Will Edo de Waart become the next music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic? “In a press release issued late Wednesday afternoon, the HKPO said that the 62-year-old Dutch maestro ‘has expressed an interest in the music directorship of the HKPO, but would like to get to know the Orchestra before considering the possibility further’.” De Waart is ending his tenure as music director of the Sydney Symphony and is former music director of the San Francisco Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra.
Tag: 06.18.03
SAG And AFTRA Talk Merger
Hollywood’s two biggest actors unions are discussing a merger – the Screen Actors Guild’s 117,000-member union with the 80,000-member American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, known as Aftra, which also represents actors. “A merger has been discussed since the 1940’s, but it came up for a vote only once, in 1999, when the proposal fell far short of the 60 percent needed to pass. Now its proponents, including the officers of both unions, argue that while Hollywood studios and television networks are consolidating into bigger and bigger global conglomerates, the best way for performers to magnify their clout is similarly to band together.”
An Arts Agenda: How About Depoliticizing Arts Subsidy?
Britain has a new arts minister. There doesn’t seem to be much for Estelle Morris to do, though. But then again… under Labour, the arts have been shackled to the “grand, if vague, strategy of social inclusion and urban regeneration.” Okay, it’s time to jsutify cultural subsidies again. “The sting is that those who can’t or won’t play this game – and a game it usually is, on all sides – will be denied their ration of subsidy and starved into death or submission. Just about everybody who works in the arts is sick of the administrative grind of compliance and cynical about it, too – once you’ve ticked the boxes marked education project, chair-lift and minorities quota, you know your cheque will be in the post and your accountant can help you channel the money into something more meaningful.”
English National Opera – A Daunting Job
Sean Doran is only a few weeks into his job of running the embattled English National Opera. “Fresh, if a little bruised and battle-hardened, from his four extremely lively years as director of Western Australia’s Perth International Arts Festival, Doran lets the Irish lilt in his voice sound an optimistic note. ‘One of the reasons I accepted the job was that I do believe ENO is one of the few opera companies that has the ability to develop the art form itself. My ideas will come from continuing to learn exactly how this company ticks and how far I can stretch it’.”
Next In Mags: Bring Out Your Dead!
What’s the next great idea in magazines, asks Russ Smith? Obituaries. It’s a winner, he writes. Everyone’s interested in dead people. “It’s long been a truism that the most popular features of a daily newspaper are the sports pages, comics and death notices. In many cases, people over 40 turn to the day’s obituaries first, not only for morbid fascination, but because they recognize the names of famous men and women or, on a local level, neighbors and friends. Obviously, there wouldn’t be a shortage of material for such an enterprise.”