The popular satirical web site “Stuff White People Like” has finally gotten around to skewering the lily-white world of classical music. “Though white people do not actually listen to classical music, they like to believe that they are the type of people who would enjoy it… [The genre] has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.”
Tag: 09.01.08
Russian Appetite For Western Music Wanes
“The once seemingly insatiable Russian appetite for Western music is showing signs of subsiding, with several big-name acts struggling to sell concert tickets in the region this summer.”
Caryl Churchill At 70
“Is Caryl Churchill the greatest female playwright of our time? Of any time? Back in the 1980s, when she used to give press interviews, she would have slapped your wrists for asking such a sexist, reductive question. And did, whenever it was put to her. It’s her uncanny ability to pull you up, flip you over, rewire your cosy assumptions that makes Churchill such an irreducible writer”
Musicians Complain Florida Orchestra Hasn’t Paid Them
The Hollywood (Florida) Philharmonic played a July Fourth concert, but four months later, the musicians complain they haven’t been paid, even though the city paid the orchestra for the concerts…
Museum Director Fled Georgia With Artifacts In His Car During Russian Assault
“The director of the Josef Stalin museum in Gori, Georgia, says he had to flee to the capital of Tbilisi in his car loaded with precious items from the museum during the Russian bombing of the country.”
London’s Institute Of Contemporary Arts Scraps Admission Fees
Entrance to all exhibitions is now free because of a change in licensing rules, which had previously forced them to charge up to a £3 fee.
Pagans Demonstrate Against Acropolis Museum
“Greek ‘pagans’ held a ceremony on the site of the Acropolis for the first time in 2,000 years to demonstrate against the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. They invoked Athena, goddess of wisdom, to protect the sculptures taken from the temples to the new museum.”
The Orchestra As “Template For Democracy”
“In music, so the argument goes, you cannot express yourself without listening to others and respecting their voice. Legato denotes boundaries. Tempo, the speed of a process. Dynamics, the volume at which your voice may or may not overpower another. The symphony orchestra, Barenboim deduces, is therefore an alternative ‘template for democracy’; and his particular orchestra — comprised as it is of 120 young Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians and Iranians — perhaps the unlikely archetype.”
How Ads Are Killing Art
“In the past decade, as artists and as cultural consumers, we’ve been encouraged to be more relaxed about the relationship between art and commerce. In a previous era, Warhol’s work ironically questioned culture’s claim to unique purity. But Warhol had a complex mixture of fascination and disgust with both consumerism and celebrity. In contrast, a contemporary artist seems to have a vision indistinguishable from the sensibilities of the celebrity magazine and the advertising agency.”
Bayreuth Chooses Wagner Sisters To Lead
“The Bayreuth Festival board named Katharina Wagner and her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier as new co-directors of the Bayreuth festival Monday. The decision will silence an extended quarrel over who should replace their aging father, Wolfgang Wagner, as head of the world-famous opera festival.”