Category: people

“To those who whine, who doubt his importance to our times and to the future – a warning. To Boulez we owe the most influential musical changes of our lifetime – as a conductor, composer, educator, programme planner and superior being, he has embraced an international state of artistic achievement, and wrestled, built and triumphed on all our behalfs. He has educated a whole generation of musicians – and happily, ecstatically even, it was mine – evangelising for rhythm and form over mere miasma of sound or texture, and has been bold for all who would be creative, insisting on rigour in intellect, opinion, art and its practice.” – The Scotsman

— at the age of 82. Edward Craven Walker once said: “If you buy my lamp, you won’t need drugs.” – CNN

About taxes, about his new young companion, about his weight – “I am very chubby. I make a competition for very young singers. If someone comes out who is chubby like me, he must sing like a god.” – New York Times Magazine

“Leonardo da Vinci may have fathered a son, a finding that blurs the image of Leonardo as a gay icon, according to a scholar investigating the master’s family life.” – Discovery

Franz Welser-Möst survived his six-year tenure as conductor of the London Philharmonic – but just barely. Installed as music director at age 29, he made sweeping (and unpopular) changes, saw three managing directors unseated in his six years,  and was dubbed “Frankly Worse Than Most” by his critics. Now, four years after his departure, he’s back on top – head of Zurich Opera, and about to take on the Cleveland – and finally able to reflect on his difficult past. – The Telegraph (UK)

“Alicia Markova, a living legend not only of British ballet, but of 20th-century civilisation. This is the body that Matisse drew black squiggles down for his costume for her in Rouge et Noir. This skin was rubbed down by the immortal Pavlova with her personal eau de cologne. This musical mind was guided as a child by Stravinsky and Balanchine.” – The Telegraph (UK)

Getty Museum director John Walsh says goodbye after 17 years. “Walsh arrived a year after the Getty Trust received its fortune. As the endowment has grown from $1.2 billion to $5 billion, the Getty Museum has not only spent huge sums on its collections, but also beefed up educational programs, developed what Walsh says is now the best publishing program of any museum in the world and built the new facility at the Getty Center.” – Los Angeles Times

“Mr. Wilson is probably the most prolific theater artist in the world. An astonishingly tireless man who presents premieres of 8 to 12 new projects each year in an array of far-flung countries, he directs, designs the sets, co-designs the lighting and usually choreographs them all. He also organizes an army of loyal acolytes in the presentation of twice as many touring productions of older shows throughout the world. He estimates that he spends 10 days a year at his apartment in New York.” – New York Times

Nicholas Serota is smiling. And why not? Serota, director of the Tate Museum, is “one of the handful of culture gurus who have persuaded conservative Britons to cast aside their instinctual suspicion of modern art. Serota has, with Tate Modern, simultaneously catapulted Britain to the forefront of the international contemporary art world, up there with New York’s MOMA and the Pompidou in Paris.” – Los Angeles Times

“Without my stopwatch on the night, I had to resort to the trusted old method of counting seconds, muttering “One elephant . . . two elephants . . . three elephants,” and so on. By the time I reached the fifth elephant, my neighbours in the stalls were pushing me under my seat and sitting on my head to shut me up, because they thought my comments would upset Mick Jagger, who was in the audience.” – Sydney Morning Herald