“Earlier this week, a mistaken activation of the sprinkler system in Munich’s historic Cuvilliés Theater dumped an estimated 2100 gallons of water into the backstage area.” The 1753 jewel box is used by the Bavarian State Theater and Bavarian State Opera.
Tag: 01.09.09
Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Calls Off Rest Of Season
“In an effort to avoid debt and to shore up its finances, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra has canceled its last two concerts of the season and asked its musicians to donate their services for a Jan. 25 concert. The canceled concerts, of the orchestra’s 26th season, were scheduled in February and May.”
Vienna Radio Symphony Chooses 28-Year-Old Chief Conductor
Cornelius Meister, a young German who is currently Generalmusikdirector in Heidelberg, succeeds Bertrand de Billy, who declined to renew his contract in the wake of a funding dispute with the Austrian state broadcast corporation, which operates the orchestra.
Open-Mic Nights Suffer From Copyright Enforcement
“[G]rass-roots music events, spawning grounds for the next generation of musical talent, have come up against the demands of US copyright law, as enforced by a handful of companies who act as collection agents for songwriters and composers. The law states that no performer in a public venue can present someone else’s copyrighted music without their permission and, usually, without compensating them.”
LA Weekly Eliminates Theatre Editor
After almost 30 years, the Theater Editor position in a city with 2,000 professional plays opening every year was determined by Phoenix to be a fiscal extravagance.
Report: Half Of All Canadians Can’t Name A Single Canadian Writer
“Whose fault is this? Canadian authors, for not creating more world-shaking masterpieces, or Canadians in general, for being such ignorant philistines?”
Broadway Went Up In 2008
“Even though the last few months of the year were challenging, these last two weeks encompassing the Christmas and new year’s holidays grossed nearly two million dollars more than the same two-week period last year. This reflects that even in tough economic times, theatregoers go to the theatre.”
How Will The Recession Affect Publishing?
Publishers and literary agents are “staying on the sober side of upbeat. They all feel that, for true readers, books are not a ‘discretionary spend’.”
Holland Cotter On The Critic’s Life
“My favorite critics are not art critics, but dance critics. Especially Edwin Denby. I like to read them best–not for stylistic reasons, but because the subject they are writing about is a very ephemeral thing. It basically doesn’t exist beyond the performance.”
Should Art Be Returned To Nazi Victims? (A Case Against)
“What could be more self-evident than the rightness of returning works of art stolen by the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s to the heirs of their Jewish owners? Yet nothing in today’s art world is more absurd and insidiously destructive.”