“For nearly 60 years, Kirchner, 88, has whacked his own path through the modernist forest, writing music of brawny expression, vivacious energy, theatrical gestures and dark passions. But despite a fast start to his career in the late ’40s and early ’50s, a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 and some starry champions along the way like cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who studied with him at Harvard, Kirchner never quite shed his reputation as an academic composer. He had the misfortune of becoming highly respected and perennially underrated at the same time.” video
Tag: 06.06.07
The CIA’s New Hollywood Man
The CIA has named Paul Barry as its new entertainment liaison. His mission: to showcase the cloak-and-dagger agency in a warmer light in movies, TV, fiction and even children’s books. “We want to convey the sense that we’re approachable,” he said yesterday. “It’s not James Bond. It’s a lot of regular people overachieving.”
Arts Council England’s Failure Of Nerve?
“One of the problems in recent years has been the huge amounts of money that have been poured into failing theatre buildings, creating a culture where incompetence has been rewarded and allowing theatres to trot back for extra money every time they get it wrong. This policy of handouts has done little to encourage grown-up behaviour and reinforces the destructive parent-child relationship that predominates in Arts Council/client relationships.”
Spoleto Festival Funding In Peril
“The composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who died in February, built the Spoleto festival into a leading annual event in the performing arts. But he and his adopted, US-born son Francis repeatedly locked horns with the local authorities of the medieval hill town, and relations between the two sides appear to have deteriorated further since his death.”
Study: Corruption Killing Education
“Bribery and graft in schools and universities is seriously undermining education systems worldwide and costing governments billions of dollars, according to a new report funded by Unesco.”
Warning: Internet Freedom Under Attack
“The virus of internet repression is spreading. The ‘Chinese model’ – of an internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy – is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers.”
Arts – Key To Rebuilding Cities?
In the UK over the past 20 years, almost every urban centre has tried the trick of kick-starting the revival of an economically depressed area by constructing a shiny new arts institution or cultural quarter.The business plans show how a concert hall, theatre or gallery attracts the high-spending, well-behaved middle classes back into town and stimulates the opening of hotels, restaurants and funky shops. Jobs are created, rents rise, civic prestige is enhanced. Smiles all round. But not, alas, always.”
Welser-Most To Vienna
“Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Most will become music director of the Vienna State Opera at the start of the 2010-2011 season, even as he continues his duties in Cleveland.”
Will Loud UK Orchestras Violate EU Noise Laws?
There’s concern in UK orchestra circles about an “EU directive that came into force last year cutting noise in the workplace to a daily average of 85 decibels, itself some 5 db higher than the sound of a Boeing 747 landing at Heathrow. No problem to contain in a chocolate factory, but curtains in a concert-hall.”
Meyer To Head Vienna Staatsoper
Dominique Meyer, head of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, will replace Ioan Holender as director of Vienna’s Staatsoper. Meyer, 52, has a five-year contract starting in 2010. Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Moest has already consented to be his general music director at the opera company.