Tag: 05.14.07

Classical Music’s “Exclusivity” Problem

Pianist Joanna MacGregor thinks she knows what ails classical music. “There is a certain exclusivity in classical music which has been very detrimental,” says MacGregor. “People are made to feel that, if they want to be part of the classical world, they are not allowed to like anything else. Ironically, composers themselves – classical composers, let alone contem porary ones – invariably have a great love of many different kinds of music. Classical music turned into a club, and then found it had a dwindling membership.”

Sort Of Like A Library Without The Free Part

“BookSwim aims to be the ‘Netflix of books.’ Since 1998, Netflix has become the king of online DVD services by renting batches of DVDs via the mail for a fixed monthly fee, and letting subscribers keep the movies as long as they like. That’s how BookSwim is meant to work. For $15 to $20 per month, the company will send your top five book choices. Return three books in a prepaid envelope, and your next three choices will be mailed to you.”

Ad-Blocking With Curated Art: Two Guys’ Solution

“There has long been a cat-and-mouse game between Web advertisers, which pay to place their messages on sites where people view content, and ad-blocking services, which let people hide those messages from their browsers. Steve Lambert, a conceptual artist, plans to add his own twist to one type of software that blots out commercial messages. His add-on will replace the display ads — which are usually papered over with blank windows — with curator-picked artwork from contemporary artists.”

Online, Real World’s Royalty Logistics Get Complicated

“Since Pandora.com closed its box of digital musical delights this month to users outside the United States, the complaints have been pouring in from Dubai to Patagonia. … Internet radio sites are global by nature, streaming musical programs digitally to users all over the world. But there is no one-stop global shopping for royalty collections, which means that Pandora has to negotiate separate agreements with institutions from each territory or directly with music labels. Global demand, though, respects no boundaries.”

London’s Critical Divide

Nicholas Hytner says men dominate London’s theatre criticism. But, writes Lyn Gardner, “I think something else is going on here and I think it is to do with the way in which critics are appointed and stay in our jobs until we finally keel over in the aisle seats like budgies falling off a perch. That shouldn’t be a problem as long as energy and enthusiasm are in tact, but it can be if curiosity is lost and those aisle seats are the same ones in the same theatres for more than 30 years.”

New Rome High-Tech Subway Runs Into Ruins

“Planners aim to send the new C line under the city centre at a depth of 30 metres, well beneath the archaeological treasures that litter Rome. Stations will also be built deep underground, but even the simple task of digging entrances and exits is proving a headache and could mean the scrapping of the Largo Torre Argentina stop, which serves crowded tourist sights such as the Pantheon.”

Is The BBC Falling Behind?

“After years of being technologically ahead of its rivals in both the public and private sector, people at the heart of the BBC say that it is paralysed by fear, and innovation has been crippled by a power struggle between different factions. As a result, the corporation is suffering a brain drain as bright technologists quit for fresh – and less frustrating – pastures. A decade after leading the dotcom charge, the BBC is in danger of falling into a dot coma from which it may never awake.”