“Agreement has been reached which will see the creation of a ‘one-stop shop’ for tickets which promises to curb lengthy queues at festival venues across the city. It is also hoped to bring an end to the current situation which forces festival-goers to make different transactions for tickets for various Fringe venues, and events at the likes of the Book Festival, the Tattoo and the Edinburgh International Festival.”
Tag: 08.24.09
For Hardcovers This Fall, No Jacket Required
Books by David Byrne, Colin Beavan and Stephen Elliott will hit the shelves with “cover art [that] is not printed on dust jackets but instead stamped directly onto the boards that hug their pages. The result is a handsome, eye-catching look that reflects a heightened awareness on the part of publishers that books these days cannot be counted on to simply sell themselves. “
Despite Bard’s Best Efforts, Wagner Resists Illumination
“[A]s a musician and a man, Wagner cast a spell, and that was as palpable at [the Bard Music Festival], if sometimes as oppressive, as the heavy rain clouds overhead. And however much the festival was designed to dispel the Wagnerian clouds and show you how he did it, revealing the mechanism was never enough. The better you know this master musician, the more mysterious he seems.”
A Fuse Blows, And It’s Lights Out For Concert Hall
“What cruel irony … that it was the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment that was plunged into darkness mid-performance at the Usher Hall – just days after a £25 million makeover was unveiled. One of the [Edinburgh International Festival’s] flagship concerts was delayed by almost half an hour of ‘endarkment’ on Saturday night when the stage lighting failed as soprano Joyce DiDonato was performing.”
Book Awards Presented In Utter Darkness
“Already, in Edinburgh, they’re calling Friday evening ‘the James Tait Blackout’ – the night when a generator failure at the Book Festival meant that Britain’s oldest literary awards were presented at an hour-long ceremony hardly anyone could either see or hear…. It had all started so well.”
$27B Can Buy A Cultural District, But Can It Buy Culture?
“Abu Dhabi’s leaders have recruited the most celebrated architects in the world to build [its] museums – and to provide kudos that an oil outpost in a notoriously unstable region could not otherwise obtain. … But who will visit the museums once they open? Abu Dhabi may be a city with almost 200 international communities in its midst, but culture has been something of an afterthought.”
For Small Arts Orgs, A Little Stimulus Funding Means A Lot
“In the larger scheme of things, where $502 million in stimulus money is coming into Minnesota for transportation projects alone, the $316,200 aimed at the arts hardly registers on most radars. But many small arts organizations applying for the money, some of which have budgets of less than $100,000, argue that a federal stimulus grant can be critical.”
With Recordings, Orchestras Feel Their Way In Online World
“For breadth and sheer number of albums, no one can match the world’s great orchestras, some of which have been recording for nearly a century.” Now several of the best are adding to their discographies with live recordings that they make available for download — but don’t always put out on CD.
Mad Men Name-Checks Ada Louise Huxtable
“[H]er name came up early in the episode, set in 1963, as the show’s ad executives were meeting with developers to discuss plans to knock down Penn Station to make way for the new Madison Square Garden. … After one of the agency execs reads from a Huxtable piece condemning the plans, one of the developers gives him a sour look. ‘Ada Louise Huxtable is as green as that folder,’ he retorts….”
Theatre Is Business, Too — Even At The Fringe
“[S]urely a large number of people who bring theatre to Edinburgh come with the dream of being discovered and getting their show spotted by a promoter and booked for a tour too. Why pretend otherwise? It’s about money and opportunity and developing your company as much as it is about art.”