Is the way we teach kids music in America wrong? Libby Larsen thinks so. It’s a system that hasn’t evolved much since colonial times. “We have a musical education system that was developed out of a displaced European sensibility that was brilliant, but we have a culture now in which the music is ever so much more complicated and diverse in the world. The music education system has a crisis in relevancy.”
Tag: 03.02.04
You Remember (Well, You Could If You Practiced)
“The three-day international event pits mnemonic experts from around the globe in competitions that include memorizing a previously unpublished and non-rhyming lengthy poem in 15 minutes, and writing it down complete with proper spelling and punctuation; memorizing a list of 400 random words and reciting them back in order; and the dreaded “binary competition,” in which competitors have a half hour to memorize a random string of thousands of 1s and 0s.”
CBC For Sale?
Is the Canadian government thinking about selling off the CBC to the private sector? “It’s a billion dollars we have put towards CBC television and we witness direct competition between a public broadcaster and the private sector.”
Suing The Fake Movie Critic
“A California appeals court has ruled a proposed class action filed by filmgoers against Sony Pictures Entertainment can go to trial over the studio’s admission it had created a fake critic to plug its movies. A dissenting Justice Reuben Ortega called the lawsuit “a farce” and “the most frivolous case with which I have ever had to deal.”
Norman Mailer At 81 – Deaf But Not Blind
Norman Mailer is 81 now. He walks with canes. And last week, he “complained lightheartedly to the kids around him that listening to the world through a hearing aid is somewhat surreal. He apologized in advance if his answers didn’t jibe with their questions. ‘I’m deaf,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’m damn deaf’.”
Philadelphia Orchestra Cuts Costs, Boosts President’s Pay
The Philadelphia Orchestra recently cut its music director’s salary, asked soloists to reduce their fees, asked employees to take a week’s unpaid vacation, and fired seven employees in a cost-cutting move. All this while approving a $10,000-per-year raise for its president.
More Radio Stations Vow No Obscenity
More radio stations draft “zero tolerance” policies regarding “obscenity” on the air. “Emmis doubtless thinks this is a good idea. But that’s not why the company is making the declaration. Emmis is doing it because, like Infinity, Clear Channel and others, it has no choice. It’s the ID you have to flash at the door today if you don’t want potential problems with security.”
Nagano Takes Montreal
It’s official. The Montreal Symphony announces that Kent Nagano will be its new music director. “It is an extraordinary catch for both the MSO’s musicians and the city. Nagano has been touted as a potential successor to Daniel Barenboim at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and even Lorin Maazel at the New York Philharmonic.”
Baryshnikov’s New Focus
Why is Mikhail Baryshnikov working on so many projects? “Just about everything he does professionally — including disbanding his White Oak Dance Project after more than a dozen years and taking a non-dancing role in the TV series “Sex and the City” — is intended to support his visionary Baryshnikov Arts Center, located in the top half of the new six-story W. 37th Arts complex in New York. Scheduled to open this fall, the complex houses three off-Broadway-style theaters (one of which Baryshnikov plans to acquire by 2006) and, above them, studio, conference and office spaces that he already owns and intends to use to make New York City more art-friendly for young people.”
Art Dealers And History
Art dealers are just interested in making money, right? Earning their livings off the sweat of artists. Yet art dealers have made enormoug contributions to the history of art. “Over and over you find that interest in a new or unexplored area of art history in Britain was dealer- led. Like any profession, art dealing indeed has its rogues and scoundrels. But far more dealers are cultivated men and women who adhere to the highest professional standards. It is high time the contribution dealers make to art history was acknowledged and celebrated.”