“For a Big Five orchestra to have voluntary talks about modifying a trade agreement, and to alter the terms of it, shows that the musicians were aware of the financial situation,” a deficit potentially as high as $3 million, “and wanted to do their part to help,” said cellist John Koen, lead negotiator for the musicians.
Tag: 05.31.09
Meet America’s Highest-Paid Public Radio Exec
“His overall compensation, including benefits and expenses, was $528,800, a drop of $211,290 from the preceding year’s reported package of $740,090. That package made Marrazzo the country’s highest-paid local public broadcasting executive, when compared with other stations’ tax filings.”
Why Aren’t Museums Controversial Any More?
“Over the past decade, small controversies occasionally unsettled the museum world, but they went away quickly, and few gained enough traction to become national issues.What happened? Was it a cultural or historic change? Self-censorship or a more subtle shift in what museums were exhibiting? Did audiences grow up, or were they just inured to radical art and provocative historical revision?”
Haydn Is 200 Years Old (But Mozart Still Prevails)
“Joseph Haydn died 200 years ago Sunday, and Austria has been officially marking the occasion with hundreds of concerts, exhibitions and other events dedicated to the music and memory of one of the country’s greatest sons. But Haydn has it hard in a country that also gave birth to Amadeus.”
An Arts School Defined By Its Cost Overruns?
“At the new arts high school downtown, it has become nearly impossible to separate the substance of the architecture. Rarely has the firm’s architecture seemed so visually dramatic — or so politically out of touch. In its finished form, the school emerges as a symbol not so much of a rudderless school district as one where the person at the helm is continually changing — and the direction of the ship can swing markedly from year to year.”
Classical Music – Slave To Fashion
“Has classical music suddenly become a follower, or even a victim, of fashion? The very word ‘classical’ implies something old and immutable, far removed from passing fads and fancies as if it has always been there.”
Hope Through Music In Israel’s West Bank
“Despite the opposition of some, many Palestinians see the study of Western classical music — part of a broader cultural revival in the West Bank — as a source of hope, a way to connect to the outer world from a hemmed-in and controlled existence, particularly at a time when hope for a Palestinian state seems ever more distant.”
A Raw Opera At The Vanguard (Bad Language And All)
“The controversial subject matter of Greek and the libretto’s copious use of the F-bomb and other profanity rarely heard on the opera stage were judged too raw and edgy by one of the company’s main financial supporters. They backed out, leaving a $10,000 shortfall in the show’s budget, which accounts for about a third of the cost of the production.”
Andre Previn – Please Come Home
“With the exception of a couple of old jazz tracks on Sony’s single-disc 80th-birthday celebration (as well as tiny excerpts of his film music), there is little hint of Previn’s early Hollywood career as a film composer and jazz pianist. His unhappy but not insignificant tenure with the philharmonic — which began with fireworks shot off in the Music Center plaza in 1985 and ended with his sudden angry resignation in 1989 — seems to have been all but erased from history.”
Why Must We “Improve” Products That Worked Like They Were Supposed To?
“Consumer capitalism is also a disappointment at the thing it’s supposed to be good at: the ordinary buying and using of stuff. It’s especially frustrating when the market decides to improve something that customers didn’t want improved. If the consumer marketplace allows useful, effective products to disappear, then what is it good for? Or who is it good for? Not the person who’s buying.”