“The Philadelphia Orchestra has landed yet another seven-figure gift. This time the largesse comes from the William Penn Foundation, which has pledged $2 million over three years. The grant was awarded for general operating support, some of the hardest money for non-profits to find these days, and is meant to assist the orchestra until its endowment grows to the point that it is generating substantial interest every year.” The gift comes in the midst of increasingly contentious negotiations between the orchestra’s management and musicians over a management demand either to cut musician salaries by 10%, or eliminate 10 musicians from the orchestra’s full complement.
Tag: 07.26.04
Ashtoniana
“No one that I have read has ever been able to explain why the general public likes ballet so much, and why, when other troupes are pulling in half a house, ballet companies are able to fill the seats. I can’t explain it, either, nor, presumably, could Ashton. But he had the magic formula. The stories, the wisdom—that was one part. But the other part was just ballet, this set of apparently meaningless steps and poses that somehow—probably by seeming the noblest possible action of the body, the body that we basically are—ratify the story, make us believe in it.”
Living The Living Theatre
“Founded in 1948 by Judith Malina and Julian Beck, the Living Theatre is so much a part of American theater history that many people are surprised to learn it’s still active. It is, though. The company that pioneered off-off-Broadway performance in the ’50s, and became an icon of experimental techniques and radical anarcho- pacifist commitment in the ’60s, is still going strong — in both Italy and New York, where it’s building a new theater, and conducting political-theater workshops all over the world.”
MIA – Good Political Campaign Music
The disappearance of decent election music is a sad reality in this age of artistic angst. In previous generations, well-crafted campaign songs were as plentiful as gas-guzzling four-door sedans and helpful service from government employees. Democrats could adopt catchy little tunes such as Happy Days Are Here Again (Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932) or High Hopes (John F. Kennedy in 1960) and be assured that nothing in the impossibly peppy lyrics would inspire impressionable youth to burn down their school or have unprotected sex on a Ferris wheel. At some point in the late 1960s, it was no longer commercially viable for most mainstream musicians to be happy, and campaign-worthy songs became an endangered species.”
CD’s Aren’t Forever After All
When CDs were first introduced, they were advertised as almost indestructable. Turns out that isn’t true. “CD deterioration may start with a smattering of pinpricks or what appears to be rust creeping inwards from the edge of the disc. Certain tracks jump or emit clicking noises. Eventually, the CD loses all data and is better used as a shiny coaster.”
PBS Offer: How About $5 Billion For Our Analog Signals?
PBS president Pat Mitchell has a proposition: Congress should give the network $5 billion in return for giving up its analog broadcast signals. “Trading analog signals for digital is a big regulatory issue right now. The old analog signals are worth billions, since they can be used to transmit streaming data. Mitchell’s idea is that a one-time ‘grant’ is better than the feds’ reluctantly doling out a mere $300 million to PBS annually.”
A History Of Politics In Movies
Hollywood has always been obsessed with politics, and there is a long tradition of films with political stories. “Such movies provide windows on the vast changes that have sculpted the political landscape over the years; if Frank Capra’s Depression-era civics lesson is innately optimistic, then Michael Moore’s wartime anti-Bush-administration harangue seems afflicted by a whopping dose of cynicism. But in ways that may not be immediately apparent, the two films share similarities; each is a snapshot of a political system that works only if the citizenry pays attention and, perhaps more importantly, is given the opportunity to pay attention.”
Fahrenheit Box Office Tops $100 Million
Michael Moore joined the $100 million club as his political assault ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ became the first documentary ever to top that mark at the domestic box office.”
A Post-“Partisan Review” View
A new magazine “n+1” launches. “They’re pushing literary fiction … in ways that aren’t obviously commercial but are simply based on exquisite writing and writerly insight. The magazine is dissatisfied with the coarsening public discourse. ‘We live in a time when a magazine like Lingua Franca can’t publish, but Zagat prospers’.”
Edinburgh’s New Art Fair
The Edinburgh Festival is one of Europe’s great cultural institutions. But it didn’t include visual art. After years of griping, a visual art festival will now be included. “The new Edinburgh Art Festival has risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of despair. It was absurd that a festival founded in 1947 on the principle of showing, as the Lord Provost put it at the time, ‘all the best in music, drama and the visual arts’, should ignore an entire medium’.”