Tag: 06.02.05

Preserving The Pods

Since the explosion of the Internet more than a decade ago, archiving the history of the new medium has become one of the biggest challenges for those inclined to try it – web sites come and go with alarming frequency, and today’s revolutionary site could be tomorrow’s passé pile of HTML code. Now, with podcasts the latest technology to burst onto the trend-heavy tech scene, one man has made it his mission to archive as much of the online amateur radio as he can get his hands on. Not that he’d actually bother listening to the vast majority of it, you understand…

Turner Shortlist Takes A Turn For The Traditional

For the last several years, a casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking that the overarching mission of Britain’s Turner Prize was to antagonize art lovers and the general public as much as humanly possible, while simultaneously propping up the careers of artists who fit nicely into the “shock and awe” category. But this year’s Turner shortlist appears to be going in quite a different direction, and includes a painter specializing in traditional still life and landscape work. The shortlist ought to go a long way towards placating the prize’s harshest critics, who have accused Turner organizers of ignoring many serious young artists in favor of conceptually-based flavors of the month.

D.C. Planning Huge Shakespeare Fest

“Come January 2007, all of Washington will seem a stage and its leading cultural institutions players in an ambitious six-month citywide festival devoted entirely to the works and influence of William Shakespeare. More than 20 local, national and international organizations are scheduled to participate in the venture, called ‘Shakespeare In Washington,’ which will take place in various venues, including theater, dance, music and visual-art institutions from January through June 2007.”

End Of A ‘Championship’ Era In Detroit

Most music directors who last more than ten years with a single orchestra don’t wind up leaving under the happiest of circumstances (Seiji Ozawa in Boston and Charles Dutoit in Montreal come to mind,) but as Neeme Järvi prepares to depart the Detroit Symphony after 15 years at the helm, there seems to be no question that the DSO and its home city have been witness to one of the great musical partnerships of the era. “The Estonian-born conductor and this mid-American orchestra have evolved into a championship team. They have changed together, flowered together, triumphed together. Especially over the last half-dozen seasons, they have turned what once were highlights into a lofty new standard of excellence at Orchestra Hall.”

Phoenix Gets A Deal Done, With Minimal Fuss

The musicians of the Phoenix Symphony have a new contract which will go a long way towards restoring much of what they lost the last time around the negotiating cycle. Back in 2002, the Phoenix players took a 14% pay cut in order to help stabilize the organization’s finances. The new 6-year deal calls for raises of 4%, 4%, and 5%, spread over the length of the contract. “In stark contrast to past negotiations characterized by walkout threats and busted deadlines, most details of the new contract were agreed upon before formal negotiations with the union began in April.”

Bringing In The Best

The well-known firm Artec has been chosen by the Quebec government to manage the acoustical design of the proposed new concert hall for l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, and is already proposing that the hall be half again as big as originally planned. “The concert hall would be a public-private partnership, meaning a private consortium would build and operate the structure and Quebec would pay the tab over time.” The OSM has been seeking a new home for years, and despte being mired in an ongoing musicians’ strike, the organization has been enthusiastically partnering with the provincial government in drawing up the plans. Artec has won praise for its designs of concert halls in Dallas, Birmingham, England and Lucerne, Switzerland.

Court: Met Can Expand

A New York Court has struck down a neighborhood group’s challenge to a major expansion by the Metropolitan Museum. “The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court ruled 5-0 that the community group’s court petition to block construction on environmental grounds was time-barred – more than two years late. The court said the group should have acted within four months.”

Albanian Wins Booker International

Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare wins the first Man Booker International Prize. “I am a writer from the Balkan Fringe, a part of Europe which has long been notorious exclusively for news of human wickedness. My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realise this region… can also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement in the field of the arts, literature and civilisation.”

Book Banning In The Heartland

A culture war is being fought in America’s schools. “According to the American Library Association, which asks school districts and libraries to report efforts to ban books – that is, have them removed from shelves or reading lists – they are on the rise again: 547 books were challenged last year, up from 458 in 2003. These aren’t record numbers. In the 1990’s the appearance of the Harry Potter books, with their themes of witchcraft and wizardry, caused a raft of objections from evangelical Christians.”