“A Canadian comedian’s take on a debauched weekend away in Amsterdam has won this year’s £8,000 ‘if.commedies’ prize, the new name for the Perrier award, one of the most highly regarded accolades in comedy.”
Tag: 08.27.06
Wolfgang Sawallisch Calls It Quits To A Great Career
“His blood pressure continues to fluctuate, and does so unpredictably. ‘So it is not easy for me to fly for a long time and to be on the podium for a long time. It can happen without announcement that my blood pressure is too low. This instability gives me the necessity to finish my career after 57 years of concert and opera conducting’.”
Musicians – When Just Getting Paid Requires A Law Degree
“If being an independent rocker conjures images of a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and easygoing contracts, think again. Whether it’s a major-label contract or one from an independent label, artists can find themselves lost in a legal web when dealing with their music’s availability and royalty payments.”
The New Music Tastemakers
“Despite the disparate nature of today’s pop music consumption and the implosion of the genre’s distribution, there are still “tastemakers” out there, people who influence what many of us hear on TV (the last bastion of massive music promotion), commercial radio, surging satellite radio and the Internet. These people aren’t publicists, record producers or frustrated artists-turned-critics. They started out as music fans, then parlayed their passions into rewarding careers behind the scenes – on TV, through satellite radio and online – managing to carve out a role exposing listeners to new music.”
Jazz At Lincoln Center – One-Man Band?
Wynton Marsalis is the face of and driving force behind the organization. “Once you’ve made that decision that the Jazz at Lincoln Center brand really can work well with your brand, Wynton’s power as the spokesperson — the front man, if you will — for Jazz at Lincoln Center really kind of takes on a life.”
Sharing Talent With The World
An anonymous guitarist makes a video of his virtuoso rock version of Pachelbel’s Canon and it becomes a sensation on YouTube, watched more than seven million times. It’s a phenomenon that speaks to the way talent is being shared and embroidered.
Best Of The Fringe (In Repertory)
Fringe festivals offer so many plays, how do you sort out the best and makes sure people get to see them? The New York Frings has an idea: “Ten of the audiences’ and critics’ favorites from the current festival will run in repertory at two downtown theaters through Sept. 24 in what the organizers, Britt Lafield and John Pinckard, say will become an annual showcase called FringeNYC Encores. For the Fringe, this provides another opportunity for its shows to be noticed by producers and earn a possible commercial transfer.”
Winning Wagner (Now Wait A Few Years)
Seattle Opera holds a Wagner competition. “The contrast of demonic emotions with the more mundane prospect of building an operatic career gave a special poignancy to the competition at the Seattle Opera, the most Wagner-centric of American opera companies. Unlike the army of teenagers who appear for piano or violin competitions, the finalists were mostly in their mid-30’s, which put them barely on the brink of being likely to perform a major Wagner role onstage. The proper age for initiating a Wagnerian career seemed like a movable goalpost throughout the competition, getting older and older.”
Kandernebb – A Partnership That Survives Death
There’s a new musical out being billed as the latest from John Kander and Fred Ebb. But Ebb died (of a heart attack) in 2004, so how can this be? The two had such a close partnership, it’s impossible to thibnk of one without the other. “If that relationship, which produced the scores to ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Chicago’ and ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ was often misunderstood as romantic, it’s not hard to see why: the two men worked in the theater, neither had a wife, and over the course of their 42-year collaboration their last names had all but fused into one, a songwriting entity that Mr. Kander, now a vigorous 79, calls ‘Kandernebb’.”