Category: today’s top story

Dresden’s “Old Masters Picture Gallery, recently opened a virtual version of itself in Second Life. Second Life representatives say it’s the first real-world museum to ‘clone’ itself online, although virtual versions of other collections (most famously ‘Second Louvre,’ which has no official ties to the Paris museum) have popped up. All 37,700 square feet of the 150-year-old building, plus the grounds outside, have been recreated, down to the trash cans and fountains in the courtyard and ceiling moldings, staircases and furniture within.”

At the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, where Marin Alsop is in her 16th year as music director, “(p)art of the happiness for the participants clearly comes from being in an environment so different from the regular classical world. Here, contemporary music is the norm, and audiences pour out to hear it. ‘In a regular season, orchestras have to be so careful to dole it out and sandwich it between works by the masters,’ [concertmaster Yumi] Hwang-Williams says. ‘Cabrillo is an oasis, a haven. And that’s why we keep coming back for more.'”

“For four years these vast concrete slabs have slowly crept through Baghdad, snaking along road, river and sidewalk as they shut out light and encircled ministries, palaces and districts. Now, confronted by the inescapable presence and likely longevity of these blast walls, the city has hired two dozen Iraqi artists to soften their harsh gray solidity by using the city’s past to hide its present.”

“After 20 years of labor peace, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is in a showdown that threatens to derail the opening of the 2007-08 season. Contract negotiations between the musicians union and management have broken down over a combination of issues, including salaries, pensions, seniority pay and work rules, according to the union. No further talks are scheduled.”

“A French teenager suspected of posting his own complete translation of the latest Harry Potter book on the internet has been arrested. The 16-year-old, from the southern city of Aix-en-Provence, has been released but could face charges for violating intellectual property rights.”

“Police have found two paintings and a drawing by Pablo Picasso stolen from his granddaughter’s apartment in Paris in February… Three people were arrested in Paris and are awaiting charges over the theft.” The combined value of the recovered works is nearly $69m.

“A surge of interest in ancient books, hidden for centuries in houses along Timbuktu’s dusty streets and in leather trunks in nomad camps, is raising hopes that Timbuktu — a city whose name has become a staccato synonym for nowhere — may once again claim a place at the intellectual heart of Africa.”

Why, Zaha Hadid, did no woman win the Pritzker Prize before you? “‘It’s not because of lack of talent: When I teach, the best students are women.’ Rather, ‘everything that has to do with this profession is male,’ she explains. The job requires ‘continuity’ and round- the-clock work, she says, and is tough to combine with motherhood. In the trade, ‘people don’t treat women well,’ Hadid says; she has only just ‘graduated from that prejudice.'”

“I have lost count of the meetings I have attended to discuss the Cultural Olympiad, the showcase of British arts and culture planned to run alongside the 2012 Olympic Games. … At the end of each meeting – and sometimes at the beginning – the inevitable question comes: ‘Is there a budget for the Cultural Olympiad?’ To date, the answer has been boringly predictable. … With just five years to go, with a year before London 2012 ‘owns’ the Olympic project, the arts world is still waiting for the Cultural Olympiad to be funded.”

“None of America’s most prominent ballet companies are run by women. According to a study by Dance/USA’s director of research and information, John Munger, in 2002 86 percent of the country’s 43 ballet companies with budgets of $2 million or more were run by men, while 5 percent were led by a male-female directorship. The landscape has since grown starker. … And there are precious few female choreographers working on larger stages….”