“The Greek government alleges items were originally removed from the country illegally, although it is not known when they were taken. The museum may now return some of the four disputed antiquities, following a meeting with Greek Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis.”
Tag: 05.16.06
Eventually, Everyone Will Hire Barenboim
It’s official – Daniel Barenboim has been named principal guest conductor at La Scala, and will be the highest ranking conductor there for at least the next several years (the company having declined to name a true music director for the time being.) Barenboim is also chief conductor at Germany’s most prestigious opera company, the Berlin Staatsoper, and the two companies plan to come together for several productions in future seasons.
UK Facing End-Of-Year Academic Crisis
There is an ongoing targeted strike in the UK by lecturers at the country’s universities, and as the school year draws to a close, the continued refusal of lecturers to mark papers, assign grades, and give tests puts thousands of British students at risk of having their graduation delayed. “Many universities [expect] the greatest disruption to take place in subjects such as history, sociology and education, where academic staff tend to be the most unionised.”
Has DaVinci’s Lost Masterpiece Been Located?
“Step by patient step, one man is drawing ever closer to the real Da Vinci mystery: tracking down the master’s greatest painting, lost for four and a half centuries… For art historians, finding Leonardo’s lost Battle of Anghiari is in the same league as finding the Titanic or the still lost tomb of the Ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep — as big as you can get… And it is hidden, [Maurizio Seracini] believes, in a room at the heart of political power since the Middle Ages in Florence.”
Tate Modern’s Director Throws Down The Gantlet
“Tate Modern is Britain’s answer to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and to the Pompidou Centre in Paris. But while MoMA’s assets are being boosted by the gifts of wealthy Americans, carefully encouraged by US tax incentives, and the Pompidou enjoys buckets of state funding, Tate Modern is being left to wither and die.” So says Tate director Vicente Todoli, who claims that the UK government is content to let the his museum twist in the wind as institutions in other cities pass them by.
The Conductor Who Wants To Do Everything
You would be hard-pressed to find a more celebrated conductor of the moment than Valery Gergiev, and the still-young Russian is mounting a very public push to propel one of his orchestras, St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky, into the top of the international ranks. But “[Gergiev’s] energy has not always endeared him to orchestras or critics, some of whom equate his jet-setting lifestyle with a shallowness of preparation. Stories are legion of Gergiev turning up hours late to rehearsals, giving interviews during concert intervals and holding up the second half, and cutting his schedules so fine that they give orchestral managers panic attacks.”
Is The Bar Lowered For Artists Who Make Films?
An increasing number of painters, sculptors and other artists have recently been turning to film as a second medium, and many of the resulting films have been winning some high-profile prizes. “It is surely good that the art of film is developing in such a way as to be judged in arenas other than those in which Hollywood entertainment and the box office are the only criteria. And yet are these art-installation movies having the bar lowered for them? Aren’t they being judged by much less exacting standards than regular films?”
The Great eBay Publishing Experiment
“A first-time author has bypassed the traditional route of getting an agent, and is publishing a collaborative thriller on eBay. The novel is being written one page at a time, one writer to a page. As each installment is finished, the chance to create the next is offered for auction on eBay. So far, 17 pages have been completed, with 234 to go, and while the quality of the writing might charitably be described as variable, there is no shortage of plot.”
Is The Balance Of Orchestral Power Shifting In Tokyo?
The city of Tokyo has a whopping eight professional orchestras, but until recently, only three – the NHK Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony – have been considered major players on the national and international scene. Now, though, two of the lesser ensembles, both notable for operating without a major commercial sponsor, are making a major push for promotion to the top ranks of orchestras. But market factors are also at work, and with many in Japan (as elsewhere) questioning how many orchestras even the biggest cities need, the upstarts still have a long road ahead.