“A hugely popular Canadian Web site that links buyers looking for rare books to 12,000 antiquarian booksellers worldwide, will announce tomorrow at Book Expo in Chicago that it is opening its Internet platform to authors, publishers and bookstores selling new books. About 20,000 books sell daily through ABEbooks.com, which also has English, French and German sites… Customers can access over 50 million titles on ABEbooks.com and the company projects that a third of its business will be in new books within three years, offering strong competition to Chapters/Indigo and Amazon.ca.”
Tag: 06.03.04
Hockney: Drawing Is Fundamental Communication
David Hockney says drawing should be regarded as a major artform, says David Hockney. “Despite long being seen as almost irrelevant, drawing is a vital part of every creative process. Drawing has been neglected for the last 30 years in art education. That was based upon the idea that photography would suffice as a view of the world.”
American TV Getting Whiter
American television is notoriously devoid of racial diversity, and the small screen will reportedly be getting even whiter next season, as sitcoms, a recent haven for minority casts, continue to lose their place in prime time lineups to cheap-and-easy reality shows. The UPN network will continue to air multiple shows featuring all-minority casts, but among networks that viewers actually watch in anything approaching respectable numbers, blacks and Latinos might as well not exist.
Marketing Multiple Mormons
The Five Browns are one record label’s latest hope for a classical music marketing success. The five siblings, Juilliard-trained pianists all, are talented, unusual, and good-looking in a way that is sure to make their album covers attractive to consumers. Oh, and they’re Mormon, and see their music as a chance to bring the message of the Latter Day Saints to the world.
Controversial Painting Could Hang In SF City Hall
“An oil painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners may find sanctuary at San Francisco City Hall after provoking some irate viewers to threaten and assault the owner of the art gallery where it was originally shown.”
MFA Lays Off 23
“Struggling to balance its budget, [Boston’s] Museum of Fine Arts told 23 staff members yesterday that they would be laid off immediately. Though museum officials declined to say exactly who had been let go, they did say the layoffs had come from across the museum’s divisions, including its curatorial staff. That is in addition to five positions eliminated since January.” The layoffs included no curatorial department heads, unlike MFA’s last round of firings in 1999.
Pianists On The Web
The 2nd International Piano e-Competition is underway in the Twin Cities, with the final six contestants set to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra later this week. The competition was started by a professor at the University of Minnesota who was disgusted by the nepotism inherent in many international competitions, and in addition to the unusual move of barring the students of competition judges from competing, he found a timely hook to get the press and public interested in his event: all the contestants play on a high-tech piano which can store the memory of their performances for online streaming and even remote judging. In fact, every round of the competition can be viewed live online.
Are Scottish Opera’s Problems Due To Bad Government?
The Scottish government, known as the Executive, should bear the blame for the current crisis at Scottish Opera, according to one UK paper. “The way the executive has treated Scottish Opera, denying it the funding necessary to be a company of worldwide renown while, instead, reviewing it to potential death in a wrong-headed switch of priorities, is symptomatic of its approach to the arts sector generally.”
Losing An Administrator, But Gaining A Half Mil
The Florida Orchestra, which has spent the last couple of seasons in dire financial straits, announced this week that it has received two donations totalling a half million dollars, which will be placed in a community trust. The orchestra is also losing one of its top executives: operations manager and artistic administrator Jeff Bram has announced that he will leave Tampa Bay to become artistic administrator of the Utah Symphony.
NY’s Mehta Takes A New Title
New York Philharmonic executive director Zarin Mehta will take on the title of orchestra president, according to the ensemble’s board chairman. Mehta, who came to New York after leading the Chicago Symphony’s Ravinia Festival, was a major player in the search that led to the hiring of Loren Maazel as the Phil’s music director. Mehta’s day-to-day duties will not change with the new title – most American orchestra CEOs also carry the title of president – and the move appears to be largely a vote of confidence in his leadership at a time when the Phil faces several challenges.