Court rules that a St. Louis public radio station doesn’t have to accept underwriting funding by the Ku Klux Klan of “All Things Considered” broadcast. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tag: 02.18.00
WEBBY ART
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art teams up with the Webbys to offer $50,000 prize to digital artist with the most impressive work. – Wired
RELUCTANT HONOR?
The Austrian parliament has agreed that all works of art stolen by the Nazis should be returned to their rightful owners. But is the policy really being carried out? – The Art Newspaper
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Over the past 30 years Japan has built thousands of new museums, some of them by prestigious architects. But what baffles some visitors is the lack of collections to go inside. – The Art Newspaper
NO PEOPLE ALLOWED
The Taliban reopened Afghanistan’s National Art Gallery in Kabul this week, but no art depicting human figures was allowed, in keeping with the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic law. – Times of India (AP)
LIBERATION
Increasingly, musicians are ditching their record companies and taking it to the web. – Christian Science Monitor
STADIUM OPERA
The disaster of his last big opera production (“Carmen”) in a New Zealand stadium left him with a second mortgage on his house. But an Auckland promoter believes he’s found the secret this time out with his new stadium “Traviata.” – New Zealand Herald
CONDUCTING DIVERSITY
Have the ranks of American conductors become more diverse in the past decade? One conductor says not. “I can count the number of African American conductors on the fingers of my two hands,” he says. “The scene has not opened up, but an important part of what has not opened up is opportunities for African Americans as music directors. You’ll find a good handful who are conductors, perhaps even associates or assistants. But it pretty well stops there.” – Detroit News
FLOWERING FLEMING
“Not since the days when Birgit Nilsson dominated the German dramatic opera repertory, and the first half of Luciano Pavarotti’s career, before he started straying from the Italian lyric tenor roles he sang so splendidly, has there been such an international consensus among the critics and audiences about the excellence of a vocal artist.” Soprano Renée Fleming could write her ticket to almost any concert hall or opera house in the world. – New York Times
ANNIVERSARY SCHMANIVERSARY
It’s another Bach anniversary this year. Too much of a good thing? “It is disappointing that these celebrations usually involve a great deal of recycling and money-making, and not a great deal of rethinking or reassessing, or even an emphasis of context,” says Christopher Hogwood, who believes that Bachian fanatics should not be encouraged. – Sydney Morning Herald