“The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is ending the 2005-06 season with a balanced budget and an uptick in overall attendance and ticket revenues. But the news isn’t all good. Attendance at classical concerts declined 6 percent, and the annual fund fell 6 percent short of its $8,025,000 goal.”
Tag: 06.13.06
The Artist And The Critic
Can one really be both critic and artist, and do the skills of one inform or undermine the other? Matthew Collings is both, and the one bumps into the other…
Getty’s Munitz Made Deal For $300,000 Book Deal With Former Board Chair
Former Getty president “Barry Munitz agreed to pay retired Getty board Chairman David Gardner nearly $300,000 to write a coffee-table book after Gardner left the foundation’s board in 2004. Plans for the book, which was to commemorate the Getty’s 25th anniversary, were canceled in March, a month after Munitz resigned amid turmoil at the nonprofit foundation — but not before Gardner had collected $178,000 over 19 months for little work.”
UK’s Radio Of The Future
“Radio listening in this country remains high. Nine out of every 10 people listen, mostly through radios but, increasingly, through satellite television, computers, phones. You may have stumped up £100 to buy a digital radio three years ago, but a decade from now, that radio is going to be an antique. Programmes will still be coming out of it and you will still look fondly on its familiar face but, as today’s digital dawn becomes tomorrow’s digital day, be prepared for climate change.”
Why Critics Matter
What’s with all this chatter about whether critics matter? “The notion that a critic’s job begins and ends with our power to help films become hits is a specious one nurtured by marketing executives, and I’m always astonished when critics themselves buy into it. Consider the comparable situation with, say, political pundits. Should an editorial columnist who was stauchly against the Iraq war, and had no discernible influence on either the Congress or political opinion at large, be considered ‘irrelevant’? Was the war itself ‘columnist-proof’?”
Baltimore SymphonyBreaks 8-Year Recording Drought
The Baltimore Symphony has gone eight years without recording a commercial CD. “Other than a limited-edition disc issued by the orchestra itself, there is no documentation of the BSO’s extraordinary collaboration with music director Yuri Temirkanov. But Marin Alsop, who succeeds Temirkanov next year, will record with the ensemble this week. If all goes well, recordings will be a regular feature of her BSO tenure.”
Remembering Ken Thompson
“In 2002, Mr. Thomson gave the Art gallery of Ontario $50-million to initiate the transformation of the facility plus $20-million to endow future operations. Alongside the donation, Mr. Thomson gave the gallery more than 2,000 pieces of art, including works by the Group of Seven and the Peter Paul Rubens masterpiece The Massacre of the Innocents. The value of that collection has been estimated at $300-million (U.S.) and has been described as the finest private art collection in Canada.”
Book Club Is Code For…?
There has been a phenomenal rise in the number of book clubs in America. But “these days, ‘book club’ is more like code for girly gab session than a meeting of the Algonquin Round Table.”
Navigating Stage Nudity In Boston
“When Caitlin Corbett’s new duet ‘Yield’ was subject to a last-minute costume overhaul at the Boston University dance theatre last month so that dancer Nicole Pierce wouldn’t dance topless, the heavy-handed puritanism of the regulation exactly proved the choreographer’s point: our culture is so hypersexualized that we never get a chance to consider female anatomy in a neutral way.” So what are Boston’s regulations about nudity onstage? Turns out it’s complicated…
Journalist Fallaci On Trial In Italy
Journalist Oriana Fallaci is on trial in Italy for things she wrote in her recent book. “She has been charged with violating a law that forbids defamatory statements about a religion acknowledged by the Italian state. The offence is punishable with a fine of up to €6,000 (£4,100).”