“All that groundwork from the ‘Sesame Street’ people paid off. It created a culture both within and without the TV industry where higher standards, better understanding of the learning value of watching television and improved content based on early childhood development curriculum (cognitive learning, motor skills, etc.) were incorporated.”
Tag: 04.27.07
Who Will Design The Barnes’ New Home?
Here’s the shortlist: “The architects on the short list are Tadao Ando, from Osaka, Japan; Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York; Kengo Kuma, Tokyo; Rafael Moneo, Madrid; Thom Mayne/Morphosis, Los Angeles; and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, New York.”
Survey Says Museums Hoarding Nazi-Looted Art
Authors of a new book say that “museums are hoarding thousands of artworks seized by the Nazis and doing too little, especially in Germany, to trace the prewar Jewish owners or their heirs.”
Mstislav Rostropovich, 80
The brilliant Russian cellist died at a Moscow clinic after a long fight with cancer. “Reports from Russia said he would be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery, where his friend, the former President Boris Yeltsin, was laid to rest earlier this week.”
Small Labels Fill Classical Holes
Classical music recording is dying? No. While major labels have languished, a myriad number of small labels have filled the marketplace. “The myriad budget or specialist labels that have arisen to fill the gaps left by the majors, often produced and even financed by the artists themselves, are now reaping the rewards. ‘As consumers, it means we’ve never had so much choice and so much freedom’.”
The Wonder Of Symphony Space
New York’s Symphony Space is “like a gawky teenager grown to chic adulthood: It has all the spiffy trappings of a modern arts center, but under the makeup and grown-up clothes, a winningly goofy adolescent — or maybe an Upper West Side oddball — still lurks.”
Off Off Broadway And Back
“While it took place just a generation or two ago, the fertile tumult of the early years of the Off Off Broadway theater movement seems almost as distant. Wading through the tricked-out strollers clogging the streets of Greenwich Village today, it is hard to conceive that not so long ago — well, O.K., getting on toward 50 years now — a scrappy, determined bunch of young artists ignited a vibrant new era in theater by staging plays in local coffeehouses, churches and other commandeered spaces.”
Classical Music – Hear The Irony?
Time was, classical music in the popular culture conveyed High Culture class. “These days, many advertisers look to classical music for its comedic potential, something that many in the classical music business see as an opportunity. ‘We’re trying to smash preconceptions of classical music as being old-fashioned wedding or funeral music,’ says Ken Krasner, senior music consultant at Boosey & Hawkes, the world’s largest publisher of classical music. ‘We try to project fun – young, ironic, snide, energetic’.”
Why Movie Critics Matter
“Movie critics are held to a different standard than other critics. If a book critic were to pan a Jackie Collins novel, or a food critic were to point out that the Whopper isn’t Kobe beef, they wouldn’t be called ‘out of touch.’ Film critics, however, are expected to be cheerleaders. But criticism – reasoned, informed, independent-minded criticism – is truly the only thing protecting the consumer from the seller in the movie marketplace prior to a film’s release. That’s why studios try to marginalize serious critics.”
Scottish Opera – Rising From The Dead?
“We should not underestimate the emergent sea-change taking place at Scottish Opera since it hit the skids three years ago. The effective silencing of the company for an entire season was a risk, but there are emerging signs that the outcome could be a healthy one.”