“Dr. Drew Mays, an ophthalmologist from Birmingham, Ala., took the $2,000 first prize Sunday evening in the Van Cliburn Foundation’s Fifth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs… While professional piano competitions focus on players under age 30, the Cliburn Amateur has 35 as its minimum age.”
Tag: 06.04.07
Is This A New, Less Corny Era Of Musical Theatre?
“Grey Gardens” and “Spring Awakening” are not your parents’ Broadway musicals, and they may mark a significant shift in musical theatre. “These two daring, surreally unusual musicals — both transfers from the 2005-06 Off-Broadway season — have dominated Broadway during the past six months. Together, they will likely walk away with many of the Tony Awards in the major musical categories. … In Times Square, audacious visions are the new black….”
For A Rock Band, They’re Awfully Good Authors
Writers Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow and Mitch Albom, Maya Angelou and Roy Blount Jr have a band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. “They are what every garage band dreams of becoming: a bunch of middle-aged people with word-processing day jobs who every now and then get to go on tour, not in a rented van but in Aretha Franklin’s old bus. They have played benefit concerts all over the country, before live, paying audiences, and even have groupies.”
Why Music Is Getting Louder
“Record companies are using digital technology to turn the volume on CDs up to ’11’. Artists and record bosses believe that the best album is the loudest one. Sound levels are being artificially enhanced so that the music punches through when it competes against background noise in pubs or cars. Britain’s leading studio engineers are starting a campaign against a widespread technique that removes the dynamic range of a recording, making everything sound ‘loud’.”
Nicholas Hytner: Let Me Clarify My Comments On Critics
“There’s no reason why the arts pages shouldn’t be home to the kind of fierce and animated conversation that the best performance tries to provoke, where the critic who’s seen 50 Hamlets can be joined by the critic who’s part of the cultural and social world that inspires new artists and their audiences. It mightn’t be a bad idea to give the five-nights-a-week theatre critics a bit of a break too. Maybe they could go to the movies and to the opera, and tell us what they think.”
UK Architects Asked To Reveal Party Memberships
Members of the British architects’ ruling council are “being asked to reveal whether they are members of a political party following last year’s discovery that a presidential candidate was active in the far right British National party.”
Art Detective Still On Trail Of Gardner Museum Thief
“Chris Roberts is one of at least two British experts trying to crack one of the art world’s greatest mysteries. Other freelance bounty hunters are also looking for the paintings, attracted by the $5m reward for the safe return of the works. Unlike most crimes, where the trail goes cold the longer the investigation continues, when it comes to high-value art thefts, the years that pass make a breakthrough more likely.”
Frutkin Wins Trillium Book Award
“Mark Frutkin’s ‘Fabrizio’s Return’, a novel set in 17th and 18th century Italy, claimed the $20,000 2006 Trillium Book Award during a Monday luncheon at the University of Toronto’s Hart House. It was the 20th year for the Ontario book prize.”
Toronto: Is Second City Enough?
Toronto has been on a remarkable spending spree, building new arts facilities and greatly expanding others. But is it enough? “In the U.S., especially New York, there is an ethos of cultural philanthropy that doesn’t exist here. The Toronto projects couldn’t get off the ground until the federal and provincial governments got the fiscal ball rolling.”
BookExpo – All About Books (But Not Necessarily Sales)
“Welcome to the paradox known as BEA, which exists to bring authors, publishers and bookstore folk together, but at which few books are actually sold. There are exceptions, of course. Small-town bookstores that don’t get many visits from publishers’ reps, for example, may take the opportunity to place orders. But to spend a few days at BEA with a buyer for an urban independent bookstore chain such as Olsson’s, which consists of six stores in the Washington area, is to observe the less quantifiable but no less important kind of transactions occurring there.”