“Though the Gutenberg Bible was certainly the first mass produced printed work, it was hardly the first printed book – nor was it even the first made using movable type. Chinese and Korean inventors had been producing printed books for centuries before Gutenberg was born.”
Tag: 05.14.12
Which Is Australia’s Artiest State?
“It has no world-famous Opera House, let alone an opera company. It misses out on most touring music acts and exhibitions. … [Yet] Tasmania has the highest per capita rate of people working in the arts sector and attending arts events, based on figures provided by the Australia Council.”
What Charles Dutoit Meant For The Philadelphia Orchestra
As the Swiss maestro completes his four-year term as chief conductor, David Patrick Stearns observes that Dutoit’s decades-long relationship with the orchestra, his high standards and his reliable professionalism kept the Philadelphians sounding like one of the world’s great ensembles through the most unstable period in their history.
René Magritte’s Art Deco Sheet Music Covers (Who Knew?)
The Belgian Surrealist “may have carved his place in art history as a master of mind-bending, advertising-influenced imagery at the intersection of aesthetics and philosophy, but he also had a little-known early commercial career.”
Australian Nat’l University Drops Plan To Sack All Music Staff And Make Them Reapply
“ANU management has backed down over its plans to ‘spill’ the positions of 32 of its tenured and permanent academic and administrative staff at the School of Music today … While this does not change its plans to eliminate 10 of the 32 positions, it gives staff a greater chance to fight for their jobs or a chance at redeployment – as well as access to full redundancy provisions.
Turkish ‘Shout Police’ Try To Make Istanbul’s Raucous Bazaar Vendors Pipe Down
“For centuries, traders in Turkey’s covered-market bazaars have been perfecting their pitch – famously hollering, singing or otherwise trumpeting their wares. But now an obscure provision of a new law is seeking to turn down the volume.”
Twelve Russian Writers Organize Protest March, Thousands Join In
“There were no opposition leaders at the head of the vast column of people that peacefully wound its way through central Moscow on Sunday. There was, instead, a corpulent poet … A bespectacled detective novelist was autographing everything at hand … People mobbed a diminutive grandmother who has won many of Russia’s literary prizes.”
When Characters Are Already Onstage As The Audience Comes In
“The main reason for these pre-textual prologues, which blur the start time advertised in the papers, is presumably the pursuit of greater realism: a sense that the performance is joining a story that has begun some time before, rather than requiring a sudden suspension of disbelief. However, the strategy is risky because it creates unease in an auditorium.”
Another Sistema Graduate On A Conducting Fast-Track
Rafael Payare, a 32-year-old Venezuelan who has been assistant to Claudio Abbado and Gustav Dudamel, won the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen last weekend. His prize includes €20,000 as well as guaranteed engagements with 24 European symphony orchestras over the next three years.
A New Fund To Finance Musicals Based On Movies
“Funding for screen-to-stage projects is getting a lift from a newly announced fund called Broadway & Vine. The fund is designed to help with the optioning of movie titles for adaptation as musicals, commissioning creative teams for script development and staging the first readings and presentations.”