As classical music performances, complete with visuals, go online on Second Life and elsewhere, there are some technical hurdles to leap. “‘It’s an odd medium,’ said John Shibley, the director of organizational learning at the consulting company EmcArts, which helped manage (chamber ensemble) Red’s performance. ‘It’s sort of like listening to the radio and watching a puppet show, and the puppet show is not synched to the radio.'”
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The U.S Versus The Musicologist?
A musicologist who worked in the US for ten years was suddenly barred from the country last year. “Her case has become a cause célèbre among musicologists and the subject of a protest campaign by the American Musicological Society and by academic leaders like Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., where Ghuman was to have participated last month in the Bard Music Festival, showcasing Elgar’s music.”
Will Philly Ever Get The Great Hall It Was Promised?
The main concert hall at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center is a beautiful thing to behold, but its acoustic has never quite measured up to the advance billing. Several studies have recommended significant acoustical changes, but thus far, the center appears content to stand pat. “So is this it? Is the hall’s sound fixed in its not-quite-good-enough state? Will Verizon Hall ever achieve the greatness planners promised, and, if so, does anyone have the wits, will and musical authority to get it there?”
Warning: Theatre Needs “Big Plays”
Michael Boyd, head of the Royal Shakespeare Company, warns that contemporary theatre will not thrive unless it addresses the most challenging political and social issues of the day, with ‘big plays in big spaces’.”
Where Did The Intellectuals Go?
“Once, we are told, a hardy species of freelance thinker roamed the landscape of the American mind. This breed was independent, fiercely so. It practiced social and cultural criticism but never used jargon, and its accessible manner won a large audience. It prospered until not much later than the 1950s. Indeed, it is possible to speak of that decade as a kind of golden age. But then something happened. More particularly, the 1960s happened, and the 1970s– an era of disintegrating consensus, of proliferating theoretical schemata, of perverse refusals to follow the guiding example of one’s elders. Smart young people decided not to write well.”
In Battle Vs. Terrorism, Prisoners Lose Religious Texts
“Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.” While titles by C.S. Lewis, for example, make the list of government-approved religious works, it is not a very long list. Some who minister to prisoners “say that an administration that put stock in religion-based approaches to social problems has effectively blocked prisoners’ access to religious and spiritual materials — all in the name of preventing terrorism.”
The Story Behind The Joyce Hatto Affair
Last year, numerous recordings attributed to pianist Joyce Hatto were found to be frauds; they had been recorded by others. So how did this fraud succeed for so long?
In Creative Realm, Gods And Artists Sometimes Clash
“The very idea that art purports to be a creative activity can offend a man of faith,” Peter Conrad notes. “But is it really nonsensical to praise a man of genius for creating a painting, a poem or a tune, just because he did not invent the canvas and the colours, the words or the notes? Art is a magical activity, and anyone who creates the likeness of a man seems to be exercising the power that created man in the first place.”
With Latinos In Key Posts, Doors May Open In L.A. Arts
Three people recently named to high-profile L.A. arts positions — “Gustavo Dudamel, set to take the baton at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009; Miguel Angel Corzo, in the newly created post of president and chief executive at the Colburn School; and Olga Garay, recently named general manager of the municipal Department of Cultural Affairs” — “have one thing in common: They all identify themselves as Latino.” The changes they bring to the city may well include more Latin programming.
The Pavarotti Phenomenon
Pavarotti was simultaneously a throwback and an innovator onstage, says Mark Swed, and regardless of what you thought of his career decisions, he changed the opera world forever. “The simple fact is that Pavarotti did own the stage, and when he opened his mouth, when that sound so fresh and alive and gorgeous, like nothing I have ever heard before or since, generously poured forth, there was no resisting the big, happy guy… Pavarotti was a phenomenon, and to behold it, to share in it, was wondrous.”