National Symphony Names Fischer Interim Conductor

“Ivan Fischer will become the principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, the NSO announced yesterday. It is an interim appointment, slated to last two years while the search continues for a full-time music director to replace Leonard Slatkin, who will step down at the end of the 2007-2008 season. Fischer will not serve as music director.”

Estate Seeks To Pay For Right To Not Publish O.J.

“The estate of Nicole Brown Simpson is seeking a court order for permission to bid on the book rights to O.J. Simpson’s ‘If I Did It’ at a sheriff’s auction Tuesday in Sacramento. … (T)he estate wants the judge in the case to allow it to take a portion of the $33.5-million civil judgment won from O.J. Simpson and use it as a ‘credit bid’ on the book,” the goal being “to ‘make sure this book is never published.’ “

In Biography, Where Does Emotion Come In?

Steven Bach, biographer of Leni Riefenstahl, says strict “objectivity and detachment” were not his guidelines in writing about the filmmaker’s life. “To deny that my subject aroused intellectual or emotional responses that were considerably less (or more) than neutral would have been as false as the avalanche of denials she herself trotted out to justify her life of great achievements and appalling transgressions of humanity in the name of Art.”

For British Women, Time On Pop Charts Has Come

Something peculiar is happening on the U.S. pop charts: A passel of British female solo artists is making an impact. “Historically speaking, to be both British and female was a double hindrance in trying to achieve chart success in America, or anywhere else for that matter. … But British women are making up for lost time, spearheading a genuine revival of enthusiasm for this country’s musical exports.”

Green Eggs And — Hey! That’s My Intellectual Property!

Kevin Ryan “went into his home studio and engineered a sort of retro mash-up of two of his favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Dr. Seuss. … He registered a domain name, dylanhearsawho.com, and in February posted his seven tracks online.” Then came the cease-and-desist letter. “As it happens, if Ryan was going to get into a fight over the legal limits of parody, he couldn’t have run into a better-prepared opponent than Dr. Seuss Enterprises.”