“A shake-up to this year’s prestigious Gramophone Awards will see music fans in 13 countries take part in a global vote to find the artist of the year. Sixteen classical radio stations and more than 10 million listeners are expected to take part in the vote, alongside Gramophone magazine readers.”
Tag: 08.15.07
British Theatre Gets Touchy-Feely — Literally
“The success of shows from companies such as Punchdrunk, Oily Cart and Dreamthinkspeak have not just changed our relationship with spaces and theatres, but also with the actors. Just as we like to press the red button on our remote control, so we like shows that are interactive. Here in Edinburgh, touching is all the rage.”
Attacked Bangladeshi Writer To Be Indicted
“Legal proceedings have been launched from all sides as the case of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, attacked last week at the launch of her book in southern India, takes on a political dimension. The author herself faces up to two years in jail if found guilty on a charge of inciting religious tensions, launched by local police at the weekend.”
Sylvia Plath, Visual Artist: Juvenilia To Be Published
“Paintings and drawings by Sylvia Plath, many of which have never been seen before, are to be published in October to mark the 75th anniversary of the birth of the American poet and novelist. … The works were all completed by the time Plath was 20, at which point she decided to concentrate on her writing.”
HarperCollins Goes After iPhone Audience
“The publishing world is linking up to the iPhone. HarperCollins announced Wednesday that it had set up a special link, http://mobile.harpercollins.com, that will allow browsers to view excerpts from more than a dozen new releases, including Michael C. White’s ‘Soul Catcher’ and Michael Korda’s ‘Ike,’ a biography of President Eisenhower.”
Philly Orchestra, Music Director Not Severing Ties
“In a surprise reversal of what appeared to be a deteriorating relationship between the Philadelphia Orchestra management and outgoing music director Christoph Eschenbach, the orchestra announced late yesterday that Eschenbach will have extended residencies in Philadelphia through the 2009-2010 season.”
Tending Mid-Level Donors (Or: Turning $500 Into $100K)
“Although it’s the million-dollar donations that get headlines, cultural institutions in fact draw a significant proportion of their support from large networks of mid-level donors, whom the institutions reward with perks, such as preferential seating and access to artists, and carefully nurture as they, ideally, move up the ladder to higher levels of giving. A look at so-called patron programs around town offers insight into the sophisticated art of fund raising and donor cultivation.”
Cape Cod Mansion May Mar Hopper’s Landscape
“What Edward Hopper cherished most about his home in Truro were the silence and the view. From his window looking north over the windswept heathlands and Cape Cod Bay, the American artist found inspiration for some of the most celebrated paintings of the 20th century.” Planned for an adjacent lot is “a 6,500-square-foot mansion, complete with reflecting pools and a wine cellar, on nine acres in the middle of what locals call the Hopper landscape. And the proposal has incited sometimes loud debate over the once silent landscape of South Truro.”
Welcome To The Museum. Please Turn On Your Mobile.
“Call it the latest wrinkle in a technology that has reshaped everyday life and now bids to transform art museums and galleries: the packaged audio tour that lets anyone with a cell phone hear about the artworks they are seeing on the same device that keeps them in touch with the rest of the world.”
Puppets. Cartoon Movies. Why All The Kid Stuff?
“Wherever you look, from opera houses and live theaters to movie houses and museums, the machinery of fantasy and make-believe has been working overtime to captivate audiences of all ages.” Is this a symptom of a culture of arrested development or a much-needed way of viewing “the dizzying complexity, dark ambiguities and pressing urgencies of contemporary life”?