Ah, the age old question, now so endlessly debated it has become one of the great cliches. A new book is about to take up the question once again, and the Observer asks some artists who ought to have some interesting answers…
Tag: 05.08.05
Rem’s New House Of Music
Rem Koolhaas has built a new concert hall in Portugal. It’s a building that challenges the concert hall norms. “Koolhaas keeps his concert hall at arm’s length. Its pleasures — derived from the architect’s wry brand of invention when it comes to form-making, structure and circulation — are no less impressive for their unmistakable detachment. To sit in its auditorium, a hard-edged, hangar-like space, is to consider the question of whether music can sound lovely or fully resolved in a space that works so hard to avoid appearing that way architecturally.”
Can A Baroque Choir Take On South Florida And Win?
A 12-member chamber choir is a real success story in South Florida. So much so that the the ambitious choir’s founder is expanding into a regional presence. “Some might say that Patrick Quigley’s plans are more foolhardy than ambitious. In South Florida, where a symphony orchestra playing Beethoven couldn’t stay in business, a 12-member choir performing Bach and Palestrina wouldn’t seem to have wide populist appeal. Yet unlike many Cassandras who point to the demise of the Florida Philharmonic as a sign that classical music should be added to South Florida’s endangered-species list, the optimistic Quigley sees vast potential for growth.”
The Brain Inside – Are You Sure You Want To Know?
So we’re learning more and more about how the brain works. And new technology might soon allow us to peer into the workings of the head. But there might be some downsides. “The more that breakthroughs like the recent one in brain-scanning open up the mind to scientific scrutiny, the more we may be pressed to give up comforting metaphysical ideas like interiority, subjectivity and the soul. Let’s enjoy them while we can.”
Rock Looks For Alternatives To Radio
Rock music is fading from the radio airwaves. So “record companies are attempting to adapt to modern rock’s recent marginalization on the airways in major markets like Philadelphia, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. by emphasizing other options for building buzz. In lieu of airplay, touring, blogs, ringtones, downloads, Internet and satellite radio, videogame tie-ins, alliances with brand marketers, film and TV exposure, sponsorships and placements in commercials all are growing in value.”
The Flamenco Problem
“The so-called “new” flamenco that has been developing over the last decade is mired in a crisis born of its success. As audiences have gotten bigger, a kind of artistic inflation has set in, with shows becoming more ambitious and more pretentious.”
How The Movie Theatre Biz Works
“On opening weekend – and perhaps the second weekend of a big picture – the split is 70 percent to the distributor and 30 percent to the exhibitor. The studio’s share declines by 10 percent each week: first to 60 percent, then to 50 and 40, until it levels out at 30 to 35 percent for as long as the theater keeps the film. The studio wants a film to open huge, even if it doesn’t last long. Theaters, which earn much of their revenue from concession sales, prefer movies that will run all summer to full houses, with the theater ultimately taking 65 percent of ticket sales.”
Superheros Take The Movies
Comic book superheros are everywhere in the movies today. “The cachet of comics – and I mean the old, cheap, pulpy kind, not “comix” or “graphic novels” – is all the more remarkable given that for most of their history, they could count on provoking the disdain of literary intellectuals, the panic of moralists and the condescension of mainstream show business, which saw them as fodder for cartoons and campy kid shows. The days when a film critic could wish that comic books would just go away – as Robert Warshow did in a brilliantly ambivalent 1954 essay on his young son’s fandom – are long gone. The superheroes demand to be taken as seriously as they have always taken themselves.”
The Art Of Routine
Routine is the foundation for many things in life. “The myth is that artists are somehow different. That they leap from one peak of inspiration to another. That they reject limits – that this is precisely what makes them artists. But of course that’s not true. Most artists work as the rest of us do, incrementally, day by day, according to their own habits. That most art does not rise above the level of routine has nothing necessarily to do with the value of having a ritual.”
The High School Musical Gets Big
High school musicals have become big business, with schools buying advanced stage equiment and spending tens- and even hundreds- of thousands of dollars on their productions. “Because they are pouring more into their musicals – and thus having to sell more tickets, at higher prices – schools are becoming big business for licensing companies like Music Theater International and R&H Theatricals, which in the past made nearly all of their money from professional productions. Freddie Gershon, chairman of M.T.I., estimates that licensing for the school market is now a $75 million to $100 million annual business.”