“In a classic soul era largely defined by crooners and shouters, [Wilson Pickett, who died last week at 64,] was a screamer, a throat-shredding force of nature who always seemed about to bust a gut or blow a gasket. He called what he did ‘grits music,’ and it could scald a listener or fire up a fan’s imagination.”
Tag: 01.21.06
Midori’s Teachers Go On Strike
“Music teachers who carry out the work of the foundation established by the violinist Midori went on strike on Thursday, denouncing what they said were a lack of raises, unfair pay and attempts to limit pensions.” Teachers in the program are paid $40 an hour, but say they are given only a few hours of work per week and are asked to travel for hours between classes. “The foundation countered that the teachers were making unreasonable demands on an organization created to do good.”
Is NYC’s Armory Project A Zero-Sum Game?
The announcement that New York’s eye-catching Seventh Regiment Armory will soon be transformed into a 55,000-square-foot “visual and performing arts institutions” was greeted happily across much of the city’s arts world. But not everyone is happy: “for dozens of dealers and show organizers across the country and abroad, the cavernous Park Avenue space [has been] a crucial sales point for their wares.”
Princeton Gets $101 Million Arts Gift
“Peter B. Lewis, the Cleveland philanthropist known for his tough standards, is giving his alma mater, Princeton University, $101 million to expand its creative and performing arts activities, including the creation of an artists-in-residence program… Mr. Lewis, who said he chose the figure of $101 million to top the last large donation to the university ($100 million), called the arts ‘an important part of life I didn’t know when I was at Princeton and didn’t know when I was a kid.'”
Is ABC Pandering To The Christian Right?
More than a year ago, ABC Television began production for a new reality show featuring a gay couple and their adopted son moving into an exclusive neighborhood in Austin, Texas. The show wound up being, by all reports, a fascinating look at American society and the ability of neighbors to change and adapt to the people around them. But ABC yanked the program off its fall schedule and has yet to announce whether it will air. Now, there is speculation that ABC pulled the show to avoid offending four major “religious right” groups which recently lifted their boycott of the Disney-owned ABC.
Getting Current In Minnesota
A little over a year ago, Minnesota Public Radio bought a competing classical music station in the Twin Cities and changed its format, much to the consternation of some classical music fans in the area. But in the year since MPR launched the station now known as The Current, it has been the talk of the local radio scene. With its DJs picking the songs they play, focusing on local rock bands and national acts that don’t get the time of day on most corporate-controlled FM stations, the station has cultivated a seriously loyal following, and affected nearly everything about the music scene in the Cities.