Category: today’s top story

The opera house staff may strike “an important milestone for the legendary Milan opera house. Not only was it a tribute to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Arturo Toscanini, it was to mark the beginning of Daniel Barenboim’s appointment as La Scala’s highest-ranking musician.

“The National Arts Centre and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra are joining forces to create a major new summer music festival and tourist attraction. It will be located not in Toronto or Ottawa but in Niagara,” and the orchestras hope that it will come to rival Tanglewood in prestige and popularity.”

“The Berlin Philharmonic, widely considered the world’s greatest orchestra, has finally opened up about its Nazi past after decades of silence. The orchestra is following a trend of German institutions which are admitting their past association with the Nazis.”

“Pink is the colour of hypocrisy. The heyday of pink as we know it began in 1859, when a new pigment was isolated from coal-tar and called after the nearby town of Magenta. The new colour had never been seen before; it was not part of the spectrum of white light. It had never been seen in painting or in decoration.”

“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has filed a negligence suit against world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, charging that flaws in his design of the $300 million Stata Center in Cambridge, one of the most celebrated works of architecture unveiled in years, caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, and drainage to back up… The suit says it cost MIT more than $1.5 million to hire another company to rebuild the amphitheater, with new bricks, seats, and a new drainage system.”

Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela is the cream of a 250,000-student crop, and it “began its first U.S. tour at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night under its music director, Gustavo Dudamel… Our country, with its poor music education, may never — should never — be the same.”

“It is tempting to see a connection between the breakdown of old styles in music and the visual arts from the mid-to-late 19th century onwards. Were the impressionistic works of Monet and Debussy both expressions of the same spirit? Were Matisse’s “jazz” cut-out pictures of the mid-20th century linked to the postwar bebop revolution?”

“Since its launch in 2006, Dzanc Books has acquired other presses, signed numerous authors, launched an education program and started an award — the Dzanc Prize — to encourage writers to undertake community literacy projects. Dzanc is growing at a time when there are few independent publishers left, and the remaining ones were hit hard by the recent bankruptcy of Advanced Marketing Services, a major distributor.”

The US Supreme Court hears arguments about whether a law barring child pornography could be applied to popular award-winning movies like Lolita, Traffic, American Beauty and Titanic. “The justices appeared to support the pandering provision of a 2003 federal law that makes it a crime to promote, distribute or solicit material in a way intended to cause others to believe it contains child pornography.”

“Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts was the top recipient of private donations among U.S. arts organizations in 2006, with a total of $185.8 million, according to a survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy released today. New York’s Museum of Modern Art was No. 2 in the survey, with $133.5 million raised.” Others in the top rankings included the Smithsonian, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera, and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.