Boston’s Symphony Hall has some of the best acoustics in America. But it was built for a different time, so the BSO is looking at ways to (carefully) update. – Boston Globe
Tag: 05.21.00
ARCHETYPAL AMERICAN
Aaron Copland would have been 100 years old this year. “Listeners who think of Copland’s style as bland or ingratiating are relying on the faulty filtering of memory, compounded by an awareness of the composer’s famously warm and congenial personal demeanor.” – San Francisco Chronicle
POPULAR DOWNSIZE
Seems like everybody’s downsizing these days. The latest – the summer pop festival scene, where smaller, more focused events are replacing the big Lollapalooza-type free-for-alls. – Chicago Sun-Times
SHAWN FANNING
Never heard of him? Six months ago the 19-year-old invented Napster, the digital music download software that has turned the music recording world upside down. Now he finds himself at the middle of the music upheaval and he’s being sued by his favorite band. – The Observer (UK)
RECREATING JANE
Michael Berkeley had a big success with his first opera, based on two Kipling stories. But his second opera – based on “Jane Eyre” was much difficult to write. For one thing, the manuscript for the first half was stolen with his briefcase on the train last year… – The Telegraph (London)
CLICK AND GO
Last year more than $300 million worth of tickets were sold online, and that number is expected to grow to about $4 billion by 2004, according to Forrester Research. Tom Stockham, president of Ticketmaster.com, part of the Ticketmaster Online-City Search network, said about 20 percent of tickets purchased in this year’s first quarter were bought online. That’s up from eight percent of sales in the first quarter of1999, and less than two percent at the same time in 1998. – Seattle Times
NO TRAMPS ALLOWED
Newly-disclosed documents show that London-born film star Charlie Chaplin was actively discouraged from returning from America to make a film about Britain’s war effort. British officials believed he was an eccentric who was likely to embarrass the Government. – The Telegraph (UK)
JEAN-PIERRE RAMPAL, —
— one of the century’s most popular flutists, has died in Paris at the age of 78. – Dallas Morning News (AP)
SEVENTY AND SAD
Stephen Sondheim is 70 this year and sounding a bit glum. His most recent project failed to get out of workshop and onto Broadway. But “his works constitute a show business force of nature, unmatched and unapproached in their ardor, stylistic variety, intelligence, complexity, thematic depth, wit and stirring expansiveness.” – San Francisco Chronicle
SURVIVOR
- Much has happened to Susan Sontag in the past few years – getting caught in a war, getting hit by a car, being diagnosed with cancer – yet Sontag’s new book is remarkably untouched by her personal life, which she talks about in this interview. – The Observer (UK)