about giving interviews. But Andrew Renton takes him out shopping and for a chat. “I’ve been buying and selling art for 30 years. It’s what I do. There was a time when I was accused of creating a Xanadu, and of hoarding. I can’t win. I don’t mind selling work – even by artists I like. It’s more important to make sure I have the best works.”

Yo-Yo Ma has had remarkable success attracting audiences to hear his latest musical explorations. So does he ever think about slowing down? “There have been times at the end of the year when I can’t even remember where I’ve been. I’m trying to spend more time with my family and only to go to places there’s a good reason for going and do only things I really care about.”

Seventy-five-year-old Buddy Zamoiski officially steps down as chairman of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, after 15 years at that organization’s helm. Zamoiski has a spectacular talent for talking money out of people for his various causes. “Except for Joseph Meyerhoff (who built the symphony a fancy new hall), Zamoiski probably is more responsible for the orchestra’s relative financial stability than anyone in its 86-year-history.”

Alan Yentob is a rarity – a famous TV exec. “He chalks up his 35th year at the BBC this year. He has risen relentlessly. He has made celebrated films for Omnibus, created Arena, run Music and Arts, BBC2 and BBC1. Then in 1997, when he stopped controlling BBC1, it was as if the Corporation didn’t know what to do with him. They gave him a job called director of programmes in production, which had you genuinely scratching your head. Now his title is director of drama, entertainment and CBBC, which, in his translation, ‘is essentially the creative director of the BBC’.”

“At the age of 74, architect Frank Gehry shows absolutely no sign of slowing down. At any given moment, there are perhaps 30 projects at various stages of development being worked on by the 103 people in the Gehry office. Two major events dominate the life of the white-haired genius who started life as Frank Goldberg in Toronto in 1929 and moved to Los Angeles 18 years later.”

Jane Alexander is back performing on a Washington stage again. “It’s possible, though, that her four-year run as NEA chairman, during the political tumult dubbed the Culture Wars, will prove to be her most memorable local performance. It had everything: hostile congressmen vowing to take the NEA apart, life-or-death budget battles year after year, angry artists urging defiance. ‘Jane kept it alive and reinstated a sense of credibility for the agency.’ Alexander is proud of its survival. A weakened agency can be strengthened again, she reasoned at the time. But ‘if it had gone under, it’s doubtful it would have been revived within 20 years. Certainly not in this climate.’ Could she have done anything more, or differently? Arts supporters doubt it. The consensus is that Alexander salvaged what could have been salvaged.”

As part of a fundraiser for the literary magazine Brick, Margaret Atwood (known for her pen) is planning to sing (something she’s not known for). Until late this week, it remained unclear just what Atwood would be singing and with whom (if anyone) when she appears at The Berkeley Church in east-end T.O. There had been talk of her interpreting Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, accompanied by fellow novelist André Alexis on banjo. Alas, this won’t come to pass. There also was a rumour that she’d be fronting a band featuring yet another novelist (and media maven) Evan Solomon on electric guitar. But this was denied as well. Now it seems Atwood will be singing a cappella, doing two original works.”

“Like a comet that returns every 15 years or so, Daniel Barenboim is playing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas again.” These days, the omnipresent Barenboim is better known as conductor than pianist, and most of his recent successes have been in the realm of Wagner opera, a far cry from the delicate complexity of Beethoven. David Patrick Stearns is intrigued by Barenboim’s continuing obsession with the sonatas, and also by the performer’s seemingly endless ability to rethink works he has played hundreds of times before.