Tag: 06.17.05

China At The Center… (Again?)

Every so often one can feel a perceptible shift in the center of the artworld. “And it is, so the received wisdom has it, about to happen all over again; for there is a country that can – and does – boast 3,000 years of culture, dizzying rates of economic growth and a long-suppressed determination to engage the outside world in its inexorable rise as a global power. Little wonder that all eyes were on China…”

Remembering Carlo Maria Giulini

Mark Swed: “OK, maybe he took himself a little too seriously, but he was a poet — and pope — of the podium. He was also of another era and culture. He represented the sophisticated Italy of impeccable tailoring, impeccable manners, impeccable musicianship. Every note he conducted had to have meaning. Music was a calling, a religion. But as time passed, Giulini has come to seem distant, remote, no longer relevant, maybe even a little quaint. These days, Pierre Boulez’s unsentimental, musically revelatory — and if truth be told, far more impeccably played — Mahler Ninth with Chicago is the recording to have.”

Is The Cassette Tape Going Bye-bye?

In 1989, 83 million cassettes were sold in the UK. Last year only 900,000 were sold. But in some other countries cassettes are the preferred format. “In some markets, performers record directly onto cassette. Turkey still sells 88 million cassettes a year, India 80 million, and that cassettes account for 50% of sales in these countries. In Saudi Arabia, it is 70%.

ABT’s Talent Master

American Ballet Theatre is rich in talent. But does director Kevin McKenzie use the talent effectively? “Is he too evenhanded? In an effort to appease honored veterans and flatter new additions and encourage promising youngsters, does he spread the casting of major roles too thin, in a way that shortchanges the public? Wouldn’t coherent, recurrent casts, as has become the practice among singers recently at the Metropolitan Opera, mean more integrated, better rehearsed performances? And wouldn’t fewer principals in leading roles help build star images and thereby augment the box office?”

Remembering Ross Stretton

“All who paid tribute to Ross Stretton, who died yesterday, agreed on one thing: that the former artistic director of the Australian Ballet and, briefly, head of the Royal Ballet, was an intensely private person, so vigilant about his self-imposed line between home and work that even the senior dancers he worked with, such as Steven Heathcote, cannot recall seeing the inside of his Melbourne home.”

Bringing Music To Kids

How do you get children hooked on classical music? “Much has been written about music’s ability to act as a means of expression and communication in both healthy children and those with difficulties; it frequently gets through where speech fails. Then there are the benefits of taking part in a creative endeavour, the interplay and team spirit of singing in a choir or playing in an orchestra or band.”