The mayor of San Antonio announced this week that he will donate $5000 from his office’s discretionary fund to the struggling San Antonio Symphony, which missed payroll last Friday and is facing more than $500,000 of immediate debt. Mayor Ed Garza also exhorted other city leaders to match his contribution, and called on corporate leaders to broaden the base of support for the ensemble. The symphony’s musicians have agreed to keep playing despite going without their paychecks, at least for the moment.
Tag: 03.04.03
Forget the Women And Children! Board Members First!
The entire board of the financially shaky Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra has resigned after learning that its members could be on the hook for more than a million dollars if the organization were to file for bankruptcy. The resignations occurred after the WSO was informed that its liability coverage was being cut back from $2 million to $1 million. The orchestra is operating under a CDN$1.8 million deficit. For now, the WSO is being run by a 6-member management committee, and the provincial culture ministry is promising to help the organization make payroll in the short term.
SF Ballet Cuts Dancers To Save Money
San Francisco Ballet has cut four dancers from its roster, including two principals. “Friday’s dismissals will leave the ballet with 69 dancers under contract next season, which begins in February 2004. That will save the company about $350,000, said Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy. The administrative staff also has been reduced, by 12 percent, and salaries have been frozen.”
Lysistrata In LA
On Monday, peace activists read Aristophanes anti-war play “Lysistrata” at locations all over the world. In Los Angeles “about 250 people gathered at L.A. Filmmakers Co-Op to watch AlfreWoodard play the title role, supported by Julie Christie, Christine Lahti, Mary McDonnnell, Eric Stoltz, Roscoe Lee Browne and other celebrities. The scene was reminiscent of a movie opening or an exclusive club. Only about 100 could cram into the small brick building, while the rest of the crowd watched a televised simulcast on the adjacent patio.”
10,000 Offers To Read
Organizers report they had about 10,000 e-mail messages from people wanting to take part in readings around the world. In New York City alone, there were 60 performances planned.”
And All Over…
The readings took place all over the world. “The latest count was heading beyond 919 readings in 56 countries, including Venezuela, China, India and Honduras.”
How These Things Start – Did Picasso Hate Matisse? Did Matisse Dislike Picasso?
A competition is an odd aesthetic for an art show. So how did the Matisse–Picasso opposition come about? It “was invented almost a hundred years ago by a handful of avant-garde poets and painters who had an appetite for grand pronouncements. The rivalry was also fostered by Gertrude and Leo Stein, who, in their salon, liked to put other people’s neuroses in a pot and let them simmer till they boiled over. Early on, Leo Stein made a point of telling Matisse and Picasso, then freshly aware of one another, that an important Parisian art dealer had spent the large sum of 2,000 francs on new paintings by Picasso and the very slightly larger sum of 2,200 francs on new paintings by Matisse. Then came a press release by the poet Apollinaire, and the duel was officially on…”
Wouldn’t You Like To Write A Children’s Book Too?
So Madonna’s got a contract for a series of children’s books. That’s got Malene Arpe thinking about other “role models” who might have a future in kiddie books. How about “Chemistry For Toddlers” by Saddam Hussein, “The Silly Silly Voices In My Head Head” by Phil Spector, or “Look At You! You Forgot Your Pants” by Pee-Wee Herman?
Australia’s Booming Art Market
Australians spent $100 million on fine art last year, “with a record $80 million passing through the hands of the nation’s art auctioneers. Despite the uncertain economic and world political climate, that record could be broken this year as well-to-do newcomers who boosted sales last year by taking their money out of the sharemarket continue their splurge on paintings, prints and drawings. Salesroom turnover last year was up by $10 million on the previous year and four times greater than a decade earlier.”
Berlin’s Opera Battles
“The future of government-sponsored opera in Berlin may be in the balance. In practice, even more is at stake. In a peculiar way over the last three years the opera story has become a gauge of the still volatile relations between the two halves of this long-divided city and even a test of Germany’s willingness to give Berlin the profile of a genuine capital city.”