Category: people

Russian-born conductor Yakov Kreizberg will replace ailing Philadelphia Orchestra music director Wolfgang Sawallisch on the orchestra’s upcoming tour of North and South America. Kreizberg, a rising star in the conducting world, has conducted recently in Philadelphia, but will get only two rehearsals with the Philadelphians before the start of the tour. Sawallisch was forced to bow out of the tour this week when fatigue and other health problems caught up with him during a recent stretch of high-profile performances.

David Gordon’s hiring as head of the Milwaukee Art Museum was considered something of a coup for the often-overlooked regional gallery. But while Gordon has certainly lived up to billing as a plain-speaking man with big ideas, his brash style isn’t going over terribly well with some local artists, who are afraid that Gordon intends to ignore local art altogether. James Auer is concerned: “I hate to see the museum missing the boat on what is a burgeoning Milwaukee art scene, with many image-makers in the very age group – late teens to early 30s – that the museum covets but has a hard time luring into its gleaming lakefront masterpiece.”

Texas composer Laura Greenday-Ness has apologized for allowing misleading information about her career to be used in her music school’s promotional materials, and blamed her publicist for what appear to be flatly made-up accomplishments in her bio. The publicist claims that he wrote what Greenday-Ness told him to write, and nothing more. The composer also attacked the Dallas Morning News for its reporting on her misleading resume, claiming that the paper didn’t give her enough time to respond to the charges.

Is anyone mourning the death of Charles Douglass, inventor of the TV “Laff Box?” “The question of where the first laughs in Charlie’s Laff Box came from is still subject to debate in TV geek circles. Some say they were sampled from a Marcel Marceau concert; others claim they came from a classic Red Skelton performance; still others say he recorded live audiences from early ‘I Love Lucy’ shows. All of these shows relied heavily on sight gags, which would have simplified the recording process.”

Wolfgang Sawallisch, 79, who is in his last week of performances as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director, will finish out this week’s concerts with the orchestra in Philadelphia, but will not accompany the orchestra on a three-week tour of North and South America. Sawallisch “has felt dizzy and tired, and has been experiencing blood pressure problems.”

Should artists speak out on political issues? Harry Belafonte has always been an activist. “It’s a peculiarly modern idea that artists shouldn’t express a point of view on issues. But often the cultural and intellectual communities are the first to be attacked, because we’re first to protest the social order.”

Stephen Moss answers the audition call for Saddam lookalikes for a new play. You think an audition is difficult? Try walking through London dressed like an Iraqi dictator… “When I first try on the beret, it feels more Frank Spencer than Saddam Hussein, and several members of my immediate family remark on the campness of my appearance. Naturally, I have them butchered. I am also aware of the greyness of my hair. Saddam was not, it seems, prepared to die, but he was always willing to dye.”

“Several 17th-century clay pipes found at the site of William Shakespeare’s home were used to smoke marijuana, a South African anthropologist says. Although he has no proof that the Bard was the guy who smoked the pipes, he surmises that some of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays also lend credence to the possibility that the writer smoked marijuana for inspiration.”

An asteroid has been named in honor of Fred Rogers. “Misterrogers,” formerly known as No. 26858, honors Fred Rogers, creator and host of public television’s “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Rogers died Feb. 27 at age 74.

An internet auction of 180 items from violinist Isaac Stern’s estate has begun. “The items from the Stern estate range from violins, violin bows and photographs to his humidor and Steinway & Sons piano. Potentially the most valuable piece is a violin made by Frenchman Jean Baptiste Vuillaume around 1850. Bidding for the violin started at $47,500.”