“In one of its best box office results in recent years Opera Australia has posted an operating surplus of $848,000 [Aus] for 2008, a year also marked by the death in November of its music director, Richard Hickox.”
Tag: 03.21.09
How Kindle Will (And Won’t) Change The World
Jacob Weisberg: “The Kindle 2 signals that after a happy, 550-year union, reading and printing are getting separated. It tells us that printed books, the most important artifacts of human civilization, are going to join newspapers and magazines on the road to obsolescence.”
Master Chorale Of Washington Shuts Down
The chorus says that “the economic downturn had claimed a substantial portion of the chorus’s investments — necessary financial reserves, given that ticket sales and contributions had failed to cover the group’s operating expenses for the past three years. By shutting down at the end of this season, ‘we’re trying to end . . . in a way that avoids bankruptcy’.”
A Competition To Invent The Next Musical Instrument
More than 60 people applied, and 25 were chosen to show off a stunning variety of musical instruments of their own devising.
Ex-Getty Curator Marion True Testifies In Italian Court
“Ms. True was speaking in the Rome courtroom where she is on trial with the American antiquities dealer Robert Hecht on charges of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities looted from Italian soil. In Italian legal proceedings, defendants are allowed to make spontaneous comments, and Ms. True’s remarks came in response to testimony by Daniela Rizzo, an archaeologist and prosecution witness.”
Foundations Triage Their Support For The Arts
“Recently, more than a dozen local foundations gathered to discuss whether to pool their money into an emergency fund for struggling charities and to share ideas about how to use resources limited by the stock market’s plunge.”
Ballet Florida Cancels Rest Of Its Season
The company says “cutting the last seven shows of the year will save the company about $300,000. The troupe also will cut its size to 10 dancers, instead of 19, when it returns in December Ticket sales are off 18% this year and donations are down 12%. The ballet cut its budget from $4 million to $3 million and plans to spend just $2 million next season.”
Andrew Motion On The Modern Poet Laureate
“Whereas most of my predecessors had interpreted the post as an honour, I felt from the start that it was more like a call to arms. In fact, my main reason for accepting in the first place was that I thought it was time for a respectful kind of revision. Specifically, I thought the laureateship needed to be changed from a courtier-like role into something more appropriate to modern times, which would be of benefit to poetry.”
A Treasure Trove Of Country Music History
“Hundreds of tapes were pulled from a barn in southern Pennsylvania, recordings made at high schools, dances, fairs, festivals, and auditoriums in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere. It was a fantasy collection, more than 1,000 unreleased live recordings by country music royalty. Most were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a few dating to the 1940s.”
Standing Ovations Have Become Meaningless, Booing Is Rude. Here’s a Suggestion
“Since many theater companies now encourage playgoers to recycle their programs, why not place two transparent recycling containers in the lobby after the show, one marked CHEERS and the other JEERS? That strikes me as a neat and practical method of reaping the benefits of booing while simultaneously minimizing its incivility.”