Tag: 06.14.07

Orchestra For Everyone, Regardless Of $$

Music can be an expensive hobby for young musicians, and even joining a youth orchestra often requires the payment of hefty fees. But a new organization in San Diego is offering the orchestra experience free of charge to anyone who can pass muster at the audition. “East County Youth Symphony wants to attract more members and enough donations to eventually purchase instruments and pay for music lessons for students whose families can’t afford them.”

How Do You Tell Your Conductor He’s A Workaholic?

A lot of eyebrows were raised when Valery Gergiev was appointed chief conductor of the London Symphony, not because Gergiev isn’t qualified for the post (he obviously is,) but because he is already known as one of the hardest working conductors in the business, and wouldn’t seem to have time to spend more than ten weeks a year in London. Anthony Tommassini says that his first few months on the job have done nothing to assuage fears that Gergiev is simply too busy for his (and his orchestras’) own good.

Will LoTR Find Better Luck In London?

“With a budget of around £25m, The Lord of the Rings is the most expensive musical ever produced in the West End… The production sports some 500 pieces of armour, 150 weapons and a mind-boggling topiary of hair extensions.” But it isn’t the logistics that make Rings such a daunting production. It’s the reduction of a thousand pages of literature that everyone’s read to a credible few hours in an auditorium.

This Fly Tower Isn’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us

Sculptor Anthony Gormley “recently erected 30 nude sculptures around London to promote his current show at the Hayward Gallery. One such work was placed on the fly tower over at the National Theatre. This has caused problems. The fly tower is currently adorned in grass as part of an installation by the celebrated artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey.” The pair are reportedly quite displeased, but the theatre says that nothing could be done to avoid the double-booking.

Everybody Eventually Wants Their Piece Of The Pie

Much has been made of the Metropolitan Opera’s highly successful forays into electronic distribution this past year, with the debut of live high-definition simulcasts being made possible by a new agreement with the musicians’ union which scrapped the hefty upfront payments which would otherwise have been due. But Ivan Katz points out that all the new activity generated $3 million for the Met, and the company “has bet the farm on the continued cooperation of the unions, and on their reasonableness going forward… Continued union cooperation is by no means a safe bet.”

Spacey: Who Needs Hollywood?

Actor Kevin Spacey, who has been in charge of London’s Old Vic theatre since 2003, says in an interview that he’s done with film acting, and is only interested in “the remarkable experience of being able to be a part of bringing people together” in the theatre world.

An Expensive Guessing Game

Collectors generally place a value on the art they covet based on the reputation of the artist who created it. But what to do when you have no idea who painted that picture being offered for sale? The Washington Project for the Arts at the Corcoran Gallery has been having fun with the idea for a few years now, offering works by anonymous artists to anyone with $500 and a willingness to take a risk.

Those Librettos Didn’t Write Themselves, Ya Know

“A court has ordered heirs of composer Richard Strauss to share royalties with the heirs of librettist and poet Hugo von Hoffmansthal for nine collaborations, including the popular operas Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra… Payments to the heirs of von Hoffmansthal, who died in 1929, stopped in 1999 after the expiration of a 70-year protection period.”