Category: today’s top story

“The curtain may finally be falling for dozens of tenants of Carnegie Hall, whose studios helped form a Bohemia on 57th Street because of the many musicians, dancers, painters and other artists who lived in them. Carnegie Hall announced yesterday that it would embark on a major expansion that would create more offices, rehearsal and practice rooms and space for large ensembles, as well as renovate backstage areas. The plan would gobble up all of the studios in the building and its two towers, Carnegie said, and would mainly serve Carnegie’s expanding educational wing.”

A concert by the local orchestra in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik was disrupted earlier this month when a nationalist member of the city council forced his way into the hall, threatened the guest conductor (apparently over his Serbian heritage,) then head-butted the orchestra’s executive director, who was attempting to keep the assailant from the stage.

Amazingly, as an increasingly brutal civil war decimates Iraq’s capital city, the Baghdad Symphony is still performing regularly. But even the orchestra, which has been held up many times as a symbol of hope for a broken country, has been sustaining losses. One musician has been killed in sectarian violence, and many others “have received death threats, must practice in semi-secrecy and don’t dare show their faces to our television cameras.” And just to add insult to injury, American and Iraqi soldiers recently raided the home of one of the BSO’s violinists, and smashed his 19th-century violin to pieces.

“The question of why more people than ever are willing to go to see tribute bands is a thorny one. Ten years ago, you could argue that the vast majority of tribute bands were offering something you couldn’t get anywhere else: they mimicked artists who had died or bands that had split up. Today, British venues are awash with tributes to current bands… Perhaps it’s indicative of the current resurgence of live music, and people just aren’t particularly troubled by who’s actually playing it.”

“Cultural diversity policies are a major priority across the arts world today; the ability to ‘demonstrate diversity’ is central to all arts funding bodies and organisations.” But Richard Hyton writes that: “Since the 1970s, cultural diversity initiatives within the visual arts sector have arguably exacerbated, rather than confronted, exclusionary pathologies of the art world. They have compounded the problems of tokenism and racial separation within the arts sector.”

“Gioia does not agree that public funding for the arts in America lags behind Europe. In fact, he said, he thinks ours is a superior model. ‘In Europe, arts funding comes from the government. In America, it’s a partnership between private and public sources. That leads to greater diversity in arts and a healthy focus on local communities’.”

“The financially floundering Paper Mill Playhouse announced a plan yesterday that it said would allow it to finish its season on schedule and continue operating next year. The plan is a mixed bag that includes administrative restructuring, a sizable bank loan and help from the government of Millburn, N.J., where the theater is situated. … Until recently it was unclear whether the theater would have to close its doors for good.”

“After years of being technologically ahead of its rivals in both the public and private sector, people at the heart of the BBC say that it is paralysed by fear, and innovation has been crippled by a power struggle between different factions. As a result, the corporation is suffering a brain drain as bright technologists quit for fresh – and less frustrating – pastures. A decade after leading the dotcom charge, the BBC is in danger of falling into a dot coma from which it may never awake.”

As America’s cultural and entertainment spheres continue to splinter into ever-smaller niche markets, Dominic Papatola says that the arts are running the risk of becoming an unending parade of group-think. “Lobbies are one of the dwindling number of places where liberals and conservatives, bulls and bears, for-its and against-its can tolerate standing in proximity to each other. But if the arts become more concerned about speaking to a specific group at the expense of others, patrons will no longer have to face the threat – or the opportunity – of sitting next to someone who doesn’t believe as they do.”

The fistfight that erupted at the Boston Pops this week has made headlines all over the world, and now comes word that the fracas erupted after one concertgoer began tapping another in an effort to get him to stop talking during the music. The talker proceeded to coldcock the complainer.