“In her performances [Jane] Chapman uses electronic effects and techniques that make the harpsichord sound like a synthesizer by connecting the keyboard to a computer. She also places objects inside the instrument and plucks the strings or uses an EBow, a handheld device normally used by rock guitarists that makes the strings vibrate continuously.”
Tag: 04.03.09
La Scala Gets Abbado Back – In Exchange For Trees
In January, the now-revered Claudio Abbado made Milan’s opera house an interesting offer: he would return to conduct there for the first time since his angry departure from the music director’s post in 1986 if the city government planted 90,000 trees. It seems his sylvan gambit has worked.
Strike Looming For New York City Opera?
“Will the New York City Opera greet the first season under new general manager George Steel with a strike? The company wants to reopen contracts for both singers and production staff, good till May 2010, as a result of ‘extraordinary circumstances.’ … But the union isn’t budging.”
How Do You Build An Arts Community?
Some cities concentrate their resources on a couple of high-profile institutions. Others, like Seattle, spread the resources around and end up with…
SFMoMA Plans Expansion
“SFMOMA has no building plan on the drawing board but wants to add to its footprint on the north, east and south sides of its site on Third Street, where the institution has purchased land. The changes envisioned would not alter the street facade of the building. Offices now scattered at several locations would be consolidated.”
Grand New Birmingham Public Library Signals Rebirth In Library Construction
“The £193m Library of Birmingham will tower over Centenary Square in the heart of the city with capacity to accommodate more than three million visitors a year, according to the city council, which is backing the project with £159m in public funds. Only the British Library, which operates by appointment only and does not lend, will be larger.”
Colombia’s Glittering New Music Festival (Yes, We Said Colombia)
“These days, Colombia seems to be starting to shake off the culture of drug cartels and kidnapping that kept visitors away: the Foreign Office notes that the security situation has improved considerably in recent years. That’s good news for Cartagena, because the Unesco-polished colonial town is being promoted as a centre for international cultural tourism.”
Stephen King’s New Novel – 25 Years In The Making
“Weighing in at a whopping 1,120 pages, Under the Dome is a return for the bestselling author to the arm-breaking heft of his classic novels The Stand and It. King told an audience at the Library of Congress in Washington DC last year that he’d first had the idea for the book 25 years ago, and made a stab at writing it.”
Rupert Murdoch: Linking To News Stories Has To Stop
“Whether search-engine news aggregation is theft or a protected fair use under copyright law is unclear, even as Google and Yahoo profit tremendously from linking to news. So maybe Murdoch is right. He seemingly was blaming the web, and search engines, for the news media’s ills. ‘People reading news for free on the web, that’s got to change’.”
The New House (Concert Hall Included)
“Perched on a hillside overlooking a ravine, the five-floor, 18,000-square-foot house-cum-concert hall looks like an accordion in motion, with undulating walls of wood and floor-to-ceiling glass. A series of wooden “fins,” staggered at irregular intervals, frame panoramic vistas of the ravine. As visitors descend into the house, the fins disappear and the views widen.”