The San Francisco Ballet has tapped frequent guest conductor Martin West to be its new music director, replacing Andrew Mogrelia, who stepped down after only two years in the post. West “is the former principal conductor of the English National Ballet and has served as music director of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society. He has also conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, the London Concert Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra.”
Tag: 06.26.05
Rich: Castrating Public Broadcasting
Frank Rich writes that “the right’s new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers’ expense.”
The Dallas Symphony’s New Ticket Club
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s “Impromptu ticket program aims to fill empty seats while also giving time-starved music lovers the flexibility to catch a show on short notice. But rather than buying deeply discounted tickets online or through Web-based auctions, patrons would pay a monthly fee in exchange for getting the “best seat available” at the 2,056-seat Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center – seats that went unsold or were turned back to DSO at the last minute by subscribers.”
A Rarity These Days – DJ Who Shapes Tastes
LA disc jockey Nic Harcourt is the tastemaker of the day on his KCRW show Morning Becomes Eclectic. “At a time in radio when D.J.’s generally possess little personality and no responsibility for choosing the music they play, he has emerged as the country’s most important disc jockey and a genuine bellwether.”
A Lot Of Hope Riding On One Opera
Tan Dun is writing a new opera for the Met. “One thing is certain: it will be unlike anything that has ever been seen or heard on the Metropolitan Opera stage – and will contain sounds that many have never before realized could be music. If this ambitious and experimental project succeeds, it could widen the possibilities of opera as a whole, expanding its entire future. It may also allow the Met, an august institution with an aging fan base, to expand its own future by reaching out to a significant new audience. And the process of the opera’s creation will shed light on the ideas and methods of one of the most uncommon composers at work today.”
“Breaking” The News
“Since Jan. 6, when the five-member Rochester-based group Newsbreakers executed its first bust, as it calls them, of a live remote in their hometown, viewers in Boston; New York City; Manchester, N.H.; Columbus, Ohio; and several other cities have seen their local news briefly hijacked by elaborately planned vignettes that are more likely to baffle or alarm reporters than make them curse on the air. “
A Place For Culture…? Or Beer…
“Over the last decade, the people of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and its neighbour, Gateshead, have all been joint lottery winners. Derelict wastelands, formerly national emblems of post-industrial decline, have been transformed by a succession of high-profile, and largely highbrow, new landmarks since the sculptor Antony Gormley first placed his rusty Angel of the North on the hills above Gateshead in 1998.” But do these culture projects make for a cultural haven?
The Tap Circuit…
“Tap dancers no longer travel across the country to do battle. They do travel, however, to tap festivals in the summer. The festival has become a major vehicle for tap’s survival, offering classes, merchandise, showcases and performances – an answer of sorts to the vaudeville circuit and the big-band era.”
Ostrow: Tomlinson Is A Disaster At CPB
Joanne Ostrow is out of patience for the right-wing mudslingers who have been trying to take out public broadcasting for the last decade, and who have recently scored some serious victories thanks to a conservative chairman at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “The politicization of public broadcasting is in full flower… The man who is supposed to be the buffer between PBS and Congress has instead become a battering ram. This former head of the Voice of America seems to have confused the role of PBS and NPR with that of the VOA and Radio Free Europe, explicit political mouthpieces.”
The Evolving Producer
Whatever happened to the Broadway producer, the networking genius who could bring together the right author, the right composer, and the right director to create a great show? These days, most Broadway hits are corporate concoctions, based on Disney movies or the rock bands of yesteryear, and there doesn’t seem to be much room for the old-school masters. A new fellowship program is aiming to train the producers of tomorrow, but no one seems quite certain of what that job will entail.