The Arts World’s Diversity Problem (In All Its Forms)

“There is a severe problem with diversity in the arts, and the media, right across the board. It’s so obvious that you don’t even need statistics to see it. And it’s getting worse, now that the cost of living in many large cities plus, for example, the falling revenues in the music industry – means that it is much, much harder to make it. Those who do make it will typically have somewhere to crash during those lean years, and those who do are disproportionately well-off.”

Two Things The Canada Council Needs To Do To Make Its Arts Funding More Relevant

“One is to start devoting as much energy to engaging Canadians in the arts as it does to helping art get made, a direction that is becoming politically important in a democratic culture where the barriers (and even the distinction) between consumer and producer are breaking down. The other is figuring out how to channel funding to younger artists without destroying the achievements of the previous generation.”

Director Of Valencia’s Opera House Fired And Arrested

Helga Schmidt, who has long been criticized for lavish spending – on her lodging and travel expenses as well as on such expensive artists as Lorin Maazel, Plácido Domingo and Zubin Mehta – has been accused of manipulating contracts and accepting commissions on artists she engaged at the Palau de les Arts, part of the futuristic arts-and-sciences complex designed by Santiago Calatrava.