A $125 million expansion of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s home in the city’s downtown is drawing to a close, and the face of the new facilities which will be available to the orchestra is coming into focus. A new 500-seat recital hall will play host to a new chamber music series, featuring members of the DSO playing alongside big-name guest soloists. The smaller hall will also feature guest ensembles which otherwise might have skipped Detroit for lack of a good chamber music hall. And the new building “offers patron comforts that… Orchestra Hall, has always lacked: elevators, a spacious four-story atrium lobby, additional rest rooms, coat checks, lounges, refreshment centers and a high-tech box office.”
Tag: 03.12.03
The Golden Age of Animation?
Animation has come a long way in the last couple of decades. From the eye-popping (at the time) Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, through the pioneering computer work in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, to today’s cutting edge ‘toons like Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., technology is changing the way animated films are made, marketed, and viewed. A new Oscar category devoted to the genre sprang up last year, and increasingly, audiences seem to be more accepting of the idea that cartoons aren’t just for kids anymore.
More Books, But Fewer Choices
More books are being sold, thanks to a broadening of outlets and the superstores. But the personality is being wrung out of the business, and we’re increasingly buying a narrower range of book. “According to a recent Bookseller, gamely surveying the trends of 2002, the range of titles sold in the high street fell by 5 per cent last year – from about 437,000 to just over 417,000. At the same time the number of different ISBNs assigned to fiction fell by 1,000, while – perhaps the most sinister figure of all – ‘frontlist’ sales accounted for nearly 44 per cent of total revenue. We may be buying more books, but they are increasingly the same books, sold by shops that are differentiated only by the sign on the door.”
Green Space vs. History
Dallas, Texas, is not the greenest city in America. In fact, Dallas’s downtown is almost completely lacking open space. A proposal for a new, 4.7-acre park aims to change that, but there’s a catch. The plans for the park would require the destruction of a number of old buildings described as “the best block of 1950s architecture in the city.” There is no question that the ‘greening’ proposal is well-intended, says David Dillon, “yet a park proposal that requires the demolition of historic buildings and the closing of major streets, in a downtown that is already one-third vacant land, creates as many problems as it solves– not just for historic preservation but for planning and economic development.”
The Not-So-Modern Theatre
A Boston philanthropist has agreed to purchase the dilapidated, city-owned Modern Theatre and renovate it for use as a theatre and and commercial space. The former movie house has become so run-down in recent years that the city had to shut down a portion of the street it sits on and reinforce the structure to prevent cave-ins during winter snowfalls. The rebirth of the Modern is the latest in a series of initiatives designed to revive Boston’s theatre district, and provide a wider range of performance space for local groups.
China Bans Four Stones Songs
China has forbidden the Rolling Stones from performing four of the band’s songs at concerts in China in April. “The songs were submitted to the Ministry of Culture for approval a few months ago. They simply said ‘no’ to those four songs. They didn’t give a reason.”
Will It Be Dean Libeskind?…Nahhh
Daniel Libeskind is much-rumored to be a candidate for the dean of architecture job at Columbia University. What are his chances? Not good, if fellow architects Steven Holl and Peter Eisenman have anything to do with it…
Is The Musical Establishment No Longer Worth Joining?
Norman Lebrecht is summoned to membership in two British music institutions – one old, one new – and round-files the invitations. Why? Neither represents the state of music at its best. And neither ought to be encouraged or endorsed for its views of the musical world.
Art Of Compromise -Settling the Broadway Strike
The Broadway musicians strike ended quickly after an all-night negotiating session. “When the negotiators emerged, bleary-eyed, from the talks, neither side claimed victory, and both called the deal a difficult compromise. The main conflict had been over the minimum number of musicians required — currently 24 to 26 — in the orchestra pits of Broadway’s 13 largest theaters. Under the new contract, those minimums were lowered for the next decade to 18 or 19, depending on the theater.”
Translator As Rewriter
Translators serve as an essential link between playwright and audiences who speak a different language. Yet their value is often overlooked. “The best translators. remain as invisible as possible. And yet it is a practice that has an indelible effect on how we perceive the best in what world theatre has to offer.”