Tag: 06.22.07

Purple Reign

The Color Purple is flying high on Broadway, thanks in no small part to group pilgrimages being made by congregations at black churches around the country. “The groups have become a marketing phenomenon, turning the $10 million musical, which received mixed notices when it first opened, into a very profitable show for its backers, who include Oprah Winfrey.”

Killer Of Films

Killer of Sheep is considered one of the seminal films by an African-American director, but in the years following its release, the movie “sat decaying in an L.A. film lab, the original print and magnetic soundtrack acquiring what film preservationists call vinegar syndrome, an irreversible deterioration accompanied by a telltale acetic acid odour… Could the fact that Killer of Sheep was made in South L.A., so close, yet philosophically so far from the Hollywood studio system, have contributed to the neglect?”

Documenta As Intellectual As Always

Holland Cotter says that while the Documenta festival may not always be coherent or objectively “good,” it never fails to be intriguing. “The show sustains its reputation for being an idiosyncratic, concept-driven affair. You go to glamorous, sun-splashed Venice to party, gaze and graze; you come to gray, pleasureless Kassel to think.”

The Indomitable Baryshnikov

“Whatever else [Mikhail] Baryshnikov, 59, has done in the busy and productive years since he became a household name after his 1974 defection from the Soviet Union, his life as a dancer has remained surprisingly constant for surprisingly long… [He] has always had wide-ranging and eclectic interests, and he is much admired in the dance world for using his celebrity to provide opportunities for less established artists.”

Former Orchestra Exec Tapped For NY Arts Council

“Heather Hitchens will serve as the executive director of the New York State Council on the Arts, the governor’s office announced yesterday. She is currently the president of the Meet the Composer organization… Before joining Meet the Composer, Ms. Hitchens worked for the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, and at 24 became the youngest person to ever lead a symphony orchestra in America.”

The Unsung Pops Arranger

Pops programs are a vital moneymaker for the orchestras that play them, and while they might be considered less “serious” than the usual classical fare, the amount of work that goes into a seemingly simple show in which the orchestra plays backup band to a rock group or pop singer is staggering. For instance, most rock/pop acts don’t just have orchestral arrangements of their songs sitting around. Someone’s gotta write those…

Concert Hall Overhaul Advances In Denver

A $75 million renovation of Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall appears to be on track as part of a $631 million bonding bill which would be put before the city’s voters this November. The measure still needs approval from city leaders, but a task force examining the city’s infrastructure needs has recommended it for passage.

Poems From Guantanamo

“Poems written by Guantanamo Bay prisoners about their lives as US captives have been compiled in a book that will be published with an endorsement from the former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky. [Most of the poems] expressed religious faith, nostalgia for childhood homes or yearning for family. Others are angry, disillusioned or questioning.”

Pollack On Gehry

“Sydney Pollack’s latest film is a study of the pioneering architect Frank Gehry, with whom he has been friends for 30 years.” Pollack, who is best known for directing such films as Tootsie and Out of Africa, says that “Frank may have a harder job than me, but I have a worse job. Because, while he really has three dimensions to create three dimensions, as a filmmaker, I have only two dimensions to represent three dimensions, and so everything I do has to be a trick and a lie.”