Tag: 06.10.06

The Dixie Chick Factor

When the alt-country stars known as the Dixie Chicks released their latest album this spring, industry experts expected that the Chicks would be looking to patch up their relationship with “traditional” (read: right-wing) country fans, which soured when the group’s lead singer took a potshot at President Bush a few years back. But the new album seems more like an angry rejoinder than an apology, and mainstream country stations have refused to play it. Somehow, though, the Chicks are #1 on the charts, even without radio. The initial surge can be attributed to savvy marketing, but if the album proves to have staying power, it could signal that increasingly generic terrestrial radio is fading as America’s primary hitmaker.

Soundtrack, Bloody Soundtrack

“Like most of modern life, surgery has acquired a soundtrack, whether it be Sinatra or Vivaldi, Mozart or Bob Marley, ‘La Bohème’ or the Beatles. Surgeons say it relaxes them, focuses their attention and helps pass the time… Music can become a subtle bone of contention among the members of the surgical team or a practical aid. Loud rock ‘n’ roll is good for routine operations, they say, Mozart for trickier ones. There is even a genre called “closing music”: raucous sounds to suture by.”

NYC Ballet Picks Its New Class

It’s the time of year when young dancers at the New York-based School of American Ballet find out whether they have been chosen to serve as apprentice members of New York City Ballet, and the competition is fierce, with good reason. “Every year 6 to 10 advanced dancers from the school join the company as apprentices, enjoying essentially a trial run. Almost all stay on as permanent members. In fact, the ballet company draws an overwhelming number of its dancers from its school — 90 of the current 97.”

Chicago Program Book Ceases Production

“The League of Chicago Theatres, the advocacy organization for approximately 190 local venues, is about to cease publication of Chicago Plays,” the program book created four years ago to replace the late, lamented “Stagebill.” Chicago’s extensive theatre community had hoped that a joint effort to produce a Chicago-specific program book would prove profitable, but as of this summer, the league owed $400,000 in back printing costs, and the project became unsustainable.

New Leadership In Baltimore

The Baltimore Symphony, which has lately been plowing through controversies like most orchestras go through Beethoven, is expected to select a self-made millionaire and venture capitalist as its next chairman of the board. The hope is that Michael Bronfein can help right the BSO’s financial ship as the organization attempts to put behind it the controversy generated when conductor Marin Alsop was appointed music director without the approval of the musicians.

MIA’s Grand Opening

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has unveiled a major expansion, and officials are hopeful that the ability to display a larger percentage of its collection will elevate MIA, which has always been considered a respected midsize institution, to the rank of top U.S. museums. “The new Target wing designed by Michael Graves is devoted to 20th-century art. There also are many more galleries for non-Western art, including six new Japanese galleries and one for art from the Pacific Islands.”

Major Asian Collection To Have Homes In New York, Minnesota

The largest privately held collection of Japanese art outside of Japan is being split up and donated after its owner’s death to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Mary Griggs Burke’s well-known collection is 900 pieces strong, and has long been coveted by museums around the U.S. The announcement comes as the Minneapolis museum is unveiling its new expansion, which includes a major increase in gallery space devoted to Asian art.