Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum is preparing to make a major move into its stately new home in Fairmount Park, and with the move will come other big changes. “Its annual budget will go from $4 million to $9 million, its exhibition space more than tripling to 38,000 square feet… All this, while pinning its hopes on nearly tripling attendance – to an average of 476,000 from 180,000 visitors per year.”
Tag: 03.13.08
Swear Less, Make More Money
“A new study by The Nielsen Co. has found that the PG-rated movies with the least profanity made the most money at the U.S. box office. Sexuality or violence in those films had less to do with success than the language.”
Prolific Hartnett Snares Children’s Lit Award
“Australian author Sonya Hartnett is the winner of the $818,000 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature, the largest children’s book award in the world. Hartnett, 39, published her first novel, Trouble All the Way, at the age of 15 and since then has written 18 novels for children, young people and adults.”
Jazz Dance Pioneer Dies
“Gus Giordano, an early and tireless popularizer of American jazz dance who organized the first Jazz Dance World Congress, died on March 9 in Chicago. He was 84.”
A 3-D Bloodbath? Cool!
Hollywood studios want to start releasing 3-D movies again, using new technology that goes well beyond the cellophane glasses of the ’70s. But with many theaters not yet equipped with digital projection equipment, “the slow rollout of 3-D projection systems raises the specter of a competitive bloodbath, as too many movies overwhelm the available outlets.”
NY Musicians Eye Armory
New York may get an important new classical music venue as plans for the Park Avenue Armory are unveiled. Final decisions about the armory’s piecemeal restoration and use haven’t yet been made, but “impresarios, directors and conductors are salivating at the possibilities.”
Zelotti Finally Back On The Critical Radar
Giovanni Battista Zelotti was once regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 16th century, but scholars have largely ignored him in recent decades. “It didn’t help that until recently one of Zelotti’s greatest achievements — a cycle of 40 frescoes here at the so-called Castle of Cataio, about nine miles from Padua — was off limits to visitors.” But that’s all changing now.
That Old SNL Magic
It’s been a while since Saturday Night Live was really a part of the national political discussion, eclipsed as it’s been by Jon Stewart and various online voices. But apparently, all it took to reclaim an important satirical place in presidential politics was a few sketches that some viewed as blatantly in favor of one particular candidate.
Composer Alun Hoddinott, 78
Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott has died at 78, a year after undergoing major heart surgery. Hoddinott “had a partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales spanning seven decades.” The orchestra plans to name its new concert hall after him.
Golijov’s Creative Tension
Osvaldo Golijov may wind up being thought of as the preeminent composer of our age. But it’s clear that he still approaches each new project without assuming that he will complete it successfully. “Writing music is always the struggle in the beautiful tension between fear and desire.”