Tag: 03.09.03

Where Are The New Protest Songs?

Peace rallies trot out protest songs that are decades old. “Some mutter darkly that there are more songs out there but corporate radio is keeping them off the air. The notorious list of ‘banned’ songs – everything from John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ to the entire oeuvre of Rage Against the Machine – the radio conglomerate Clear Channel issued after Sept. 11 only adds fuel to such suspicions. But no one names a great song that’s not getting played.” Are they out there?

Is America Forgetting How To Dance?

In a period when audiences for classical music, museums and opera have grown, the dance audience has shrunk. “Between 1993 and 2000, attendance in the United States for large ballet companies (with budgets of more than $6 million) fell by 25 percent. Audiences for mid-sized companies (with budgets that are $6 million or less) dropped 18.7 percent, according to Dance/USA. It is dramatically clear. By all measurements, audiences for ballet are down.”

Why Baltimore Doesn’t Dance

Why doesn’t Baltimore have a significant dance company? “It’s not only that we don’t have a major resident dance company. We also don’t present key professional touring companies from around the U.S. Rightly or not, Baltimore has a reputation as a city that doesn’t appreciate dance, a reputation fueled by very public failures of flagship troupes.”

Fogel: Bad Times For Orchestras Going To Get Worse

Orchestras across America are struggling to stay in business. And it’s going to get worse, says Henry Fogel, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “The great economy and high stock market of the ’90s helped mask some of the problems orchestras are now facing. And watch out – Fogel predicts that ‘next year will be the worst year for orchestras, which by then will have suffered three bad years in a row’.”

The Savannah Symphony’s “Death Spiral”

The Savannah Symphony’s demise was awhile coming – the orchestra has made a series of mistakes over a number of years. “Unable to make payroll, $1.3 million in debt, demoralized by dwindling audiences and backstage squabbles, the orchestra first canceled several weeks of concerts while attempting a “rescue” fund-raising drive. When no major patrons answered the SOS, the season was declared over. In hindsight, the SSO’s death spiral started on two paths: budgetary promises made and later broken, and a triangle of acrimony within the organization.”

Motion: Young Writers Don’t Know The Classics

Students aspiring to be writers have too little knowledge of classical writing, says England’s Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. “We turn out students from schools and into universities who have not been educated in a rounded way. There is incredibly little time allowed for reading. It’s the fault of the structure of the curriculum. They bone up on their texts, thinking they will only get questions on those.”

Millionaire Faces Opera Ball Ban

Viennese high society is looking into how to ban millionaire playboy Richard Lugner from the famous annual Opera Ball next year. He outraged organizers this year by inviting Pamela Anderson and “turning the ball into a cheap PR stunt.” “Lugner makes few pretensions to join the elite social set that wants him ousted from the ball, the highlight of the city’s social calendar. His packed-out press conferences usually revolve around discussions about the ‘great breasts’ of the women he plans to invite.”

SF Asian Art Museum Reopening

The San Francisco Asian Art Museum is one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere devoted to Asian art. Next week the museum reopens in a $160 million new home. “The museum’s move to downtown will allow it to display nearly 2,500 works from its renowned collection, more than double what it could show in its old Golden Gate Park location, in a lavishly renovated landmark that is a destination on its own.”

Repatriating Art Is Compicated Business

Kenneth Baker weighs in on art repatriation issues: “The furor over Nazi looting has touched off a transnational frenzy of new and renewed demands for repatriation of artworks stolen, liquidated or otherwise lost during wartime or colonial occupation. These range from Greece’s perennial demands for Britain’s return of the Parthenon ‘Elgin marbles’ to Korean demands for the return of artifacts stolen by Japan during the Second World War and earlier. Reflecting on the weight of such claims, it is worth remembering that Hitler’s cultural officers frequently looted art treasures on the pretext of repatriating them in the aftermath of the wars of centuries past.”