“With new multimedia tours, inventive collaborations with local and international artists and, most significantly, ambitious new expansion plans, the museum is intent on looking ahead. Two weeks ago, officials said they had raised $250 million in just six months, letting the museum double its endowment and put $150 million toward the building of a new wing and other development.”
Tag: 02.21.10
Ariel Ramirez, 88, Argentine Composer Of ‘Misa Criolla’
Ramírez’s most famous work, written “just as the Second Vatican Council permitted the celebration of the Catholic Mass in the vernacular, … combined Spanish text with indigenous instruments and rhythms. Its effect is that of a reverent carnival, and it has sold millions of albums and been performed countless times across the world.”
Roman Polanski Takes Best Director Honors In Berlin
“Roman Polanski was crowned best director at the Berlin film festival for his thriller The Ghost Writer, in a move some saw as politically motivated because of his fight against US extradition over sex charges.” The Golden Bear award for best film went to the Turkish movie Bal (“Honey”), by director Semih Kaplanoglu.
Manfred Honeck, The St. Francis Of Conductors
“Virtually every conductor I’ve worked with – the worship has been of themselves,” says one orchestral musician. Among top maestros, it’s unusual to find an individual as openly, and even enthusiastically, devout as the Pittsburgh Symphony’s music director. “Yet [Honeck] wears his piety lightly. There is little sanctimony about him, and …[s]tories abound about his humility and charity.”
Librarians Are Hot (Really)
“A new generation of young, hip and occasionally tattooed librarians … call themselves guybrarians, cybrarians and ‘information specialists,’ and they blog at sites like The Free Range Librarian and The Lipstick Librarian.” Not to mention The Depraved Librarian and other sites whose names we can’t reprint. (And you should see what goes on at ALA conventions.)
What The Academy Does When The Oscars Are Over
With the money earned from broadcast rights to the Academy Awards ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences funds an enormous archive of cinema history, public screenings and lectures, media literacy programs for high schoolers, screenwriting fellowships, and research into film preservation and digital storage.
EMI Says Abbey Road Studios Is Not For Sale
The media group has issued a statement saying, “We believe that Abbey Road should remain in EMI’s ownership.” The company is trying to raise investment capital to revive the facility and supports the agency English Heritage’s plan to add Abbey Road to its list of registered historic places.
Christopher Walken Is Tired Of Playing Psychopaths
The actor remembers telling his agent, “‘Look, enough already. I want to play a nice guy with a wife and a family and a dog and a house.’ And she said, ‘We’ll look for that for you’.” And she did, sort of.
‘Liked The Actress? You’ll Love The Addict’: Why Celebrity Rehab Makes Good TV
“[The] pathologies on the shows are much the same, as are the solutions: rules, rules, some talking, and more rules. For people accustomed to living without boundaries or consequences, this can be challenging and therefore make for vibrant television. The defenses they’d spent years building up to become famous are just as entertaining as they crumble down.”
Domingo Insists (Again) That He’s Not Too Busy To Run His Opera Companies
“Nothing has changed since I started my contracts, both with Washington and then with Los Angeles. I have worked very hard for the company. Really, I’m very proud that both companies, they have really grown. And the only problem that we have right now is the fact that we are generally, globally, in a crisis.”