Category: today’s top story

“After surviving the worst season in its history last year, the Edinburgh Fringe is back, and its organisers promise that this year’s event will be better than ever. … This year’s festival is crucial to restoring the Fringe’s reputation after last year’s disastrous collapse of the box office on the opening day, the resignation of then director Jon Morgan, parallel inquiries into the festival’s management and a £250,000 bail-out by its funders.”

“He has decided that when he dies, or when the right time comes, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will embark on a final two-year international tour and then shut down … Meanwhile, Cunningham associates will prepare detailed records of the dances so they can be licensed and given authentic productions by other companies.”

“A former Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. executive was sentenced to write a book for giving false information to U.S. regulators about a botched 2006 agreement to delay generic competition for the blood thinner Plavix. … ‘I hope he’s capable of writing a book,’ said Michael Shapiro, a Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP attorney in New York who focuses on white-collar criminal defense. ‘What if he were sentenced to hit a home run at Nationals Park?'”

“The recent news that the developer Forest City Ratner had scrapped Frank Gehry’s design for a Nets arena in central Brooklyn is not just a blow to the art of architecture. It is a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city.” Gehry’s design was “thoughtful architecture,” but the “colossal, spiritless box” that’s to replace it “embodies the crass, bottom-line mentality that puts personal profit above the public good.”

“The two youngest contestants in the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, 20-year-old Nobuyuki Tsujii and 19-year-old Haochen Zhang, both took first prizes in the Sunday evening awards ceremony at Bass Performance Hall. Each received a $20,000 cash prize, three years of concert management and a contract for a compact-disc recording. “

“The 53rd Venice Biennial just handed out its gold medal in contemporary art, called the Golden Lion, to the U.S. pavilion’s sweeping survey of conceptual art by Bruce Nauman.”

“A Moscow museum director and a prominent curator seeking to protest Russia’s renewed censorship could face up to five years in prison in a criminal case that international human rights groups say targets freedom of expression in Russia. They are charged with inciting hatred and offending human dignity. … The ongoing trial at Moscow’s Taganka district court seems straight from Russia’s Soviet past.”

“After recently tapping Rocco Landesman, a Broadway producer and theater owner, to head the National Endowment for the Arts, Obama today picked a longtime former Republican congressman, Jim Leach of Iowa, to head the National Endowment for the Humanities.”

“Stringent new visa controls have brought one ballet company to the brink of collapse and threaten dozens of concerts, festivals and exhibitions. Rules designed to prevent illegal immigration have left international performers struggling to gain access to Britain, a report says. Other artists have decided that it is simply not worth the hassle to travel. It is feared that the new rules could destroy Britain’s reputation as a centre for international arts.”

“In a region once known best for producing rockets, petrochemicals and salt – and for incarcerating dissidents in Gulag prison camps – [the city of] Perm is banking on contemporary art, architecture and theater to overcome its weighty past. … The Russian media are already calling it ‘Bilbao on the Kama’.”