Category: today’s top story

A Missouri judge has rejected the orchestra’s claim to dedicated monies from the state’s arts fund. He ruled both that the Missouri government is protected by sovereign immunity and that laws dedicating funding are not binding. “While there are many statutes with seeming ‘promises’ by the Legislature as to how revenues from a particular tax will be spent, these ‘promises’ are but empty words that have no legal consequence.”

“Across the arts, consensus has yet to emerge about what the slump may bring. There is anxiety about ticket sales, sponsorship and subsidy – but also, in some places, optimism about a rising public need to seek solace in a music download or a trip to the cinema. Lean times, many observers point out, tend to lead to a surge in creativity.”

John McCain’s appearance last week on David Letterman’s show and Sarah Palin’s “Saturday Night Live” turn “underlined the extent to which comedy has become a liberal genre in America…. Though the nation has been closely divided along partisan lines for years, the funniest and most politically important acts are overwhelmingly at the expense of conservatives and often carry a clear partisan message.”

The Juilliard Quartet has named one of the Met Opera’s concertmasters as its new first violinist. Nicholas Eanet, who actually has a broken wrist at the moment, will replace the retiring Joel Smirnoff next summer.

“As museums grapple with the potential effects of the economic crisis, the Harvard Art Museum has received a windfall from Emily Rauh Pulitzer, a former curator who earned a graduate degree at Harvard, that includes artworks worth nearly $200 million and a cash gift of $45 million.”

“After the longest out-of-town tryout in history, a new TKTS booth opened on Thursday in Duffy Square, eight years later and nine times costlier than originally estimated.”

Among the other nominees are Marilynne Robinson’s Home, first-time novelists Salvatore Scibona (The End) and Rachel Kushner (Telex From Cuba), and Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello; missing from the list are Philip Roth, John Updike, Toni Morrison and Jhumpa Lahiri.

“Tickets for the Oct. 4 Boston Symphony Orchestra concert featuring André Previn were sold at half price – and they threw in a free drink. This isn’t the first time the BSO has slashed prices for a slow-selling show. But it is a sign of the economic times.”

“Another bankrupt corporation, another corporate art collection on the block. Actually, no one quite knows what Lehman Brothers, the financial services firm that filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15, will do with its 3,500-piece art collection, but with works by such bankable artists as Jasper Johns and Andreas Gurky, it is likely to be on sale at a major auction house near you.”