Tag: 03.19.04

The Music Biz – New Beginning

The end of the music business? Not hardly, says Mark Cuban. “If you’re a music consumer, this is the glory days. It’s a golden age if you’re not trying to protect your arcane business practices. Instead of listening to music lovers who want to take the path of least resistance to hear their tunes, the labels are trying to get you to do it their way. There are a lot of untapped opportunities that are not being utilized.”

The Power Of The Da Vinci Code

“In Paris, throughout the U.S. and elsewhere, insatiable fans are exploring the controversial themes in “The Da Vinci Code,” even pulling members of the intelligentsia into the novel’s energy field. The book’s grip on the popular imagination is so fierce that academics and theologians are putting aside their ancient Greek and Latin texts and boning up on Brown’s characters, including a self-mutilating, white-haired albino villain.”

Boston Ballet Makes Deal With Wang

Though Boston’s Wang Center sent Boston Ballet packing for Nutcracker season next year (Wang evidently favors Rockettes over Sugar Plums), the theatre has signed a new deal with the dance company for the rest of its season. Under the new agreement, “Boston Ballet will be able to earn more money through sponsorships. And there will be more flexibility in scheduling ballet productions, for both sides.”

Doing A Lot With Nothing Much

Johnathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion don’t do much in a piece of dance, writes Tobi Tobias. But what they do do is compelling. “Here’s what they do: shake their hands wildly in front of their chests, so their fingers look like sparklers; use one hand to count the fingers of the other with a child’s deliberation, as if the answer might be in doubt; stroke their palms along their trousered thighs; palpate the floor with their fingertips; curl their fingers into vivid mudras that yield no explicit meaning; extend their arms in semaphore signals or classical ports de bras. A couple of times they stand up for a few seconds, even go so far as to turn in place, repeating a raucous cry; once they shift the position of their chairs so that one lies in the other’s shadow. Such departures from what they’ve set up as the parameters of the piece have the impact of high drama—violent and haunting.”

Kennedy Center Expansion Wins First Approval

Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center cleared its first regulatory hurdle this week when the Federal Commission of Fine Arts voted to approve the project for a new plaza. “We at last see the promise of the Kennedy Center, that it will be connected to the rest of the city. It is floating now in that tangle of spaghetti roadways. The design will go a long way to not only connecting it to the rest of the city, but you will be able to walk around it without getting run over.”

Christa Ludwig At 75

“At 75, mezzo Christa Ludwig has lost nothing of her sharpness. There is little of the diva in her manner. She has presence, of course. You can’t have a career that dominated opera on both sides of the Atlantic for 40 years without that. But, immaculately dressed in a dark-grey trouser suit, the effect is discreet. She once wrote that while she always wanted to be a prima donna, she was “too lazy” for the scandal and circus that went with the role.”

Do Or Die – This Is The Year For The UK Music Industry

“This is going to be the most important year for the British music industry in nearly a decade. Many of its challenges have already been documented: from expensive Pop Idol flops to the effect on CD sales of illegal internet downloads. But the real problem is that the UK business is in danger of becoming nothing more than a regional office for the rest of the world. Where we used to amaze and confuse the competition with our maverick, sulky, ingenious pop star exports, the past year has seen the UK left in charge of the stationery cupboard.”