Speculators are driving up the prices of contemporary Chinese art. “Most analysts attribute the rise in prices to speculative buyers from mainland China, where an under-regulated, cash-based financial system encourages wealthy people to seek easily portable vehicles for their investments.”
Tag: 05.11.06
Digital Radio Takes Off In UK
More than 50 percent of Britons have access to digital radio. “BBC digital radio made large gains – rock music station 6 Music now has 359,000 listeners, and comedy channel BBC7 has 621,000. Radio 2 maintains its position as the UK’s favourite station. However, its audience of 12.9 million is down by 389,000 on last year.”
Lloyd Webber: Playwrights Need To Take Risks
Andrew Lloyd Webber, testifying before the House of Lords, says playwrights need to take more risks. “We are not really seeing the young writers, or risks being taken in my particular area.” He also called for “the same sort of tax advantages that are given to film and television, to be extended to commercial theatre”.
CBC Buys Documentary Channel
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has bought majority interest in the Documentary Channel. “CBC bought the 53 per cent stake held by Corus Entertainment Inc., adding to the 29 per cent stake it already owned in the digital channel. The National Film Board of Canada holds another 14 per cent of the channel, which was launched in September 2001 in the first group of digital channels available in Canada.”
A Short History Of Booing
“The first written record comes from ancient Greece. At the annual Festival of Dionysia in Athens, playwrights competed to determine whose tragedy was the best. When the democratic reformer Cleisthenes came to power in the sixth century B.C., audience participation came to be regarded as a civic duty. The audience applauded to show its approval and shouted and whistled to show displeasure.”
Congress To Cap Smithsonian Salaries?
A US Congressional committee has amended an appropriations bill to cap salaries at the Smithsonian. “There are 28 people at the Smithsonian that are paid more than Cabinet secretaries. There are 22 people at the Smithsonian that are paid more than the vice president [$212,000]. If you count pay and bonuses, there are six people making more than the president of the United States.”
Frey Admits More Fabrications
In an author’s note in his sequel to his best-selling (but discredited) “A Million Little Pieces,” james Frey now acknowledges that “significant” parts of “My Friend Leonard,” a best-selling story about his friendship with a gangster, were also invented.
UK Out-publishes US
For the first time in 20 years, the UK has published more books that the US has. “U.S. output dropped for the first time since 1999 while the number of British titles surged 28 percent, according to new data from research firm Bowker. Britain, with one-fifth the population of the United States, has long been the world’s largest publisher of new books per capita in any language, but a steep decline in U.S. publication of general adult fiction and children’s books helped boost the UK’s total volume to the top English-language spot. UK publishers issued 206,000 new books in 2005 compared with 172,000 in the United States, which saw an 18 percent drop in production.”
Winnipeg Symphony Music Director Departs
Andrey Boreyko concludes his short tenure as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. “Soon after taking the reins from former maestro Bramwell Tovey in 2002, he discovered WSO was in a “tragic” budget bind that threatened its existence. He and the musicians made financial sacrifices, the WSO rallied and Boreyko later extended his contract for an extra year to see the orchestra through its current season. But he bemoans the lack of public support for classical music in Canada.”
Canadians Go To Court Over Rodins
“The dispute is the latest in a nearly six-year battle over the authenticity of a group of plasters attributed to the French master Auguste Rodin and destined for the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont. The Rodins, 52 plasters and several dozen bronzes in total, were to have served as leverage for the creation of an ambitious “international sculpture park dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century sculpture” in the small city 90 kilometres north of Toronto. That plan is now in ruins and the MacLaren is more than $4-million in debt.”