Category: today’s top story

“Sir Simon Rattle’s future as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic could be in doubt because of his own musicians. They are reportedly going to vote on whether to keep him in the next few days.” If Rattle leaves Berlin, he would likely be pursued by several major orchestras, Chicago and Philadelphia among them.

Several large Philadelphia philanthropies have kicked in $30m to retire construction debt left over for the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. A group of individual donors has also been tapped to boost the center’s endowment to $72m. It is “the largest arts bailout in the city’s history.”

“In New York and Los Angeles, well-established institutions including Carnegie Hall, the Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Center are scrambling to refinance their debt after interest rates climbed on so-called auction-rate bonds.”

“Across Europe, musicians are being asked to wear decibel-measuring devices and to sit behind see-through antinoise screens. Companies are altering their repertories. And conductors are reconsidering the definition of fortissimo.”

“The UK Arts Council stands accused of misusing lottery funds after failing to distribute more than £150 million intended for cash-strapped projects… Last month the funding body – one of 13 distributors of lottery money – faced a vote of no confidence from actors and directors after it cut the grants of nearly 200 theatres, orchestras and other organisations.”

In 1999, Australian arts groups were changed forever by a report that declared that cultural groups would never achieve long-term sustainability until they started adhering to the basic rules of business. “But almost a decade after the landmark [inquiry,] has the pendulum swung too far?”

Actress Cate Blanchett says that her home country has “an opportunity to put creativity and the arts back into the centre of Australian life here and abroad. This is how a middle power can exercise its soft power in a positive and stimulating way — that shows the world that we are much more than the cliched images that come readily to mind.”

“For years it has been a frustration that in Quebec, culture is sacrosanct and supported with huge subsidies but here it gets shrugged off as expendable, turning Toronto arts leaders into beggars grateful for every dime of underfunding. Now something wonderful has happened. Ontario has a government that understands culture can help create a great society and make Toronto one of the world’s beacons.”