“As core arts audiences grow older and attendance declines among young people, big arts organizations across the country are reaching out to potential new audiences in innovative ways. Seattle has become a center for this kind of outreach.”
Tag: 08.09.09
Opera Stunting – Covent Garden To Produce Twitter Opera
“In a blatant attempt to shake off its fusty image, the Royal Opera House has teamed up with the micro-blogging site to produce The Twitter Opera with a libretto composed entirely of public tweets. The ROH will join the 140-character tweets into a libretto, set them to familiar opera tunes and original music by Helen Porter and stage the result at its Covent Garden home next month.”
Tulsa Arts Groups Ride Out Economy
“Tulsa’s major performing arts groups are facing the 2009-10 season with something that approaches optimism. Three — the Signature Symphony, Tulsa Symphony Orchestra and Tulsa Ballet — have put together ambitious programs for the coming season, increasing the number of performances they present.”
Building The Classical Musician Of The Future
“For years, conventional wisdom has been that leadership in the classical music industry should work to increase demand so that more young musicians can get jobs. Better funding, it is said, should be found to expand orchestras and develop audiences, and music should be cultivated at all levels. But for advocates of entrepreneurship such as [David] Cutler, it is the musician who must adapt to the shrinking and changing marketplace.”
The Odd Orchestra That Pops Up… Where?
“Best to get used to the Asphalt Orchestra: The musicians aim to pop up most any place but conventional concert halls. At the group’s first performance, on Wednesday, it sprang from a subway entrance as part of Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Festival. Yesterday’s Philadelphia performance grew out of Lincoln Center’s partnership with Amtrak.”
Why Is Laughter The Lesser Response?
“Who decides that laughter is a lesser response than the sigh or the sob? Why isn’t the gift of transfixing audiences with delighted surprise, with forging new connections from the absurdities of life, with undercutting pretentiousness and reminding us of the shock of the real, not considered a profound thing?”
Downgrade Of Dallas Arts Department Has Artists Fuming
“This comes at a time when we’re opening the Center for the Performing Arts and telling the world that the arts are important to us, while at the same time we’re saying that we don’t feel it’s important enough to be a department-level position,”
A Rembrandt Under All The Muck
“Portrait of Pastor Swalmius, painted in 1637, had been the subject of debate of by art connoisseurs for centuries. But curators at Antwerp’s Royal Museum of Fine Arts were overjoyed after layers of dark varnish were removed to reveal the Dutch painter’s signature.”
Books – How I first Met You
“Many and various are the ways that books spring into our hands. The tale of how a certain book came into your life is, in effect, a courtship story: The chance encounter, the first shy glance, the recognition of a shared sensibility and finally — ah, bliss! — the consummation.”
When A Theatre Critic Disagrees With Himself
What I’ve discovered through my repeat visits may surprise you: I don’t always agree with myself.