“The Malaysian website for the September 25 event, sponsored by the Guinness brewery, had specified it was ‘restricted to non-Muslims aged 18 and above,’ triggering controversy in the multicultural nation. … However, in an about-face, concert organisers Artists World Entertainment said that anyone [over 18] was free to attend.”
Tag: 09.01.09
La Scala Closes Top Balcony For Asbestos Abatement
“Milan’s La Scala has closed the uppermost seating gallery in the storied opera house while work is carried out to remove asbestos discovered months earlier.”
Sarasota Orchestra Reduces Salaries And Programming
“Bruised by the weakened economy, Sarasota Orchestra on Monday announced several cost-cutting measures to help it survive the upcoming season, including salary cuts and the cancellation of the popular Manatee Valentine Pops program … and the three-week Sarasota Music Festival.”
Recession-Battered Pittsburgh Arts Groups Beg Regional Council For Cash
“For more than two hours yesterday, 17 [of the area’s largest arts and cultural] groups made pitches to the RAD [Allegheny Regional Asset District] board for funding, mostly increases, to help stem the tide of red ink or to avoid further cuts in bare-bones budgets.”
Erich Kunzel, 74, Beloved Conductor Of Cincinnati Pops
“The Grammy Award-winning maestro, widely dubbed ‘The Prince of Pops,’ was diagnosed with liver, colon and pancreatic cancer earlier this year. But Kunzel maintained many of his conducting activities,” giving his final performance on Aug. 1. He made more than 85 recordings, which have collectively sold more than 10 million copies.
Behind Palatial Facade, WGBH Is Forced To Cut Back
“While WGBH produces some of the Public Broadcasting Service’s marquee programming, including ‘Frontline,’ ‘Nova,’ and ‘Antiques Roadshow,’ it must trim about $7 million from its budget this year. … The health of WGBH, which started in 1951, is especially important to PBS. The network depends on the station for over a third of its prime-time TV lineup, and WGBH produces more programs than any of the 349 other PBS stations.”
The Theatre Critic And Contemporary Culture
“If Shakespeare production is in a state of confusion, so too are the critics. We scribblers sometimes like to see ourselves as part of a great tradition that extends from Hazlitt and Shaw to Agate and Tynan: however puny our efforts, we are subliminally conscious of our rich inheritance. Yet criticism today operates in a very different climate from the past.”
Arts Council Fund Sustains The Big Dogs, Starves The Rest
The message Arts Council England is communicating via awards from its £40 million Sustain fund “is not encouraging: £700,000 to the Royal Opera House; £760,000 to the Philharmonia Orchestra; £750,000 to the English National Opera. These flagship organisations already get millions of pounds in public subsidy,” while “smaller organisations have been turned down even when they have been backed to the hilt by regional arts council offices.”
Bristol Asks Public To Vote On Its Fondness For Graffiti
“Bristol City Council will put to the public vote whether murals which appear on buildings, walls and fences are street art or graffiti. As part of a formal street art policy, the council’s street clean team will not take action if people decide the graffiti is nice and want to keep it. … Although the council has pledged to remove offensive and unsightly graffiti, a street art policy will ‘seek to define and support the display of Public Art’.”
Edinburgh Book Festival Had A Banner Year
“The event, the world’s largest literature festival, sold nearly 80% of all its tickets for more than 750 events this year, mirroring a record level of 1.85m ticket sales announced by the Edinburgh festival fringe yesterday. The book festival, held chiefly in a village of tents in the New Town, was also larger than last year…. The bookshops on site also saw a ‘significant upturn’, the festival said….”