Gavin Borchert is tired of the deafening roar of doom and gloom about the state of classical music. “The audience is graying. Soon they’ll be dead, taking classical music with them unless they’re replaced, runs the conventional wisdom. But is this anything new? Why the panic? Was there some distant golden age when America’s concert halls were filled with teenagers? Isn’t classical music–or any art–something one grows into? Art rewards an attention span–it’s a game for adults. But the classical establishment would rather buckle under to our society’s market-driven credo: If white males aged 15 to 29 don’t want it, nobody gets it.”
Tag: 08.18.04
Khouri Admits Some Lies In Book
Norma Khouri now admits that she fabricated parts of her best-selling nonfiction book, “Forbidden Love,” which tells of her friendship with a Muslim woman murdered by her father for falling in love with a Christian. The author says, however, that she did not lie about the woman’s existence or her killing.
The 9/11 Report As Literary Success
That “The 9/11 Commission Report” has become a best seller may not be solely due to its subject matter. Concerned that the American people be able to grasp its content, the book’s authors and editors paid attention to something neglected by many historians and countless writers of government reports: good, clear storytelling.
Phone Tone
With new ads on MTV promoting their cell-phone ring tones in advance of their new album’s release, the band Green Day is a veritable case study of the blurring between music and marketing. Ring tones are huge business in the UK – a new major source of revenue for the music industry. And now US bands are following: rap stars 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg have recently signed ring tone deals. Consumers seem to want the tones, and U.S. record companies, looking to boost sales, are eager to oblige.
Understanding Tudor
Anthony Tudor died in 1987, yet “he is still regarded with a certain trepidation. He may be one of Britain’s finest choreographers, but his work rarely appears on the UK stage. Although four of his ballets are being performed at the Edinburgh festival this year – three by Ballet West USA, and Dark Elegies by the Rambert Dance Company – it owes more to coincidence than any official celebration of this unsung talent.”
And On The Left We Have… Culture
Who best to represent your city to visitors? How about taxi drivers? The city of Liverpool thinks so. It’s looking for drivers who “will be expected to speak about Liverpool’s theatres, galleries, concert halls and the city’s artistic heritage: ‘There’s the Playhouse, where the young Beryl Bainbridge trod the boards and Blood Brothers was first done’.”
Gérard Souzay, Baritone, 83
Gérard Souzay, who has died aged 83, sang mélodies for four decades after the second world war; for the first three of them, he was considered the leading exponent of the genre. His mellifluous and supple voice was allied to a bright intelligence in the treatment of texts that manifested itself in everything he tackled. He also had a successful career on the concert platform as a soloist in choral works, but his operatic appearances were restricted to three or four significant roles: he was no great actor. In his later years, he was a rather sad figure, living alone in the South of France, feeling forgotten and neglected.”
James Marcus’s Book Boom And Bust
James Marcus was the 55th employee at Amazon.com. He came to review books. “He made $9 million on his share options, interviewed the biggest names in American literature and wielded such influence that he could change the fortunes of a little-known novelist or poet with a keystroke. But after the boom came the bust. It was no less dramatic. In months, the value of his shares plunged 95 per cent. Swingeing cuts saw colleagues sacked and escorted to the car park by security guards until, in a final ironic twist, the cutting-edge technology Marcus helped develop rendered him obsolete.”
Spano’s View Of The Present
What does it take to direct a festival of contemporary music? A composer? How about conductor? Robert Spano, who is directing this summer’s Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. “Mr. Spano has been an inspired choice. He assembled an eclectic program – eight concerts in five days – that touched on everything from the most abstruse essays in rhythmic and harmonic complication to works rooted in rock and jazz, and with classics like Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 1 (1951) and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Gesang der Jünglinge” (1956) nestled against freshly minted scores.”
The Royal Academy’s Longest Summer
London’s Royal Academy is having a dreadful year. Divisions in leadership, accusations of mismanagement, and plenty of general squabbling have muddied the RA’s reputation. “Now the talk in London’s art circles is that the Royal Academy has lost its way.”